Long Gone Days: A Different Kind of War Game

War isn’t an uncommon theme to gaming. With everything from gameplay driven industry giants like Call of Duty, to casual phone apps like Clash of Clans, the market for games about war have always thrived. Long Gone Days is a little different in its approach. You play as a deserter who is trying to escape a war he has trained for since childhood. He must unite a team of people with different backgrounds and languages. Together they’ll wage their own war to stop a larger one.

While Long Gone Days is an rpg, it also incorporates elements from other genres. Unlike most rpg’s, Long Gone Days won’t use a leveling system. Instead, characters learn more useful skills as the story progresses. On one hand, this will leave out a classic aspect of the genre, but being able to get through a game without spending hours grinding is never something I’ve complained about. Something that doesn’t seem out of place is classes. Each member of your team has different skills. One that seems pretty essential going by the Indiegogo page is interpretation. Characters in the game speak several different languages, which I feel adds realism as well as a barrier you’ll need certain characters to overcome. For example, one of the characters shown can speak Russian and English.

The game features both simplified sprites for the over world and more detailed portraits and battle models. This gives it a slightly retro feel. The story is reportedly years in the making. The world that the characters inhabit seems interesting, and it is just different enough from our own to still seem plausible. All in all, this game seems like a refreshing twist in the usual elements of the genre.

Long Gone Days is using Indiegogo to raise funds. This may have some drawbacks for the developers if funding is unsuccessful. The developers are also using a fixed model. Indiegogo, unlike Kickstarter, also offers flexible models, but in this case the full amount needs to be raised to for them to receive funds. Luckily, the game still has one month left to raise funds through Indiegogo. The goal is $20,000. The game is currently about a quarter of the way there.