80 Days GOG 82% |
Steam 92% |
PCG Review 91% |
Metacritic 84%
100MB download, and it should run on a turnip with a battery in it.
I got this 3½ years ago on GOG. Steam says it's Win XP+, and GOG says all the way to Win11. Ran fine on my Win10 with i7-7 and GTX 1060, fullscreen and Alt-Tab were fine.
I didn't expect to win first time, so woohoo!
Overall Impression
It's gone in my replay list—that's the inner sanctum at my royal court—and I've wishlisted the devs other similar games Overboard! and Heaven's Vault. Yep, it's that good.
Should have huge replay value, at least 4-5 times with significantly different experiences.
What is it?
A branching text adventure with mostly still graphics. Excellent writing, and I like the art style. A riff on Jules Verne's classic novel, you have to plan and follow a route to take you around the world in 80 days.
There are loads of funky transport options—I got a spin in/on a giant bird with an exoskeleton, and the starting train trip from London to Paris went under the water! This may not sound too exciting, but there's something compelling about it all—a charm, a sense of adventure, a 'one more turn' feeling of adventure.
Gameplay
You arrive in a city, and have up to 5 choices:
♣ Trade in the Market
♦ Explore
♥ Plan next step in journey
♠ Spend night in a Hotel
♣ Visit the Bank
I ignored the bank, because I never ran out of money. I started with £4,000, built it up to ~£22K around ½-⅔ of the way, and had ~£2,300 at the end.
♣ Trade is important as it builds up your funds, which allows you to purchase expensive passage—eg airship—to save time, and to negotiate faster passage eg reduce a default 3-day trip to 2 days. Each item will tell you if and where you can sell it for a profit—you want to hit ~5 of the big-ticket items which nett £4-7K profit.
♦ Explore is usually [always?] wise as it opens up routes on your world map. Especially so if you haven't bought a local map in one of the markets—only some have them. You'll get chances to interact with local NPCs in most cities, which may reveal more routes.
♥ Plan once you have the most nearby routes revealed on the map. You'll usually aim to make journey progress asap, but also to head for destination cities where some of your inventory is valuable. Transport leaves at various times during the day, so you won't want to miss departure.
That's the bones of it. Can you beat my 79 days?