Dear Journey...

Dear Journey... is a cosy travel-planning game where you take over a travel agency while its directors, Diana and Derek, are away. Each morning, you read letters from travellers describing their moods, hopes and ideal journeys, then use cards to plan trips that meet their needs. Diana also writes with advice and postcards from her travels.

Plan each journey

Each day you draw cards for activities, destinations and helpful extras, then combine them into travel plans. Every journey has a target number to reach, and meeting a traveller’s stated needs helps you reach it: a card that addresses a need counts double, while the right destination can multiply its value. Meet all the needs to make the trip perfect. If your hand does not work, you can ask for fresh cards.

Journeys play out across a map, where the game shows each match, bonus and multiplier in sequence. This lets you see how the trip reached its result. You can also cancel a journey you cannot finish with an apology; regular travellers will not hold it against you.

Grow the agency

Travellers and milestones give you keepsakes. Where you meld each keepsake changes its effect: for example, placing a lucky coin on an activity lets it meet a need it was missing, while placing it on a destination makes its multiplier apply regardless of the region. You can pin agency upgrades to the board, keep your best cards pocketed so they are not included in the daily draw, and tidy away the rest. As your reputation grows, new regions unlock and your desk develops into a well-known agency.

Travellers may return as regulars when you grant their wishes. They sign their letters by name, each with a distinctive way of speaking, and sometimes bring a gift that you can choose to return.

A relaxed pace

There are no timers, disasters or fail states. If a trip falls short, you lose the day and some of its reward, but the traveller’s request stays on your desk for another attempt. You choose which morning letters to take on, and can step away at any time; the ledger saves your place, even in the middle of a letter.

Travellers and destinations

The game includes 15 kinds of traveller and 14 moods, with letters that state what each person hopes for. Wishes include visiting a place they have always wanted to see, ending a trip in a particular region or never leaving one valley. Granting a wish may turn a traveller into a regular.

There are seven regions, ranging from polar research stations to floating markets and highland monasteries. You can begin with one of eight starting profiles across three difficulty seasons, and progress from junior clerk to the name on the door before seeing the agency through to a warm farewell.