The Longing – An idle game that takes 400 days to beat

The Longing is an idle game where you have to wait four hundred days in real life, real time. That’s right, 400 days.

You play a shade, a strange combination of both miserly and hopeful, who is tasked by an old king to wake him up in four hundred days as he slumbers to gather together his remaining strength.

The shade has a humble home in the caves, where you can do riveting activities such as sitting in a chair and staring off into space, or reading the entirety of Moby Dick, all of the thousand pages. You can also draw some macabre charcoal drawings to hang on the walls.

As you progress in the game and furnish your humble abode, you will be able to speed up the time in game, so as to not wait an actual four hundred days in real life. That is a possibility though, if you wanted to do it.

The game play is intentionally slow. Your only controls are making the character walk and interacting with objects. As you explore the caves, there are puzzles and secrets awaiting those patient enough to see things through to the end.

For those lacking patience, the game does continue to run, even when you exit it.

Backing the game is a lovely and haunting sound track. These indie games are absolutely crushing it on music lately.

The Longing is an interesting take on an idle game, exploring concepts like existential dread. While certainly not for everyone, it certainly piqued my curiosity. At least I’ll have a lot of time to get to know the game better.