Hell yes.
Talk about being ahead of your time.
Strange. the new RPS interview seems to contradict that.
RPS: There is no combat at all, right?
Tørnquist: There is no traditional combat of any type no, and no button-bashing combat.
Wendelius
Yeah, he also said this back in November:
“Dreamfall Chapters is not point-and-click, no,” Tornquist explained. “We are going to evolve the gameplay style we started in Dreamfall. We’re not going to do,” he paused to laugh, “combat, but it will be a third-person adventure.”
I just found out about this (& of course became a backer within minutes), and I couldn’t be more thrilled about it!
I’m glad GOG & Steam have made the original game more accessible. For a while there it looked like it would go the way of System Shock 2 as a modern OS compatibility nightmare. (Edit: Ha! No sooner do I say it than GOG puts SS2 on their front page in all its glory.)
I would name a firstborn daughter April. That’s my level of excitement.
The Kickstarter for Dreamfall Chapters itself is now fully funded, but it looks like the final stretch goal, called The Longest Journey Home, would be a remake of the original game.
Of all the crowds I keep, this one must be the most interested in a Longest Journey remake.
Hm, I dunno what TLJ Home is but I thought they made it pretty clear in the Reddit AMA that they aren’t really interested in remaking the old games and also don’t have the license for them.
Oh? Well I’d believe that, too. I haven’t any idea what else it might be.
My guess would be that it would allow them to purchase the license from Funcom. But I suppose we’ll see.
The exact quote when asked about remaking TLJ in the future was:
I don’t think so. We would prefer to spend our time telling new stories. Also, Red Thread doesn’t have the rights.
But I guess things could change.
So I’ve pulled my pledge for Dreamfall Chapters.
Since the Kickstarter was announced I felt conflicted. And finally decided I should instead use this money to support interesting new games rather than these unnecessary appeals to my nostalgia.
Here’s the root of my discomfort with Dreamfall Chapters Kickstarter: Reasonably large (282 employee) developer makes an expensive MMO game (The Secret World). Game does badly, company loses money and has to lay off some people. Then several employees set up a new company and license one of original companies properties to make a new sequel. But these people seem to still be employees of the original company, and the ‘license fee’ paid is presumably nominal. And now they’re asking for crowd funding.
How is this not a Funcom development as a tax dodge/fake indie game?
I don’t know that wanting to see another well-written game is just an appeal to nostalgia, but I mostly agree with the rest of your assessment. My motivation is more about wanting to see a good story finished.
In any case, they finally announced what they’re planning for The Longest Journey Home. It’s a 2D point-&-click adventure filling in April’s story between The Longest Journey & Dreamfall (and a bit past that?)
More precisely, Dreamfall Chapters will conclude Zoe’s story as begun in Dreamfall, including themes and gameplay that - while hopefully avoiding Dreamfall’s worst missteps - will be similar to Dreamfall. The Longest Journey Home is intended to be the game that finishes April Ryan’s story, including themes and gameplay that will be similar to The Longest Journey. Thus, they would be interwoven paired narratives, two games per protagonist. I want. I’m already as pledged as I’m going to get, but I want. (That is, Dreamfall Chapters will be Dreamfall 2. The Longest Journey Home would be The Longest Journey 2.)
I don’t think it’s necessary to invoke a conspiracy setup where Funcom is sockpuppeting Red Thread to explain Tornquist consulting on The Secret World (a project he headed, after all) for Funcom, a company that he’s been intimately involved with for almost two decades, while still day to day running this new studio on his own. Certainly he still seems to be on good terms with them, and TLJ is a property he has a large amount of sweat equity in, so I wouldn’t be at all surprised if their licensing arrangement were fairly perfunctory. But it still is going to be a substantial project and even if they were still effectively an arm of Funcom it would make perfect sense for them to Kickstart something like Dreamfall Chapters - a followup to a game that was afaik modestly successful at best, in a genre that’s largely been regarded as a nonstarter for most publishers for years now.
There’s no getting around the fact that backing a Kickstarter is a gamble - I can’t criticize you for not being comfortable with the circumstances, it is your money. As for me, I am fairly certain this is the only way I’m going to get any conclusion to the Longest Journey’s story so, to be honest, I don’t really care if they spent half the money on a long vacation in the Mediterranean so long as the game they produce is a good one. Whether the game is actually any good, well that’s my personal roll of the dice this time around. I got my lucky rabbit’s foot, though.
So, should I back this and pick up Dreamfall on GOG? I played TLJ way back in the day, and recall watching a friend play Dreamfall on Xbox, but basically all I remember about it is some very unpleasant combat sequences.
Is Dreamfall worth playing at all? And will it rekindle my interest in this world if I do?
Yeah, Dreamfall was an interesting experiment. I haven’t played it since it was released but I remember having some weird stealth sequence in a cave that nearly broke me. But I also remember the game being fairly short and easy compared to TLJ, so it might be worth a quick runthrough.
Dreamfall is far from perfect. But there’s more good stuff than wonky stuff. And the good bits are really good. I’d highly recommend playing it.
And if you ever liked the Stark/Arcadia setting, then I think it’ll definitely get you back in the zone.
Resurrecting this thread because apparently this releases tomorrow:
I had no idea this was releasing already. I really enjoyed the first 2 games, didn’t think I’d ever get a resolution to the story. Is anyone here planning on picking this up day one? I’d love to but with Destiny and Mordor on my plate I just don’t have time.
Well since I was in on the Kickstarter, I guess you could say I’ll be picking this up on day one.
Me too – I’m in the Kickstarter. My wife is as excited than I am.