The Long Journey Home

Challenging roguelike space-tactics that presents a dangerous and thrilling journey in a different way each time.

Quotation forthcoming.

The Long Journey Home is an interesting exploration game that succeeds in a lot of ways, but never really seems to shine.

The Long Journey Home is a roguelike sci-fi survival simulator fueled on hope and hopelessness. Bring them home, commander. But be ready to die a hundred deaths before that ever happens.

It’s slow moving, but that’s mainly because you’re trying to conserve fuel. If you’re awful at resource management, then you’ll find The Long Journey Home takes longer than it should. There’s quite a bit to do and see, and kill, but if you want a time sink then this will be right up your alley.

Interesting space survival that walks a tightrope between motivation and resignation with its harsh resource shortage.

If you're looking for a "best of" from Star Control 2, Out There, Lunar Lander and FTL - The Long Journey Home could be the right choice. The procedurally generated universe, combined with handmade quests and alien stories can offer much fun - BUT - beware of many randomized situations, that can lead very fast into frustration. Controls are tricky to master and the planetary conditions can be very painful while harvesting for resources. Managing your crew and resources, trade, fight, interact with aliens - the gameplay offers great variety but also repetitive minigames like orbiting, landing, jumping, same dialogues all the time. Graphics and sound are ok, voice acting is missing and the menus are not well designed. Potential is great, but not good enough designed, to guarantee satisfying gameplay.

The Long Journey Home is a nice spatial game that suffers from repetition.

Daedalic Entertainment crafted a massive galaxy of planets for players to explore. Unfortunately the game mechanics are really too simple to play with, and it became an issue after just few hours in to the game. Despite that, if you love exploration and you are in need of killing time, give it a try.

What The Long Journey Home lacks in originality in its gameplay, it makes up for with realism in its characters and extensive narrative. It draws the player into a harsh, unforgiving universe that is as strange as it is beautiful. Wit, skill, and determination are needed to survive, but even with these, success is not guaranteed. Gamers who enjoy a challenge and the thrill of the unknown will get the most out of The Long Journey Home.

A visually dazzling adventure in which navigating space feels almost as difficult as it would be in real life. [July 2017, p.72]

A savage, sometimes frustrating space exploration game that succeeds because of beautiful design and a compelling universe.

The space adventure of The Long Journey Home is hard, a journey into the galaxies that requires a lot of patience. Not a bad game, but not for everyone.

Daedalic has created a very brave space roguelike that features strategy elements and a huge universe to keep us in front of our screens.

The developer clearly didn't want to enable too many people to conquer space. The Long Journey Home is a game for few. This cosmic roguelike demands angelic patience and understanding - without it you'll perish in the coldness of space. The journey was supposed to be memorable but there is too much punishment and too little fun.

The Long Journey Home regurgitates ideas from Out There and FTL. If you mastered those two games and desperately want more of the same, here's your fix.

When The Long Journey Home focuses on interactions with a diverse and entertaining cast of aliens across its procedurally generated star systems, it's possible to find a degree of wonder and personality that many roguelike seldom achieve. Unfortunately, such interactions take a back seat to a barrage of frustrating minigames with rewards that rarely match the risks. The experience as a whole suffers for it.

Quotation forthcoming.

From a graphic point of view, it‘s a beautiful space trip but an unimaginably difficult mini-games and devastating random encounters kill all the fun. Only true enthusiasts of the genre with a lot of patience can take it.

I appreciate Daedalic’s ambition, but I prefer FTL, which is smaller, simpler and offers gameplay condensed to most interesting interactions. [07/2017, p.59]

The Long Journey Home is a roguelike that tries to do things differently but it still fails to become accessible enough to a wider audience. While there are some interesting mechanics and features, the bad controls for both ship and lander and the lack of precise information will put more than a few players off.

The Long Journey Home does a superb job of making you feel like a stranger in a strange place. The aliens you encounter are all established and regard you with mild curiosity rather than alarm. You’re properly up against it and that can be very gripping. After six hours, however, it’s just draining, and because every objective is a mini-game, there’s almost no respite from the moment-to-moment struggle.

The Long Journey Home may hold many secrets and wonders, but it's hard to hold on to the promise of them when the game's more likely to break both your legs as soon as you step off the front porch. The promise of a truly narrative-driven roguelike is tantalizing, but this isn’t that game. It's just as tied to your skill with the controller as any bullet hell — more so, really, because you carry the consequences of even the slightest mistake a long ways before finally seeing the game over screen. It promises to be a game about the wonder of unbound space; instead, it’s more about the infuriating heartbreak of high wind speeds in a low gravity environment.