The Shortest Journey

Point & click adventure games have a long history on the PC, especially if you look back two decades at all the classics that are still considered brilliant even today. However, the trend never really died, since there are still studios out there trying to keep the genre afloat. Not only that, but you can also find a lot of retro games that try to emulate the same mechanics and atmosphere.

The Shortest Journey is a point & click adventure game revolving around a pretty simple idea: no written text. As such, you do not get any tips from dialog, pieces of paper or the game itself, which is much tougher than it sounds. However, it makes for a great challenge, especially if you do not like to give up and keep trying to solve puzzles that seem to have no obvious solution.

The story is pretty vague as well, given the fact that there are no names involved or any kind of written plot to let you know about the characters. As such, your purpose appears to be finding some kind of treasure, which is why you are following a map with the big “X” on it. It gets a lot more obvious after a while, and it’s nice that you have to use your imagination a bit more.

As for the gameplay, any fan of the genre should figure things out from the first few seconds. Your only job is to click on objects and see what happens, although you can also combine them and figure out which ones go together. Movement is achieved with the mouse as well, so you do not need anything else to play the game. On the other hand, some objects are rather small, which makes it difficult to click on them sometimes.

Speaking of which, the graphics are certainly colorful, and the environments are very nicely designed. Each scene has multiple points of interest, and even the basic animations contribute to the overall atmosphere. On the same subject, the music is more than decent as well, which makes for a pleasant experience from start to finish.

Even if The Shortest Journey may not appeal to youngsters or more pretentious gamers, the truth is that the developer managed to capture the essence of the genre as it was two decades ago. Not only that, but there’s a decent challenge to go with it as well.