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Get in the Game ‘AFK Journey’ Breakdown By Mark Mathen Victor I ntermsof visuals,FarlightStudios’ recently released “AFK Journey” is a marked departure from other games in the mobile gaming format. Genuinely gorgeous, the game does not skimp on its visuals of lush environmentsandphysicaldepictions of high fantasy. The various heroes that come from six “races” look just as well designed and unique, with traits belonging to their specific race. Animations for them are smooth, Vol.3 18 Nerds & Geeks 19 Nerds & Geeks with a very clean art style. If anything detracts from the game’s visuals, it is how “AFK Journey” forces a portrait perspective for players using mobile devices, and the visual mode cuts off a big chunk from the left and right sides. On mobile, the game looks like one Vol.3 of thoseTikTokvideosofmovie scenes uploadedwithbothsides of the screen missing. For those playing on their PC, the game client downloadeddirectly from the official website provides an option to play the game either in portrait or landscapemode. Thisoptiondoesnot exist formobile users at themoment. Due to this reason, it is recommended to play “AFK Journey” on PCor largermobile devices. The tiny details and fantastical images will be lost on regular-sized mobile devices. Varied color gameplay Like its namesake, “AFK” in “AFK Journey” means exactly that: “away from the keyboard,” as the game is designed around passive gameplay. Once the opening scenes and introductory tutorials are over, players can just sit back and let the artificial intelligence (AI) play the game for them, occasionally interacting by pulling new characters and items from the gacha system, navigating the numerous dialogue boxes, and picking characters for battle. This mechanic is a mixed bag. On one hand, it sucks all the interactive fun out of “AFK Journey’s” gameplay that is present in other role-playing games, but on the other hand, it is perfect for casual (mobile) gaming. Theoretically, a player could just leavethegamerunningonAIautopilot while they do their work, chores, or watch amovie. On the overworld, the “AFK” mechanic comes into play as well, as players can set their character to automatically navigate from one story mission to the next. In battle, the AI does all the heavy lifting, from targeting enemy units, healing, using special attacks, and maneuvering the area. Players will only sometimes need to interact when it comes to picking specific units for battle. Separately, the gamehas something called “AFK Rewards,” which, as the name implies, provides rewards from gold to other resources depending on how long players stay away from the game, and the rewards can be progressively increased by battling in its own corner. Unfortunately, it is independent from the story progression, so players will not be able to be away from the keyboard for this aspect, as they will need tomake sure tomanually play in both or the progressionwill be locked. And thisprogression is the real heart of “Journey,” where players will need to build the ideal team fit to vaporize any variation of enemy teams, be it AI or other human players. That said, “Journey” also has a variety of other modes besides its story. There are guild tournaments, player-versus-player (PvP) fights, and strong boss fights. It is recommended to avoid PvP fights as theyaredominatedbyplayers who have spent real money to level their teams extremely high and equip them with items that do damage equivalent to nuclear bombs in the real world. A story that skips itself is a symptom of its gameplay Asthegameplayrevolvesaroundbeing passive, not really paying attention to what is going on on-screen, and being absent, whoever wrote the story most likely did the same by sleepwalking through the entire creative process. About five hours in, the story is confusingandseemscobbledtogether fromdifferent rewrites. The characters are unmemorable and speak in juvenile platitudes, with conversations being verbal diarrhoea that runs for several dialogue boxes and scenes. The inclusion of a fast-forward option to entirely skip dialogues and cutscenes makes it seem the developers were aware that players would be bored by the dull writing. Carried solely by its diverse gameplay, “AFK Journey” may seem exciting for new players who install the game after being bombarded by ads on social media and YouTube, but the lack of a coherent, focused story means most will turn away once their experience boils down to spamming the fast-forward option.