A Long Journey to an Uncertain End

by Aethyna Jul 1, 2023 | 1 Votes | 80 Played | 0 Reviews

9 rate

Genres:

Adventure

Graphics:

Labels:

Adventure , Storytelling , Visual Novel , Sci-Fi , Space Games , Management

Platforms:

Publishers:

Crispy Creative Play as a sentient ship's AI who is on the run from her abusive ex across the galaxy in hopes of finding sanctuary with a mysterious group, the Dreamers. Along the way, you'll meet various colorful characters, help the locals, and avoid getting captured by the authorities (or your ex) as you race against time to get your freedom. Play Now Similar Games

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Summary Plotline Gameplay Graphics/ Sound Conclusion

Summary

A Long Journey to an Uncertain End is an LGBTQ+-focused visual novel-slash-resource management game that's similar, to some extent, to one of the most acclaimed indie titles of 2022, Citizen Sleeper. In this game, you play as a sentient ship's AI who is on the run from her abusive ex across the galaxy in hopes of finding help and perhaps sanctuary with the mysterious group, the Dreamers. Along the way, you'll meet various colorful characters, help the locals with whatever they need, and avoid getting captured by the authorities (or your ex) as you race against time to get your freedom.

Plotline

Without spoiling too much, the game will have you, an unclamped sentient ship's AI, which is illegal in that part of the universe, race against time as you try to escape from your abusive ex and the authorities (known as, simply, the Law), all the while planet-hopping to get enough resources for your ragtag crew and for yourself to keep going. You'll also meet many colorful characters along the way, some of whom may be open to joining your little crew. Of course, the more crew you have, the more supplies you'll need, so some resource management is definitely in order.

As a visual novel, the game also comes with dialogue choices and decisions that you can make throughout the story. Some of them will alter the course of the plot, while others may affect your relationship with a certain crew member. There are several endings too to discover, but which ending you get primarily hinges on the very last decision you make.

Gameplay

Before you get into the game proper, you'll be asked to, in essence, create your AI character. Besides choosing a name and a pronoun, you can customize your holographic avatar as you see fit – there are plenty of choices available in this game to personalize your character.

As aforementioned, A Long Journey to an Uncertain End is quite similar to Citizen Sleeper in terms of its gameplay. It's a visual novel with plenty of gorgeous artwork and oftentimes, impactful dialogue choices, but ultimately, unless you want to meet an untimely end, which at most will prompt a reload of a previous autosave, you'll need to make sure your resources are managed well enough to sustain your long, and sometimes arduous journey to freedom.

There are three main resources you'll need to manage in this game. They are Fuel, Supplies, and Favors. Fuel is the main thing that keeps you – the spaceship – going. Without it, you would be stranded in space or on the planet you've landed on, and you'll just be sitting ducks for your abusive ex or the authorities to come and retrieve you. Supplies are needed for one of two main things – to keep your crew of humans, who all have needs, alive, and to grease some fingers or even to trade if needed.

Lastly, Favors aren't as regularly used as the other two resources, but it's important enough in certain situations. You see, certain tasks that you can carry out while landing on a planet, such as trying to score some free supplies at a facility, may alert the authorities to your presence when failed, and if that awareness is high enough, you'll get caught. In other words, Favors can help you reduce the "heat" you get.

It is also useful to improve your overall performance on any job you've completed. Backtracking a little here: Jobs are the main way you can exchange labor, which in this case, your crew's labor, for the crucial resources you need to continue on your journey. Every planet you land on will have some jobs to do, but the rewards you get vary from planet to planet. The amount, on the other hand, depends on how well your assigned crew did on the job.

Job performance is determined by three main factors in this game – the suitability of the crew member you assign to the task (each job usually comes with a range of "recommended traits" that you can try to match your assigned people to), the number of people assigned to each job (you can go up to a maximum of two, which will raise the success chance, both minimum and maximum, sometimes even beyond 100%), and the decisions you make (whether they succeed or failed) during the course of the job.

As long as you match the right people to the right jobs and have a bit of luck on your side, you can usually get a pretty good score, more than 50% at least. However, there are times when getting the bare minimum success isn't feasible since the reward amount is tied directly to your success. The higher your job rating, the more rewards you'll get. This is where Favor comes in. By adding Favor, you can raise your job rating by 30%, which is often enough to get you near or over the 100% mark, enough to get you maximum rewards. If you're lucky, you may even get a new crew member at the end of a job to add to your ragtag team!

Interestingly enough, there's also another kind of "resource" that isn't as prominently displayed in the game but is important nonetheless – the happiness level of your crew. Naturally, crew with lower morale will perform much poorly at their tasks. This is why it's important to keep them content, at least, if not happy.

There are several ways to do so. Sometimes, they will find their own entertainment while the spaceship is traveling to its next destination. Though, most of the time, you'll need to make sure you take on the right jobs – some jobs can increase your crew's happiness by a certain amount – or if the planet has entertainment available, you could send your most discontent crew member to take a break.

Every job you take on and, sometimes, the tasks you do at various facilities will consume time, a precious resource that you don't have much of, especially not with a determined ex who is hellbent on "bringing you back". This is why you need to sometimes be selective with the jobs you take on – make sure to check the rewards and take on the ones you need… unless it's important to advance the story, of course. If you're lucky, some jobs may even reward you with extra time on the clock, so allow you to make a narrow getaway, sometimes. Note that traveling will add time to the clock, giving you some precious hours to take on some jobs on the new planet you'll be arriving at.

Planet-hopping is what makes this game so entertaining. It's just fun to explore different planets, each offering a different experience to visitors. You can usually choose where to head next, but sometimes, due to the story, you just have a single destination to head to. In between stretches of planet-hopping, you'll also encounter what I'd liken to a gauntlet or an obstacle course where you'll need to get through a series of challenges using whatever resource you have onboard the ship with no breaks in between. Thankfully, to help, the people you've helped before may contribute some resources to top your crew up before you all head into the "obstacle course/gauntlet", be it a space blockade or an epic dogfight in space with the Law.

As fun as the game is, A Long Journey to an Uncertain End does lack some polish. There are many times when I've encountered dialogues that were "spoken" by the wrong character. There was also a time when I was chatting up a crew member, and the game showed the C.O.R.G.I's avatar instead of mine.

These are merely minor annoyances though. The main and somewhat game-breaking bug that I encountered happened while I was halfway into the game, and I decided to "X" out of a job completion screen instead of using the button given, thinking I could perhaps make a few trades just so I can really reap the full rewards of a job well done. However, to my chagrin, the job became bugged, and I couldn't complete it any longer. The crew assigned to it was stuck, and I couldn't leave the planet because of it. I ended up reloading a previous autosave in order to continue playing. Thankfully, the autosave isn't too far back. This is a bug that definitely needs to be fixed asap!

Graphics/ Sound

As befitting a visual novel, A Long Journey to an Uncertain End features some amazing visuals filled with vibrant colors. The details that went into each character's design are astounding, and the different skins you can unlock for each of your crew are just a fun little addition to spruce up the game. Of course, the space and planet views you'll get to enjoy here are breathtaking too.

In terms of sound, the game features a selection of soundtracks that changes depending on where you are, mainly which planet you're on, and what you're doing. The soundtracks range from chill Western tunes to epic orchestrals during certain dialogues. The music you hear fits really well to what's going on on-screen, further immersing you in both the story and the environment.

Conclusion

For a game developed by an indie studio, A Long Journey to an Uncertain End is a truly impressive game. It's similar to Citizen Sleeper, another favorite game of mine, in terms of its resource management-visual novel-style gameplay, and the game's focus on LGBTQ+ doesn't at all dampen the quality of its content; in fact, it infuses the story with a lot more flair and flamboyance. So, if you're in the market for an LGBTQ+-themed visual novel with a fun yet not too challenging resource/crew management aspect, you'll want to check out A Long Journey to an Uncertain End! And yes, you can thank us later!

Space opera A Long Journey to an Uncertain End lands on Nintendo Switch December 5th!

by Aethyna Nov 22, 2023

Travel through the ‘verse as a sentient ship in this sci-fi narrative adventure

Space opera A Long Journey to an Uncertain End lands on Nintendo Switch December 5th!

by Aethyna Jul 1, 2023

Play as a sentient ship's AI who is on the run from her abusive ex across the galaxy in hopes of finding sanctuary with a mysterious group, the Dreamers. Along the way, you'll meet various colorful characters, help the locals, and avoid getting captured by the authorities (or your ex) as you race against time to get your freedom.