$14.99THE LONGING Patience as a way to play
A small creature waits out 400 real days underground, filling the hours with exploration, books and quiet company.
Is THE LONGING worth it?
THE LONGING is worth it if…
- you want a game that fits around your life instead of demanding it
- you find something oddly moving about checking in on a small creature each day
- you like slow exploration where the world sets the pace, not you
- you would happily read classic literature next to a quiet cave dweller
Screenshots
A clock that never stops
The countdown starts the moment you do, and it keeps running while you sleep, work and forget about the game. You could open it once, watch the king fall asleep, and come back in 400 days to see how it ends. Nobody would stop you. But the Shade gets lonely without company, and there is a whole cave down there.
The trick is that waiting is not empty. Water drips, moss grows, spiders spin their webs on their own real-world schedule, and some paths only open after days or weeks. You can also make the clock tick faster: reading, drawing and filling the Shade's home with trinkets all speed things up, so a week in the cave can pass in a day of your life. Still, some things you simply have to wait for. That is the point.
Life at the bottom of the world
The Shade walks slowly. Very slowly. A trip across the cave can take twenty minutes, and there is no running, because he has over a year and sees no reason to hurry. If that sounds maddening, there is a kindness built in: mark any spot you have reached, send him walking, and close the game.
Between walks there is plenty to do. Collect books from Nietzsche to Moby Dick and have the Shade read them (the library is English only for now), gather crystals and furniture for his little living room, and poke at time-based puzzles and well-hidden secrets. The hand-drawn cave and its dungeon synth soundtrack make even doing nothing feel like a place worth sitting in. Several endings wait, and which one you find depends on how you spend the days.
Can you actually finish it?
Do you really have to wait 400 real days to see the ending?
No. The full countdown runs in real time, but the game gives you ways to make its clock run faster: reading books, drawing, and decorating the Shade's home all add speed, so a stretch of in-game days can pass in a single real day. How quickly you reach an ending depends on how much you engage. One ending asks nothing of you at all; others take far more patience.
What do you actually do while playing?
You explore a large hand-drawn cave at the Shade's unhurried walking pace, solve time-based puzzles, hunt for well-hidden secrets, collect books and items, and furnish his underground room. Some of that is done actively, some by sending him off to walk somewhere and coming back later. There is no combat and no fail state.
Can you play it solo?
Yes, and it is built for exactly that. It is a singleplayer game about solitude, played in short visits spread over days or weeks. You can leave it alone for a long stretch and pick it back up whenever you feel like seeing how the Shade is doing.
What if you just want to relax with it?
That works well. There are no timers pressuring you, no punishment for doing nothing, and the soundtrack and quiet cave make it a calm place to unwind. Some people treat it as a gentle companion they check in on; others turn every session into a puzzle of how to spend the waiting well. Both are valid ways to play.
