''80 Days'' is an

interactive fiction '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

game released by Inkle for iOS platforms on July 31, 2014 and Android on December 16, 2014. It was released for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

and

OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

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 Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet, and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the '' Voyages extra ...

's 1873 novel ''

Around the World in Eighty Days ''Around the World in Eighty Days'' (french: link=no, Le tour du monde en quatre-vingts jours) is an adventure novel by the French writer Jules Verne, first published in French in 1872. In the story, Phileas Fogg of London and his newly employe ...

''. The year is 1872 and Monsieur

Phileas Fogg Phileas Fogg () is the protagonist in the 1872 Jules Verne novel ''Around the World in Eighty Days''. Inspirations for the character were the American entrepreneur George Francis Train and American writer and adventurer William Perry Fogg. ...

has placed a wager at the

Reform Club The Reform Club is a private members' club on the south side of Pall Mall in central London, England. As with all of London's original gentlemen's clubs, it comprised an all-male membership for decades, but it was one of the first all-male cl ...

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, players must manage 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 ''Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas'' (french: Vingt mille lieues sous les mers) is a classic science fiction adventure novel by French writer Jules Verne. The novel was originally serialized from March 1869 through June 1870 in Pierre- ...

'' and ''

From the Earth to the Moon ''From the Earth to the Moon: A Direct Route in 97 Hours, 20 Minutes'' (french: De la Terre à la Lune, trajet direct en 97 heures 20 minutes) is an 1865 novel by Jules Verne. It tells the story of the Baltimore Gun Club, a post-American Civil W ...

''. The game is partly inspired by the

steampunk Steampunk is a subgenre of science fiction that incorporates retrofuturistic technology and aesthetics inspired by 19th-century industrial steam-powered machinery. Steampunk works are often set in an alternative history of the Victorian ...

genre, featuring such elements as sapient mechanical transport, hovercraft, submersibles and a city that walks on four gigantic legs.

Reception

The game has a rating of 88/100 and 84/100 for iOS and PC respectively on

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

. Phil Cameron of ''

The Daily Telegraph ''The Daily Telegraph'', known online and elsewhere as ''The Telegraph'', is a national British daily broadsheet newspaper published in London by Telegraph Media Group and distributed across the United Kingdom and internationally. It was f ...

'' described it as "one of the finest examples of branching narrative yet created". AppleNApps said "The story is absolutely superb with the little twists, and nuances on the classic to keep you constantly engaged to press onwards." PocketGamer said "It's rich with ideas, brilliantly written, and creates a world that you'll want to visit over and over again." Gamezebo wrote "80 Days has a solid amount of depth to it, nda great story...It's a challenge – but an intelligent one." GrabItMagazine said "the studio Inkle deserves high praise for creating an accessible and, ultimately, fun way for people to experience Verne's classic work." It was named as ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and event (philosophy), events that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various me ...

''s 2014 Game of the Year. Despite being a game, ''

The Telegraph ''The Telegraph'', ''Daily Telegraph'', ''Sunday Telegraph'' and other variant names are popular names for newspapers. Newspapers with these titles include: Australia * ''The Telegraph'' (Adelaide), a newspaper in Adelaide, South Australia, publ ...

'' newspaper also named it as "one of the best novels of 2014". The lead writer,

Meg Jayanth Meghna Jayanth is a video game writer and narrative designer. She is known for her writing on ''80 Days'' and '' Sunless Sea''. Jayanth worked at the BBC before becoming a freelance writer, and has also written for ''The Guardian'' on women and ...

, won a

Writers' Guild of Great Britain The Writers' Guild of Great Britain (WGGB), established in 1959, is a trade union for professional writers. It is affiliated with both the Trades Union Congress (TUC) and the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds (IAWG). History The un ...

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, as well as three IGF nominations for 2014, for Excellence in Design, Excellence in Narrative and in the Grand Prize category.

References

External links

* {{Around the World in 80 Days 2014 video games Alternate history video games Android (operating system) games 2010s interactive fiction IOS games Video games based on works by Jules Verne Video games developed in the United Kingdom Video games set in the 19th century Video games set in London Video games set in Cambridge Video games set in Paris Windows games MacOS games Steampunk video games Single-player video games Works based on Around the World in Eighty Days Video games set in India Mumbai in fiction Kolkata in popular culture Cultural depictions of Indian women Nintendo Switch games Independent Games Festival winners