80 Days (2014 video game)

80 Days (2014 video game)
80 Days is an interactive fiction game released by the video game developer and publisher Inkle for iOS platforms on July 31, 2014 and Android on December 15, 2014. It was released for Microsoft Windows and OS X on September 29, 2015. It employs branching narrative storytelling, allowing the player to make choices that impact the plot.
Plot and gameplay
The plot is loosely based on Jules Verne's 1873 novel Around the World in Eighty Days. The year is 1872 and Monsieur Phileas Fogg has placed a wager at the Reform Club that he can circumnavigate the world in eighty days or less. The game follows the course of this adventure, as narrated by Phileas Fogg's manservant Passepartout, whose actions and decisions are controlled by the player.
After leaving London on an underwater train to Paris or a mail carriage to Cambridge, the player can choose their own route around the world, travelling from city to city. Each city and journey contains unique narrative content. The developers estimate that on one complete circumnavigation of the globe players will see approximately 2% of the game's 750,000 words of textual content.
In their role as valet, the player must manage their finances, their master's health, and time, as well as buying and selling items in different markets around the globe. The choices made by the player in story sections can also have a large impact on how the journey proceeds.
The game has several secrets, easter eggs and hidden endings, as well as several references to Verne's works, including Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and From the Earth to the Moon. The game is partly inspired by the steampunk genre, featuring such elements as sapient mechanical transport, hovercraft, submersibles and a city that walks on four gigantic legs.
Reception
The game received "generally favorable reviews" on all platforms according to the review aggregation website Metacritic. Phill Cameron of The Daily Telegraph described the iOS version as "one of the finest examples of branching narrative yet created". AppleNApps said of the same iOS version "The story is absolutely superb with the little twists, and nuances on the classic to keep you constantly engaged to press onwards." Pocket Gamer said, "It's rich with ideas, brilliantly written, and creates a world that you'll want to visit over and over again." Gamezebo said that the same iOS version "has a solid amount of depth to it, [and] a great story...It's a challenge – but an intelligent one."
The iOS version was named as Times 2014 Game of the Year. Despite being a game, The Telegraph newspaper also named it as "one of the best novels of 2014". The lead writer, Meg Jayanth, won a Writers' Guild of Great Britain award for her work on the project.
The game received four BAFTA nominations in 2015, for Best British Game, Best Story, Best Mobile Game and Game Innovation. It won the award for "Excellence in Narrative" at the 2015 IGF Awards, and was nominated for Excellence in Design and the Seumas McNally Grand Prize, both of which went to Outer Wilds.
The game was featured in the British Library's Digital Storytelling Exhibit, 2023.
References
External links
2014 video games
2010s interactive fiction
Alternate history video games
Android (operating system) games
Cultural depictions of Indian women
Independent Games Festival winners
Indie games
IOS games
Kolkata in popular culture
MacOS games
Mumbai in fiction
Nintendo Switch games
Single-player video games
Steampunk video games
Video games based on works by Jules Verne
Video games developed in the United Kingdom
Video games set in Cambridge
Video games set in India
Video games set in London
Video games set in Paris
Video games set in the 19th century
Windows games
Works based on Around the World in Eighty Days
Inkle (company) games
Electronic literature