Long Gone Days

Long Gone Days takes place on the Earth during the present time, in an unofficial country named The Core, whose exact location is unknown. In this place, every individual is trained from birth for their job, so they can become experts by the time they become adults. The main character of the story, Rourke, is a military sniper who has never visited the surface. He's chosen as a last-minute replacement for an operation to aid the Polish forces in Kaliningrad, without much time to review the briefing.

During this mission, after the player eliminates the targets they were assigned to shoot, Rourke finds out all of them were civilians, and he's told by the squad's combat medic, Adair, that it is in fact a false flag operation. Rourke is shocked by the revelation, and by the fact nobody in his squad seems to mind the war crimes they are committing, and without much thought, he finally takes the decision to desert. Intrigued by the outcome, Adair makes up his mind to follow Rourke along.

Taking advantage of his specialty, Adair reports a false illness that requires transferring Rourke to the nearest field hospital, using this as an excuse to escape. Even though they are walking in the opposite direction of their two bases in Kaliningrad, their plan is quickly discovered as they get seen by drones and fellow soldiers from a nearby base they weren't told about, thus realizing the operation is much bigger than they were informed of.

The demo ends with Rourke and Adair being chased by their own allies, as they have become deserters and enemies of The Core, while they try to process what are they going to do with their lives from now on.

Long Gone Days is a role-playing game with visual novel elements that uses a top-down perspective. It features a traditional turn-based RPG combat, which allows the player to select which body-part of the enemy to aim. Since the story doesn't have fantasy or supernatural elements, instead of magic, the characters rely on morale. This stat can be raised or lowered by the choices the player may choose during dialogues in and outside battles, and it affects how each party member will perform in battle.[5] If their Morale reaches zero, the character loses their will to fight.

Besides the turn-based combats, the game also features a first-person sniper mode, which consists of seek and find mechanics.

Since the story is set in the real world, the NPCs will speak in their native language depending on the country the characters are in. The player can recruit interpreters in order to buy at shops and complete quests.

Long Gone Days was originally conceived in 2003[6] by Gormaz as an RPG Maker 2000 project, but it wasn't until 2015 that the development of the demo began. The game was announced for the first time on the RPG Maker forums and TIG Source on January 17, 2016.[7][8] On May 13,[9] the Windows version of the demo was released, and an OSX port was released on July 14.[10]

On July 11, 2016, Gormaz launched a crowdfunding campaign on the website Indiegogo. The campaign reached its goal on August 11, 2016, ending with US$21,300 raised by 567 people.[11] According to the developer, the game will be around 4 to 5 hours long, and it will have two different endings.[11]

The demo of Long Gone Days received overwhelmingly positive reviews from critics, mostly appreciating the art style and the story. It received a score of 4.7/5 on Game Jolt,[3] based on 480 ratings, and 5/5 on Itch.io.[1]

Reviewers praised the game's focus on the use of interpreters, with Maddi Chilton of Kill Screen commenting "Not only do they add realism to a game that deals with international military, but they bring into the spotlight something that people often forget: it's not only the soldiers shooting guns that are crucial to a war".[12]

• Official website
• Official devlog
• Official twitter