The Longest Journey

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The Longest Journey
tlj_win_en_1_3.jpg
First release 1999
Also known as N/A
Developed by Funcom
Published by Funcom
Distributed by Funcom
Platforms Windows
Resolution 640x480, 24-bit color
Engine Stark
Support Since ScummVM 2.5.0
Available for
Purchase		 Yes

The Longest Journey is a game by Funcom. A woman named April Ryan who lives in the scientific half of the world known as Stark finds that she has the ability to shift between both worlds.

Current status in ScummVM

The ResidualVM Stark engine is being merged into ScummVM.

In the latest daily builds of ResidualVM, The Longest Journey was completable.

Installation

Required data files

For more information on how ScummVM uses game data files, see the user documentation.

Copy the data files from your The Longest Journey CDs, DVD or digital distribution into one directory:

  • The 1a—79 directories (only 4f for demo version).
  • The global directory.
  • The static directory.
  • The fonts directory (not critical, but recommended – see below).
  • x.xarc and all the INI files.
  • game.exe (not critical, but recommended for a styled message dialog)

The 2-CD and DVD versions have some of the data files packed in installer archives. Unpack the archives.

Mixing files from different versions of the game is not supported.

Steam Version

The Steam version and the demo from Steam are missing the fonts directory. The required fonts can be copied over from the demo version, or from the GOG or retail version.

Gamesplanet Version

This release contains the following files among others: 

 TheLongestJourney_En_Setup.exe
 TheLongestJourney_En_Setup-1.bin	
 TheLongestJourney_En_Setup-2.bin

You need to use innoextract from https://constexpr.org/innoextract/ (available in Homebrew on macOS and in many Linux distributions) and extract the distribution with the following command: 

  innoextract -e TheLongestJourney_En_Setup.exe

Then follow the instructions for the normal CD release.

German 4-CD Version

The German 4-CD version includes a copy protection scheme which prohibits normal copying of the files (the TOC is modified to create artificially big files so copying fails).

There are two impossibly large files on each CD in the \Global\xarc directory. The following files must be left out when copying the them from the CDs: 

CD1
 1002.bbb
 1002_lo_res.bbb
CD 2
 1702.bbb
 1702_lo_res.bbb
CD 3
 3102.bbb
 3102_lo_res.bbb
CD 4
 3002.bbb
 3002_lo_res.bbb

All other instructions apply as mentioned in "Required data files"

Alternative method

It is possible to run the Setup.exe file even in modern Windows versions (tested on Windows 11), the warning about the game not working under Windows NT can be safely ignored.

In the installer make sure to chose "Maximum" when asked for install size. The installer will copy all required files to the install directory which can then be used with ScummVM.

If you don't use Windows it might be possible to use a compatibility layer like Wine (open source) on Linux or Crossover (commercial, free trial available) on macOS or Linux to run the installer, but this is untested. Alternatively a Windows install (Windows 95 or later) in a VM should work too.

Controls

The mouse is used to interact with objects and menu elements.

Available keyboard shortcuts:

Key Binding
Escape Skip video sequence or current line of dialogue, skip time if Time Skip option is enabled
F1 Diary Menu
F2 Save game
F3 Load game
F4 Conversation Log
F5 April's Diary (initially disabled)
F6 Video replay
F7 Game settings
F8 Save a screenshot
F9 Toggle subtitles on and off
F10 Quit game and return to main menu
A Cycle back through inventory cursor items
S Cycle forward through inventory cursor items
I Inventory
P Pause the game
X Display all exits on current location
Page Up Scroll up in dialogues and in your inventory
Up arrow Scroll up in dialogues and in your inventory
Page Down Scroll down in dialogues and in your inventory
Down arrow Scroll down in dialogues and in your inventory
Enter Select currently highlighted dialogue choice
1 – 9 Select a dialogue choice
Ctrl + F5 ScummVM menu
Alt + Enter Switch between windowed mode and fullscreen
Ctrl + c Force quit (from command line)
Ctrl + q Quit (in-game)
Alt + x Quit
Alt + q Quit
Alt + s Save a screenshot

Modding

ScummVM can load replacement assets instead of the original files for some of the asset types. By leveraging this capability, users can create mods for the game. These are the currently supported modding features:

  • Load mods from the mods directory inside the game data path. Each mod should be in its own directory in the mods subdirectory. Mods are loaded in alphabetical order.
  • Load external PNG files instead of the XMG files inside the game archives. The replacement PNG files can have larger dimensions when compared to the original XMG images, enabling the creation of a high resolution mod. The game looks for the replacement files in a mod directory and then in the xarc subdirectory of the directory containing the archive in which the XMG picture to be replaced is located. For instance:mods/[my_mod]/1e/00/xarc/fountain_layercenter.png needs to be used for the Venice park background. ScummVM expects PNGs to be in pre-multiplied alpha format for improved load times. However the replacement_png_premultiply_alpha scummvm.ini setting allows to load regular transparency PNGs when set to true for convenience when testing.
  • Load replacement video files for the Smacker animations. The replacement files can be either in Smacker or Bink encoding. With Smacker, only 1-bit transparency can be used. Transparent pixels must have the Cyan color (#00FFFF). When using Bink, 8-bit transparency can be used. The alpha channel should be encoded in the pre-multiplied alpha format. The replacement videos can have larger dimensions than the originals but must have the same number of frames and the same frame rate. Like with PNG files, replacement video files are loaded from mod folders: for instance mods/[my_mod]/08/02/xarc/011001.bik is the animation where the tree spirit lifts the egg back into the nest.
  • Load replacement textures for the 3d models. Each original tm file contains several textures, each with its associated mipmaps. The replacement files are zip archives containing dds packaged textures. The replacement archives must be placed at the root of the mod directory and be named after the tm file they replace:mods/[my_mod]/april_waitress.tm.zip. Each zip archive must contain all the textures from the replaced tm file. The textures need to be encoded in uncompressed RGB or RGBA dds files with mipmaps. Files inside the archive must be named according to the replaced texture name, but with the bmp extension replaced with dds: backdress-highres-battic.ddsThe extractAllTextures console command can be used to extract the tm files to png files.

Contact us if you need further capabilities for your mod.

Developer resources

External links

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