80 Days

Genre: Interactive Story-Driven Adventure / Trading Simulation

Players: 1

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Review:

80 Days is an Interactive Story-Driven Adventure with elements of Trading Simulations. Picture a cross between a Choose Your Own Adventure story and a game like Star Trader and you have a vague idea what to expect here. Much as with the Jules Verne novel that inspired this game, players partake on a journey to try to circle the globe in 80 days while managing their funds, learning about possible routes, buying and selling items, and maintaining personal health during the journey. This is a game that was originally released on iOS in 2014 before making its way to the PC in 2015 and then finally the Nintendo Switch in 2019.

In terms of presentation, what’s here is fairly simple but sufficient. A plain rotating image of a globe with cities marked and routes added as you learn of them, simple depictions of characters and items, fitting background noises for whatever your location is, and decent but forgettable music befitting an adventure. There’s nothing really striking or memorable here, but it works well enough for what this game is.

However, the real strength here is this game’s marvelous storytelling, which starts with the inspiration of Jules Verne (including the central characters of Fogg and Passepartout) and runs with it, imagining an alternate Victorian era filled with steampunk machines, Europe and Asia both on the verge of numerous local wars, and history in many places taking a very different turn. However, it’s more than the fascinating world being described that really makes this story marvelous – Fogg and Passepartout are both engaging characters, and the various colorful people they meet on their journey are no less so. It’s one of the joys of this game to discover some new interesting event, or re-unite with someone you met earlier in your journey, and everything is delivered in the delightfully proper narration of Passepartout.

While I thoroughly enjoy this game’s story, its gameplay is at turns gripping and frustrating. It’s a joy when you suddenly run into some turn of luck that reveals a wonderful new route or a windfall of cash on your journey, or when an investment in a purchase pays off when you sell it for a tidy profit. However, far too often the journey is so unpredictable that it’s hard to feel like you’re making your choices from anything more than guesswork.

In particular, when scouting a location, you’ll be asking about potential routes to continue your journey, but unless you have a good knowledge of world cities, it may feel like you’re shooting in the dark to try to find a good route forward instead of back. What’s more, the consequences of some of the choices you’re given aren’t very clear. One time, after purchasing a rather pricey train ticket, I found myself inadvertently choosing to leave the train early, not even realizing I was doing so until it was too late to turn back. This setback not only cost me a huge amount of time but also money, ultimately dooming my trip.

That’s another thing – a campaign in this game can be a few hours long, and it can be thrown into chaos by one bad choice or unfortunate turn of events. What’s more, the clock is constantly ticking as you make some decisions, urging players to rush and make these sorts of mistakes. I should also mention that while this game does support touchscreen controls, they seemed to work erratically for me, and even using them to zoom in or out of the map proved too difficult to do reliably.

As a result, 80 Days is a game with an imaginative world and a wonderful story that I would love to explore in further detail, but with gameplay that’s too frustrating and unpredictable to be rewarding. For fans of the Victorian era, steampunk, and Verne’s stories specifically, these flaws may definitely be worth overlooking to enjoy this game’s excellent story, but many may find the gameplay too frustrating to enjoy those good parts of the game.

tl;dr – 80 Days is a game that combines Interactive Story-Driven Adventure and Trading Simulation elements with a steampunk-infused Jules Verne-inspired story. The story is by far the best part of this package, making for a riveting read with wonderful characters and a fascinating world, but the unpredictable gameplay can make the game frustrating enough that many will have difficulty enjoying that story.

Grade: B-

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