In-depth endgame tutorial [BEST ENDING]

Overview

What is the point of this tutorial?All of the walkthrough guides out there are not including many key details about getting the endgame achievements. I had a lot of trouble filtering unnecessary informations and searching the web for additional tips.Now, when I have collected 25 achievements and experienced the best ending I would like to gather all the information in one place.All potential spoilers will be hidden and I won’t show You how “End of The Longing” looks like.I assume that at the stage of reading this guide You already know the basics of the game, You made a physical paper map of the caves and marked all the location where You need to wait for something to happened.

1. Birthday (6.1%)

I have no clue why is this achievement ignored by almost 94% of the playerbase.
To obtain it You have to be in game while the timer passes 035:00:00:00.

There is nothing to worry about if You miss Shade’s birthday and Your timer is below that value.
All You have to do then is visit white crystal waterfall cave. The lake will be drained and You will be able to gather 5 lapis lazuli from it.
Lapis can be used to make a fire that is going to fill Shade’s home with blue mist. This will cause time to go backwards for 60 real life seconds. Lapis will not disappear after using it.
To reach day 35 You will have to read any book backwards constantly standing up and relighting a fireplace. (one page = 1 hour)

Moby D!ck will be great for that purpose!
(Yes. Steam is censoring word “D!ck” in “Moby ♥♥♥♥”)

Additionally You should place a visit to the white crystal waterfall cave exactly at 035:00:00:00 to gather one of three large crystals that will be necessary in the future.
Make Your way there a few minutes before the midnight and stand in the middle of the lake just under the biggest waterfall. At 00:00 start pressing RMB until You will get the “Shade’s birthday gift”.

2. Neverending Notebook (8.4%)

It was the most stunning achievement for me personaly.

The Neverending Notebook is of course a book that can be found.. basicly anywhere. The Longing wikia guides You to

Find the Neverending Notebook either in The Library, Hall of Eternity, or the Secret Tower

but mine was lying right in the central pillar hallway.
I belive that it can spawn randomly in front of You and it will be doing that unless You will collect it.

I’ve stolen this screen from The Longing Fandom Wikia!

Just visit all this places and grab any piece of written art You encounter. When You finally obtain neverending notebook the Shade will immediately inform You about it.

Get back to Shade’s home and read the neverending book. (By Yourself!)
(It is just a clever answear to “My dream would be to find a book that never ends.”)
Close the game.
Press win+e and search for Your game folder.
Go to “The Longing_DataStreamingAssetsbooks_plaintext” where You can see all books .txt files. Open one named “notebook” and just be creative!
You have to type something or paste basicly any text into it.

When You done press ctrl+s and reopen the game. The achievement should pop up right away.

3. The Cave (14.0%)

This one is pretty straightforward. You get this achievement for visiting every part of the map.
Most of the people obtain it by entering the Secret Tower.

You will get this achievement following rest of the guide.

4. Becoming & Leaving Darkness (34.2% & 20.9%)

After finding The Cliff where You can commit suicide turn back pointing Your mouse upwards. You should encounter a staircase hidding in the dark that will lead You to another pair of yellow eyes.

Friendly reminder 1: If You don’t know where The Cliff is, You should deeply explore top parts of the cave and use help of “Your friend”.
Friendly reminder 2: Make sure You have unlocked the clue about the darkness from “The face”.

Do not get close to this creature because You will be teleported way back to Your home.
You have to stay still for a little while until the Shade will sit on the ground and open dialogue box with himself asking philosophical questions.
Pay attention to the answears and select ones that are pushing Shade to lose faith in the king. The dialog will end with words “become darkness” (or something like that, I don’t remember). Then You will get an achievement.

You can try this multiple times so there is no need to worry.

After successful reflection you will be able to right-click ‘close your eyes’.
When Your own eyes dissapear in dark HOLD Your LMB towards the creature. Shade will open his eyes again by himself and the “Angst” will be gone.

Continue Your way to the left until You will get near the surface where You can find last two pieces of wood. Then the Shade comment “I live the darkness behind me” and the achievement will pop up.

5. Secret Tower (17.1%)

Make sure You have been near the surface before (Leaving darkness achievement)
Obtain five sulfur from the sulfur cave and use it in Shade’s home fireplace to start a fire. Our hero will walk out of the room looking for a fresh air to breath. He will then auto-walk to the entrance of the tower.

You can found here several books on the bookshelf, one large crystal and a silver key on the roof.
Last two items will be necessary to complete the game best way possible.

Try to reach Secret Tower a few minutes before XXX:21:00:00 (where X mean any number) by reading books or using “lapis lazuli time travel” I’ve explained in “1. Birthday”.
At XXX:21:00:00 the ‘stork event’ will start and after 10 minutes the bird will land in the nest making the secret door key fall on the ground. Remember to stay in game this whole time.

6. Secret door

Secret key probably open some secret door..
Go to the map room and investigate it paying attention to places marked on screenshot below.

I’ve stolen this .jpg from this thread: [link]]

Most of the walkthrough guides are ignoring 3 of 7 entrances.
One of them will be odd, You will notice the handle and bright wood color. This is the next secret door position.

I’m not an owner of this video and I’m sharing it with You only to show how entering the secret room looks like.

Secret door will appear exactly at XXX:00:00:00 and You should be there a few minutes before it happened. Enter the door immediately and grab everything from the little cave behind them.
Try to escape this place before the entrance disappears again at XXX:00:01:00.
I was 2 seconds late..

Can’t make it, can’t make it, the sh!t’s stuck!
Outta my way son!
DOOR STUCK!
DOOR STUCK!
Please! I beg you!

I was able to change my pc calendar and exit the room right after it happen, although I’ve read that the game can punish You for doing that and reset all your progress so be aware of that.
The safest option is to be patient and wait almost 24 real-time hours until the clock reach 00:00 again.

7. End of The Longing (19,9%)

Yeey! If You done everything correctly You should now have 3 large colorful crystals. Grab and place them on top of each other creating bright “miracle” portal.
Entering the white void will force the game to end and it will be the most beautiful end of The Longing.

You will not be able to continue the game after beating it so make sure that You have collected remaining 24 achievements before!

8. Still having troubles completing the game?

Send me a private message or leave Your comment under this thread. I’ll answer You any additional questions.

Many parts of this walkthrough guide may not be well-edited at this point. I’m going to work on it for a few days correcting typos and uploading more screenshots.

If You are also an experienced The Longing player and You want to add something extra to this text please send me a message. I will include Your changes and add You as a co-author.

Cheers!

Change log

23/11/2020 – I’ve edited “Secret door escape” part to aware you about cheating penalty.
24/11/2020 – “Post scriptum” section was renamed and expanded.
30/11/2020 – I’ve removed unnecessary informations from “6. Secret door” (and corrected a few typos I’ve missed before).
01/12/2020 – All words addressed to You now begin with a capital letter only to make You feel special! <3
10/12/2020 – Typos typos typos