What a coincidence! I watched a video about how to plan your travel around the world the other day, and now dreams come true —— I get the chance to travel around the globe in 80 days. Based on the novel Around the World in Eighty Days, this game attracts my attention right from the beginning, since I’m a fan of Jules Verne. To be honest, at first, when I knew this game was an interactive fiction, I was worried that I was going to be disappointed at long paragraphs of texts. However, after I spent a few minutes playing the game, I started to love it.
The basics mechanics is to choose player’s own route around the world. Player controls Phileas Fogg's servant and needs to decide which city his master and he are going to and which things they are going to trade or bring, so that they can make some profit on their way.
This game reminds me of West of Loathing. They both give you some contexts and let you make your own choice at the end of dialogues. But this game keeps its gameplay to a minimum, so it’s more of an interactive fiction and the only gameplay besides choosing your responses is to trade in market and explore new routes. Though this sounds boring, considering the background story, everything makes sense. Everyone has experienced the tiredness and excitement of planning a trip, so it’s easy for players to relate to the game. But it’s still a bold movement to make a game of this type.
Though the game is interesting, I do have to say, if the theme weren’t travelling, it wouldn’t attract me so much. I won’t play the game again, either. I think the point is to design your unique route around the world. It’s enough to travel around the world once in lifetime.
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