How can I keep up with life without you, Your Majesty?

A unique culmination of an indie forge-your-own-adventure and idle game, THE LONGING will pique the interest of players. The story is simple: wait 400 days in real-time until a sleeping king awakens. The player influences a Shade, who serves the king, in a point-and-click fashion. The Shade only needs to bide his time until the king awakens. THE LONGING uses slow-paced movement and excessive lengths of time as a game mechanic. Players can explore the large underground cavern, decorate and spend time in the Shade’s home, or forsake the king and attempt to leave the cavern.

Stefan Michel, Benedikt Hummel and Anselm Pyta founded STUDIO SEUFZ (or "Studio Sigh” in English) in 2017. The trio, who are alumni of the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg in Germany, have created three previous free-to-play games that were played over 100 million times on the web: LUCKY TOWER, LUCKY TOWER 2, and MURDER. STUDIO SEUFZ aims to forge games with spirit and one-of-a-kind animations.

Anselm Pyta, the game designer, artist, sound designer, and scripter, began working on THE LONGING after being inspired by his trip to the Kyffhäuser in 2012. The Kyffhäuser is a hill range in Central Germany where, according to legend, Emperor Frederick Barbarossa sleeps below. THE LONGING is based on Anselm Pyta's student project at the Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg. Anselm’s fellow teammates include coder Thomas Krüger, producer Stefan Michel, technical artist Laura Brosi, and music/sound supervisors Jan Roth and Jürgen Härtenstein. 

A slumbering king. 400 days. How will you pass the time? 

Numerous obstacles exist for players to overcome using the passage of time. Let a spider craft its web, plant mushrooms in the right spots to facilitate growth, wait for water to accumulate, or allow stalactites to break and fall.

I’m looking forward to diving into the game’s philosophical aspects and their implications.

THE LONGING provides a long, slow experience that clashes with our modern standards of consumption and frenzied living. Explore the difference found between solitude and loneliness, how escapism is evident in our daily lives, and the eternal search for purpose or lack thereof.

THE LONGING was released on March 5th, 2020 for Steam and on April 14th, 2021 for Nintendo Switch. Follow Anselm Pyta’s Twitter and STUDIO SEUFZ’s Twitter for the latest updates.