Riordan Retrospective: Daughter of the Deep

Welcome once again to my Riordan Retrospective. For those of you just joining the fun, this is my look back at the works of Rick Riordan. That means Percy Jackson, its sequels, and spin-offs. This is less of a formal review and more of a relaxed look back.

Last time, we finished our look back at The Trials of Apollo with a look back at The Tower of Nero. We thought that we’d said goodbye to the worlds of Rick Riordan. Little did we know that a new book was about to surface. As such, we’re taking a look back at Daughter of the Deep.

Ana Dakkar is about to finish her freshman year at Harding-Pencroft Academy. It is a five-year academy specializing in marine science. She, and her nineteen classmates, are about to begin their freshmen trials. Harding-Pencroft holds its students very high standards. However, before they can take off, the school is destroyed by a series of sonic torpedoes. The remaining students and professors of Harding-Pencroft regroup aboard their yacht the Varuna. Ana discovers several major revelations. Jules Verne’s novels 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island were based on actual events. Captain Nemo was indeed a real person, and Ana is his direct descendant. In fact, the whole point of Harding-Pencroft Academy is to safeguard Nemo’s legacy and technology. Their next stop is Lincoln Island, the final resting place of Nemo and the Nautilus. But danger lurks around every corner as the survivors of Harding-Pencroft are hunted by their old rivals: Land Academy.

Well, it looks like we’re back sooner than I expected. I thought we’d be back for that Irish Mythology book Rick said he was planning. However, that seems to have been put on the back-burner. Daughter of the Deep apparently has been a long time coming. Way back in 2009, Disney executives asked Rick what Disney property he would want to write a book based on. It could be anything he wanted. He chose 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, as the 1954 film adaptation is one of his favorite movies. Technically, Disney only owns the rights to the movie, not the original book. The original Verne novel has long since slipped into the public domain. I’m tempted to think that Rick was, at least somewhat, trolling the executives.

I actually went back and watched the 1954 movie adaptation of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. I agree with Rick here. The movie is, I must say, a truly underrated gem among live-action Disney films. In fact, I might even give it its own review at some point. Now, the movie does take some liberties with the source material. Though, personally, I’d say that was to its benefit, as it made for a more engaging story that worked better in film. Verne was known for doing a lot of research with his novels, and often devoted entire paragraphs to explaining the science in detail. Unfortunately, this does make for a rather dry reading experience. I’ve heard Verne works better in the original French, but that is a language I do not speak. Amusingly, students at Harding-Pencroft are required to read 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and The Mysterious Island. Ana found them both to be a bit dry for her taste. I myself enjoyed The Mysterious Island slightly more than 20,000 Leagues, but it still suffered from many of the same issues.

I’ve heard a few people wonder what it might be like if Rick Riordan were to write a science fiction novel. Well, we now have our answer. We know more about the surface of the Moon than we do our own deep oceans. Twelve people have walked on the surface of the Moon, but only two have ever been to the bottom of the Marianas Trench. Ocean-based science fiction is still comparatively rare compared to space-based or terrestrial-based science fiction. So, I’m glad to see that Daughter of the Deep tapped into some of the vast potential of ocean-based science fiction.

Now, I should probably clarify that Daughter of the Deep is set outside of the Riordanverse. Rick has confirmed that it takes place in its own self-contained world. So, don’t expect to see any cameos from Percy, Annabeth, or any other Riordanverse characters. Still, it is similar enough in terms of style to a typical Riordanverse novel, and thus, I’ve chosen to include it as part of the retrospective.

Speaking of style, let’s begin there. Rick has said he took a film writing course before he wrote Daughter of the Deep. That is very apparent in how the prose itself is written. It reads very much like a movie script. The narration is presented in first-person present tense. This helps add to the sense of action and urgency as the plot movies along. The pacing also feels very much like what you might find in a movie. We got a lot of action scenes in quick succession. We get the usual info dumps, but we don’t really take as much time for introspection. As we’ll discuss a bit later, this lack of introspection was very much to the book’s detriment. I’m willing to bet that all this is very much by design. Daughter of the Deep is being adapted into a movie on Disney+. In fact, the movie was announced even before the book came out. So, it certainly feels like Rick wrote Daughter of the Deep with an eye towards the movie adaption.

I would have liked if we had gotten to explore Harding-Pencroft Academy a bit more before it got destroyed. What brief glimpses we do see are utterly fascinating. The students are all decided into four different houses based on their area of study. Yeah, they’ve heard all the Harry Potter jokes plenty of times. Though, personally, when I saw the initials HP in an ocean-themed book, I briefly wondered if Rick Riordan was going to tackle the Lovecraft Mythos. Back on topic, the houses are Dolphin, Shark, Cephalopod, and Orca. Dolphin focuses on communications, exploration, cryptography, and counterintelligence. Shark handles command, combat, weapons systems, logistics. Cephalopod deals with engineering, applied mechanics, innovation, and defensive systems. Orca is all about medicine, psychology, education, marine biology, and communal memory. If you’re wondering about that last one, it basically means the history of Harding-Pencroft and Captain Nemo.

One of the things I appreciated was that each of the four main characters is from a different house. One of my gripes about Harry Potter is that pretty much all the important characters come from Gryffindor. Well, unless they’re a villain, and come from Slytherin. Ravenclaw had Luna and Cho, I guess, but Hufflepuff got the short end of the stick for sure. Getting back on track, having the four main protagonists of Daughter of the Deep be from different houses provided a theme that everyone has something unique to bring to the table. You can also see it as advocating for multiculturalism, but without being preachy about it. 

 However, I do have on criticism. House Orca needed a better name. Orcas are a type of dolphin, the largest, in fact. We’ve got representatives for mammals, fish, and mollusks. How’s about giving some love to the reptiles? Personally, I would have named them House Sea Turtle instead. Or failing that, show some love to the echinoderms, and name them House Seastar. House Sea Cucumber would also work. Don’t give me that look! Sea cucumbers are noble animals and wonders of nature.

I do wish that we’d gotten to see more of Harding-Pencroft before it was destroyed. What brief glimpses we do get are utterly fascinating. As you might expect, they have quite an expansive aquarium full marine creatures. Upperclassmen train in submarine simulations using full-size mock-up submarines submerged in deep pools. However, the most fascinating class is one where students get to consider, and theorize, about the ways technology and science might have developed had history gone differently. As a major fan of alternate history I have but one thing to say: sign me up now! Well, its actually there as a way to slowly ease the students into learning the truth about Captain Nemo and his inventions. Still, sounds like a very fun class to take. I also liked how the various sections of the school are named after famous ocean explorers. There’s one part named after the Chinese navigator Zheng He, and one named after the polar explorer Ernest Shackleton.

I thought all of the diving scenes were particularly well-written. Rick Riordan has a true passion for scuba diving. This really shines through during the diving scenes. I also really like how the diving suits all use jet-propulsion that mimics the siphons of cephalopods. That was a really creative touch. 

Also, for those wondering, Land Academy was named after Ned Land. He founded it, along with Professor Aronnax, in hopes to keeping the world safe from Nemo. Aronnax and Land viewed Nemo as a madman. I assume Aronnax was the brains behind that one. Ned Land was good natured, but not terribly bright. 

Okay, let’s talk about the characters. Ana is the protagonist, but I want to save her for last. We’ll start with her roommates, and best friends, Nelinha and Ester. Nelinha da Silva grew up in an orphanage in Rio de Janeiro, but got to attend Harding-Pencroft on a scholarship. She’s also the closest the series gets to referencing Percy Jackson and the Olympians. I can best describe Nelinha as what would happen if Charles Beckendorf and Silena Beauregard were to have a kid. And, you know, if they were still alive. She’s a complete mechanical genius, and geeks out over machines and engine parts. She’s a member of House Cephalopod, naturally. However, she is also obsessed with fashion, and always makes sure to look her best at all times. Nelinha doesn’t just pack outfits, she packs entire wardrobes.

One of my prior complaints about Rick Riordan is that he only seems to know how to write one type of female character. Namely, he seems to believe that being a strong female character means being a tomboy who hates all things girly. So, it was nice to see Nelinha as a course correction on that front. Nelinha being from Brazil is likely a nod to how popular Rick Riordan’s books are in Brazil. So, I’m sure Brazilian fans were excited to finally get a Brazilian main character.

On the flipside, we also get Ester Harding. She’s a member of House Orca. She is a blood relative of one of the founders of Harding-Pencroft. She is also the first autistic character in a Rick Riordan book. I’m still bitter about how he wrote a Muslims character before he wrote an autistic character. In the Riordanverse, anyone can be a demigod, unless you’re autistic, it would seem. I had high hopes for Ester. You don’t see autistic girls too often in the media. Riordan has said that he got sensitivity readers to help him with writing characters from different cultural backgrounds. However, it would seem none of them offered insight into autistic people. It almost feels like Riordan watched a couple episodes of The Good Doctor and was like “I got this!” You know those TikTok clips of that guy having a temper tantrum while shouting “I am a surgeon!” Yeah, that’s The Good Doctor. It was another show I had high hopes for, but fell back on stereotyping autistic people. Don’t get me started on my problems with The Good Doctor, we’ll be here all day.

Anyway, Ester displays a number of stereotypical traits. She yo-yos between being basically non-verbal, and shouting at the top of her lungs. She does this all in a robotic monotone voice. In contrast to Nelinha, Ester has basically no fashion sense, and seems to be going for the long-lost daughter of Albert Einstein look. Ester also doesn’t have much in the way of common sense, and though it never comes up, she’s probably Jewish. Not too many gentiles name Ester. She’s got an excellent memory, to the point of being almost eidetic, but that’s somewhat accurate. Well, maybe not eidetic, but most autistic people do often have amazing memories. How do you think I’m about to write these retrospectives?

Ana briefly remarks about how some people claim that autistic people can’t feel love or other emotions, and that Ester proves this isn’t true, due to how empathetic she is. Again, this is true, as autistic people can be quite empathetic. Though, I can’t help but wonder if Disney specially made Rick insert that line to cover their asses. See, this isn’t the first time Disney has tackled autism. There was an episode of Girl Meets World about how we should all be nice to autistic people. All well and good, but they also claim that autistic people are incapable of experiencing emotions, including love.

Gemini Twain has been assigned as Ana’s bodyguard. He’s a no-nonsense member of House Shark. He’s also a member of the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints. This is certainly an interesting choice, as Gemini is also Black. Historically, Mormons haven’t exactly gotten along well with Black people. Or Native Americans, or Polynesians, or…well, pretty much anybody who isn’t White. The most infamous instance was when Mormon schools refused to desegregate. The American government threatened to revoke their tax exemption status, but wouldn’t you know it, Mormon God rather conveniently changed his mind about Black people. Though, Gemini’s faith doesn’t really come up that much. He doesn’t like swearing or taking the lord’s name in vein, and he mentions his grandma raised him and his brother in the LDS church, but that’s about it. Well, he did get into a minor scuffle with Nelinha. Gemini’s brother went on his mission trip to Brazil, and Gemini assumed Nelinha would know his brother, because she’s from Brazil.

Well, nice touch having one of the non-White characters be flawed enough to be accidentally racist. I remember back in The Hammer of Thor retrospective when I said, paraphrased, “A Muslim demigod? What’s next, a Mormon demigod?” I have on occasion wondered if Rick Riordan reads these retrospectives. Probably a long shot, but you never know.

Technically, there is a fifth main character: the Nautilus itself. It took until about halfway through the book before the Nautilus showed up. Yeah, this book has some pacing issues. The Nautilus has what can best be described as an artificial intelligence system. Also, apparently it also includes some organic components. As you might imagine, it is extremely untrustworthy of anyone who isn’t a blood relative of Prince Dakkar, aka Captain Nemo. So, Ana’s biometrics are key to unlocking the Nautilus.

Unfortunately, the Nautilus also highlights one of the issues I had with the book. Apparently, every major invention of the 20th Century was a result of Harding-Pencroft discreetly releasing them to the public. That, or Land Institute stealing them. This caused Daughter of the Deep to evoke the Great Man Theory of History. The theory goes that society gets stuck in ruts until a great man, and it’s always a man, shakes up the status quo and moves the world forward. This view has largely fallen out of favor with mainstream historians. Most historians emphasis how the changes were put into motion, often by complex chains of influences, long before the supposedly great men came about. 

You do kind of get this with the main Riordanverse, where pretty much anyone who did anything was either a demigod or a magician. However, that was softened by just how many demigods and magicians there were throughout history. So, it felt more like a team-effort. By contrast, Daughter of the Deep gave us a single scientific übermensch who, apparently, leapfrogged from steam-power to cold fusion reactors. Now, granted, this is also true of Nemo in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Still, maybe Rick shouldn’t have depicted Nemo in such a lock, stock, and barrel sort of way.

And that segues into my next point. Harding-Pencroft is deathly afraid of letting the general public get access to Nemo’s technology. They only release technology sparingly, and only when they feel humanity has earned it. Uh, and what metric do they use to determine how worthy humanity is? Beats me, the book offers no details. The adults all make a big deal about how corporations would try to monopolize Nemo’s technology, but nobody ever suggests releasing it as open-source tech. Well, I know the real reason for that. There’s no way that Disney, the poster boy for copyright abuse, is going to be advocating for open-source. A particularly facepalm worthy moment is that fact that Harding-Pencroft refuses to release cold fusion technology…despite climate change being a serious issue! The book would have you believe Harding-Pencroft are the good guys. However, I’m tempted to think Land Institute had a point about Harding-Pencroft being corrupt and selfish.

Hey, wait a minute. Harding-Pencroft is a secretive organization that is very selective of its membership. It trains its students so that, effectively, they’re cut-off from the outside world. They indoctrinate their students from a young age into their views. They have charismatic leaders and founders. Yikes, I hope the cafeteria never served Kool-Aid! Harding-Pencroft is a cult!

It would seem that Harding-Pencroft has something akin to the Prime Detective from Star Trek. There has been a lot of debate about the morality of the Prime Detective. The main thinking seems to be don’t give advanced weaponry to civilizations that aren’t morally mature. The Original Series also says that it is okay to break the Prime Directive if a planet is in imminent danger. Contrast this with Next Generation, where one episode has Captain Picard dithering about if he should save a planet, even if it break the Prime Directive. Of course, the worst offender was Voyager. It had an episode where the moral was, basically, don’t save a baby trapped in a burning car, or else the baby will grow-up to be Hitler. Yeah, the Prime Directive kind of devolved into an immoral religious dogma as Star Trek went on.

Point is, Harding-Pencroft’s Prime Directive seems to lean towards that of the later Star Trek entries. Apparently, screw the planet, we need to keep the tech away from corporations! The irony of Disney railing against corporations is so thick you can practically cut it with a machete. Also, if the concern is that the corporations would hoard stuff like the cure for cancer, well, how’s that any different than what Harding-Pencroft is doing?

Much is made about how Ana must choose to reconcile both the good and the bad of Nemo’s legacy. However, nothing really comes of this. We don’t see her seriously debate or challenge Harding-Pencroft and Land Institute’s views of Nemo. In fact, she gets indoctrinated into Harding-Pencroft’s views pretty quickly. It would have been a great opportunity to show Nemo’s complexity, not just tell us about it. How many innocent lives did he take in his quest for vengeance? Should he have shared his technology with the oppressed peoples chafing under the yoke of colonialism? Is it possible that Land Institute has some valid points, and that Harding-Pencroft has lost its way? All excellent questions that sadly go unanswered.

As for why that is, it ties into the biggest problem I have with Daughter of the Deep. Overall, it feels like merely the novelization of the yet to be produced movie. I was hoping that the novel would be able to stand on its own merits. However, Riordan clearly wrote it so that the adoption process would be streamlined. Debating ethics might not translate to film. Though, it could work in the hands of a competent scriptwriter.

I feel this streamlining was ultimately to the novel’s determent. I certainly didn’t hate Daughter of the Deep. It had plenty of the action and adventure you’d expect from a Rick Riordan novel. However, for every thing I liked, there was almost always something else I didn’t like. It is ironic that Rick claims he spent years working on Daughter of the Deep. It overall feels like it was yanked out of the oven before it had a chance to bake properly. Then again, he also claims to have gotten the idea for Magnus Chase before he wrote Percy Jackson, and look how that turned out.

The audiobook is narrated by Soneela Nankani. She’s the narrator for the Aru Shah audiobooks. Personally, I wasn’t too thrilled when I saw that Soneela would be narrating. However, she gave a fairly decent performance. She voiced Ester in a rather stereotypical way, like she was imitating Sean from The Good Doctor, but that was the only true sour note. Speaking of music, the audiobook is filled with music. There’s lots of musical cues throughout the audiobook. Scenes of wonder and whimsy have inspirational music, action scenes have exciting music. There’s a scene where Ana plays a pipe organ aboard the Nautilus, and we actually get to hear it. I thought that was a really nice touch.

Now, let’s analyze the cover. This is a nice looking cover. The undersea landscape is bright and vibrant. We see Ana and Gemini in their divining suits. Their faces are clear and unobscured. The Rick Riordan Presents books goes with this approach as well. Something about it being important for minority kids to see themselves clearly represented on book covers. We also see the Nautilus in the background, along with a giant octopus.

So, Daughter of the Deep has a lot of potential, and I certainly wouldn’t mind a sequel. However, there’s a lot of room for improvement. It needed to stand on its own merits, not just be the dry run for the movie script. Still, it's lightyears better than our next port of call. Next time, we’re tackling The Sun and The Star. The claws are coming out, and I’m prepared to fully eviscerate Mark Oshiro’s glorified self-insert fanfic.

Well, I think that should do it from me for now. I will see you guys next time.

Visual Novel Review: 80 Days

 When I was a kid, I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books. I loved exploring stories where I got to steer the plot, with varying degrees of success. The illustrations that would occur throughout the books was a nice touch too. Thankfully, there plenty of great examples of interactive fiction that are aimed at older audiences. Many video games have successfully adapted the Chose Your Own Adventure format to electronic form. Where I am going with all of this. Today, we're going to take a look at one of the best examples of interactive fiction I've seen in quite some time. We're taking a look at 80 Days.

80 Days is an adaption of Jules Vernes' classic novel Around the World in Eighty Days. Our story begins in 1872. Passepartout is a French valet recently hired by British gentlemen Phileas Fogg. Fogg has recently taken a bet from his gentlemen's club that he must make it around the world in no more than eighty days. Ah, but there is a twist. You see, this isn't out Victorian era. Rather, it is a steampunk alternate history. Passepartout and Fogg much make their way across this steampunk world using several strange, exotic, and sometimes mundane, modes of transportation. How will they accomplish this? What routes will they take? That's all up to you. The choice is yours, so choose wisely.

I was first introduced to Around the World in Eighty Days when I saw Disney's 2004 adaption starring Steve Coogan and Jackie Chan. I think it was that film which indirectly lead to my interest in steampunk. There actually wasn't that much in the way of steampunk in the film itself, though Fogg was a bumbling inventor, rather than a rich gentleman like in the novel. The film deviates a bit from the novel, often for comedy. Eventually, I did seek out the original novel, which is easily my favorite of Verne's work. So, when I saw this game, I knew I just had to buy it.

Now, let's briefly discuss terminology and classification. After mulling it over I decided to classify 80 Days as a video game, but me being me, I feel that's a bit too simple. More broadly, it falls under the umbrella of Interactive Fiction. As the name suggests, Interactive Fiction is any fictional narrative medium influenced by the choices of the reader/player. The exact degree of interactivity varies. On the high end, you have stuff like the Ace Attorney games; not only do you have different dialogue options, but you must collect evidence and call-out false statements in court. On the low end, you have certain types of Japanese Visual Novels, where the story is pretty linear, and the choices don't really matter, or are for purely aesthetic stuff.

 I would say there is a fair bit of genuine choice and strategizing involved in 80 Days. You have to determine the best route first and foremost. You are presented with options as soon as you arrive at a new city, but you can also quite new routs options by purchasing travel schedules. You also have to watch your budget. Different modes of transportation charge different rates. You also have to spend money on hotels if you stay overnight in a city. You do start off with money, and there are ways to gain more as you go. Each stop has a marketplace where items can be purchased and sold. How much each item sells for depends on where you are. Fortunately, the game does tell you where you can get the most for each item. The items are also important because they affect Fogg's health. Fogg takes health damage no matter what you travel in, but carrying certain items in your suitcase help negate this damage. You can also add to his health by attending to his needs before or during travel. You can also get money by going to the bank, but be careful, because Fogg isn't made out of money, and it will run out if you make too many bank trips. You can earn a bit of money by polishing shoes at hotels. Hey, small drops fill the bucket.

 You care the items with you in a suitcase, and you can purchase more if you run out of room. However, more suitcases will increase the cost of travel, and certain modes of travel limit the amount of luggage you can take with you. Fogg will provide commentary depending on what you choose to carry with you. For example, if you chose to bring a gun at the start, and then purchase another one, Fogg will inquire about just how many guns you think you'll need. If you sell the altimeter, Fogg will inquire about what you've done with his grandfather's altimeter. If you purchase a mirror, Fogg will remark about how it is occupying your attention quite a bit as of late.

Your choices have consequences beyond advancing the story. How you interact with Fogg determines how he will view you. Serve him well, and he will consider you a truly worthy companion that any gentleman would be lucky to have at his side. There are also several characters you have the option of romancing. Oh, and Passepartout is bisexual, so you can romance women or men without issue. Play your cards right, and you can even romance Fogg, but that takes a bit of skill.

 The artwork is very well done. You have a three-dimensional globe that tracks your progress. Your latest mode of transport, as well as famous buildings from the cities you visit, are represented as stylized black and white drawings set against color backdrops. The day-night cycle is also represented in shifts in background color. You get the text of the story when you are embarking on a new leg of your journey, when you arrive at your destination, and if you chose to stay the night in a city. And it is fairly substantial text; we're talking multiple paragraphs. Upon successfully completing the journey the route you took will be highlighted on the globe, and you'll get stats about how many places you visited.

 One of the biggest draws of 80 Days is the way that it explores steampunk outside of Europe. Many nations were able to successfully avoid colonization, or kicked out their colonizers. Each nation also has its own unique twist on steampunk technology. You can ride anhinga, a type of fast bird-like airship, in South America and the Caribbean. You can take a mechanical elephant through the mountains of Northern India. You can cross the Pacific Ocean in a steamship that can also turn into a submarine. You can even visit Haiti and see the unique steam-powered cyborg animals they utilize. Well, that and the automatons made out of wood and bone, which are powered by blood.

 Oh, and did I mention that Haiti is a major power in this world? Well, they are, though they're also secretive and highly protective of their steam-powered cyborg animals. In fact, it was Haiti, with assistance from France, that built the Panama Canal in the world of 80 Days. But that's not the only notable change. The Zulu have formed a federation in Southern Africa to resist British colonization. They've embraced steampunk technology thanks to the Artificers Guild, who we'll talk more about in a minute. They've kicked the British and Portuguese out of several parts of Southern Africa; though some areas of European settlement, such as the Orange Free State, still remain. Meanwhile, Madagascar has also managed to remain independent thanks to embracing steampunk technology. Madagascar is also a hotbed of Artificer activity. There also seem to be more gender equality than in our world’s Victorian era. We see numerous women as engineers, captains, and in positions of authority. True, some do mention having to deal with sexism, but its all very progressive given the time period.  

The Artificers Guild is an international organization of scientists, engineers, and inventors dedicated to spreading steampunk technology throughout the world. Their officially language is Turkish, as they claim to have been founded in Turkey, and their members wear bronze flowers. Officially, they're politically neutral, but they do have influence in pretty much all nations. Whether or not that's a good thing is up to you to decide. People of all nations, except the Austro-Hungarian empire, are allowed to join. As you can imagine, the nations of the world are sharply divided in their views of the Artificers.

There are also several secret locations that require you to do special things to find them. For example, there is a flying First Nations city in Canada named Kahwoka Othunwe. Go to either Calgary or Regina and looked for a Cree boy. If you help him, you'll get a mysterious device. After that, head to Toronto. Along the way some Lakota will find you and take you to Kahwoka Othunwe. However, if you're carrying whiskey the council will decide you a whiskey trader, and you'll have to escape on a gyrocopter. If you don't have whisky, you'll get to stay, and will be dropped off in Quebec City.

 Yeah, having certain items in your inventory affects how things go. Sometimes you are given items when chatting with other characters, but this can backfire on you. For example, can be given a copy of Communist Manifesto in Moscow. However, if you have it with you while you're in Vladivostok, you will be arrested and waste four days in prison. I learned that the hard way; I would have won that play-through if I hadn't gotten stuck in Vladivostok. Then again, you'll get arrested anyway if you stay overnight in Vladivostok. The Russians are paranoid about British travelers due to The Great Game. The only way to prevent this is to get travelers papers by stoping at Omsk. And even then, if you got involved in the demonstration in St. Petersburg, they won't mean anything. Personally, I don't find it worth the hassle. My advice, at the Trans-Siberian Railway all the way to Karimskaya. Then take the Trans-Manchurian Railway to either Pyongyang or Beijing, and from there get on a ship to Yokohama.

Another hidden location can be found if you chose you go around the North Pole. Yes, circumnavigating the pole is considered a valid route. Get far enough north and you'll join the crew or an ice walker. Be sure to get into their good graces, because eventually the walker will crash, and Fogg's health will take a serious hit. You need to keep him alive until you are rescued by members of Qausuittuq, a hidden city of Arctic indigenous peoples. Think kind of like Wakanda from Black Panther, but steampunk and the culture derives from the native peoples of the Arctic. You can explore a bit, but the council will decide you must stay in Qausuittuq forever, because of the whole secrecy thing. Thankfully, you can find an airship hanger, which will take you to either Winnipeg or Gastown (Vancouver).

Obviously, there are many different routes you can take. This creates quite a bit of replay potential. The wide variety of destinations, and the choices they present, also adds to the replay value. If you chose to follow the route of the original novel, the events will be fairly faithful to it, steampunk elements notwithstanding. Well, it will be depending on your choices. That said, there are some slight deviations. In the novel, when Fogg and Passepartout are in India they save a woman named Aodha from sati, aka Hindu wife burning. She joins them on the rest of their journey, and eventually becomes Fogg's love interest. In the game, however, she's the leader of an anti-British rebellion in India. As such, she stays in India.

If you go to Florida, you can encounter Michael Ardan from the novel From the Earth to the Moon also by Verne. You can go from a rocket ride, but if you do that Fogg will be killed, and potentially you too if you make the wrong choices. You can continue the journey alone, and you will win if you return to London. Of course, you'll also have to live with the guilt that Fogg died because of you. So you know, win some, lose some.

You'll encounter Inspector Fix in Singapore and Hong Kong. He'll try to convince you that Fogg is a criminal up to no good. Be careful about meeting him in the Hong Kong opium den, because next thing you know you'll be on a airship bound for Yokohama. Then you'll have to perform at a Japanese circus until Fogg finds you. Though, this is all faithful to the novel. Well, mostly. In the novel, Fogg didn't consider balloon travel to be trustworthy. Ironically, more than a few adaptions of the book have Passepartout and Fogg riding in a balloon on the cover. It is possible that the publishers get it confused with one of Verne's other novels, Five Weeks in a Balloon. Of you return to London via Lisbon you may encounter another British gentleman traveling around the world with his Prussian assistant. It makes for an amusing encounter.

 I'm not the only one who thinks 80 Days is amazing. It has won numerous awards. Frankly, it would be easier to list the awards this game hasn't won. And if you're curious about tips and tricks be sure to check out the game's wikia.

I've played 80 Day many times, and there's still plenty of achievements I'm chasing. This is an absolutely fantastic game and I can't recommend it enough. Download it today, you will be so glad that you did. 80 Days is available for Apple, Android, PC, Nintendo Switch, and is available on Steam.

Well, I think that's enough from me for now. I will see you guys next time.