The Longest Journey 2: Dreamfall screenshots

Here’s a translation of the article

There are those who release twelve times the same game, with some updates to justify the pressing of CDs and those who take risks and try new ways. With Dreamfall, Funcom is - without contest - in the second category. After the well earned critical success of TLJ, the publisher could have opted for a traditional adventure and find a story trick to bring back April Ryan to the front of the stage. It’s not the case.

Travelling between worlds is not a new idea. Countless novels, movies or games used it to depict imaginary worlds, sometimes marvellous, sometimes disturbing.
The Longest Journey, adventure game released in 2000, used this unceasing travel at the core of its story. Facing every night the same strange dream, the young April Ryan did follow Cortez who lead her to the road of two parallel and antagonistic worlds: Stark, the world of technology portraying a near future and Arcadia, inspired from myths and legends from heroic fantasy. Funcom developers explained that Dreamfall bring back this duality, adding a third world called The Winter, which picture a strange alien universe. But the changes dont stop here “Dreamfall takes place 10 years after TLJ. The story and characters are entirely new but some characters of the old cast make some appearances. Even if the number “2” isn’t attached to the title, Dreamfall is the spiritual successor of TLJ. Fans will find a lot of references which will help them”

The big surprise doesn’t come from those little development of the scenario, but from the type of game Dreamfall is. The conceptors explain it: “Up to this point, we’ve classified the game in the action-adventure category, even if its often used to describe everything and nothing, from the RPG to the pure action game. The core of the game is animated by the characters and everything rotate around them. We can say it’s an adventure game taking place in a highly interactive 3D environment adorned with action sequences like combats, infiltration, climbing …”
But why this choice, a classic adventure wouldn’t have been enough ? “Our goal is to give a maximum of freedom to the player, and the power to interact with the world surrounding him in a lot of differrent way. You will be able to go to any place in the scenery, examin your environment, talk to people, search, fight, climb, jump… a third person view and direct 3D control gave us the possibility to do all of this while rising the number of interaction to break the limits of
the adventure genre.”

Being able to go for a walk, interact with people and object with total freedom, talk or fight, this is an ambitious project. But how will the interface look like. Again, the conceptors of Dreamfall aren’t running short of ideas: “Our approach is to give the player the best possible control of his character. To reach this goal, we’re developing a system using exclusively the mouse. It is not a point&clic game, but we didn’t want to depend on the keyboard because we find it to restrictive. Of course, you can play with the keyboard or a joypad if you want. As for the interactions with the characters and the environment, we’re developing something different from anything we’ve seen before. Something really really exciting and new but we cannot tell you more today. This system use the senses of the characters themselves in order to widen their perception of the world, and so the experience of the player !”

Obviously we still haven’t had the chance to meet the substitute of April Ryan in the flesh and pixels. Fortunately Funcom gave us some informations about this young woman. Here’s what we can reveal: She’s named Zoë Castillo and live in Casablanca (in Stark) with her father. She recently left college and doesn’t know what to do with her life. In her defence, her comfortable life has been completely disrupted. This ordinary girl will find herself at the center of an international conspiration. Something which - like April - is related to dreams.

[brain teaser or fight ?
If there is a magic formula to link all those disparate elements and avoid Dreamfall going into all directions at the same time and excel in none, Funcom seems to find it through the characters of the game. They are those who decide the next set of events, in the long term, by altering the framework of the story, and in a more immediate way, by reacting instantaneously to what happen to them. It seems legitimate, at this point of the development, to ask ourselves what are the respective parts of the action and adventure in the game. " We wanted to be sure the characters can interact with a maximum of flexibility. It means that, facing an ennemy, you have the choice to let the weapons speak, take flight to try to lose him, try to converse or, in other case, to use cunning. In each situation, we tried to offer logical attitudes. But this freedom also have the interest to make the exploration of the differents world more fun. Another important point to note, it’s not a platform game! We can promise you there will be no sequence of jumps limited in time, nor deadly fall. The challenge is to know how you will react, not to know how fast you can push a button!"
That’s all for the action side of the game, but what about the adventure aspect ? Will we be entitled to classcical riddles ? “The word “puzzle” often imply using buttons, lever and all sort of object combination devoid of any sense. Then yes, there will be many times where the player will have to rack one’s brains, but theses riddles will always be linked to a character’s ability or the story. We wanted to avoid at all cost riddles you can find in some games which ask the player to end up at totally abstract conclusions. Some puzzles will be action oriented. For example, you will have to go unnoticed by a guard or climb to a high window. Other difficulties, centered on the intellect, require to use objects and speak to people.”

The good story
Remarkable, Dreamfall is in many respects: in its method of control and its interface, which we still have to see; by the relative freedom it gives to the player to estimate each situation, and to answer by strength or subtlety; by using three parallel worlds (Stark, Arcadia and The Winter) and; also, not the slightest, by the structure of its story.
This one belongs to Zoë Castillo, a young 19 years old heroine, but not only. The player will have the chance to play two others characters. The rest is a matter of linked fates. “The player will be able to change its character at some points in the game, because their lives are intermingled during the adventure. This will also be an opportunity to adopt another point of view to better understand what’s going on. Afterwards, you can even meet a playable character as a non playable character, and vice-versa. Near the end of the game, a memorable scene will confront you to this approach particulary refreshing and new of the characters. And we’re sure it will leave its impression on you!”
What a lot of promise, what a lot of changes ! Dreamfall, if it keeps half of its promise, will be a great adventure. We will come back periodically on this game - with as concrete as possible elements - to talk about the work in progress. For the time being, more than a disillusion or the end of a dream, it seems to be just the beginning.

oh, my loosy translation made it on QT3 :oops:

official site opens with tons of arts, screens and infos


http://www.minstrum.net/screens-tlj2.php
http://www.minstrum.net/art-tlj2.php

:D

I had to buy it four f’in times before I got one copy with all four CDs good. The local EB got tired of me, but on the other hand we did get rid of an entire defective shipment in two days. Lots of people had this problem.

What’s wrong with skanky?

CD #3 was nasty for freezes and crashes. I had imported my copy from Canada about a year before the game hit the states, though, (my copy shows Empire Interactive as the distributor,) so I just toughed it out instead of bothering to try and swap it.

So I played Longest Journey for about 2 hours until the game crashed and I lost half an hour of progress because I didn’t save it. I liked the atmosphere/story, hated the “gameplay” and puzzles. Decided to watch the rest via letsplay, which was awesome decision, since the story was nice and I didn’t have to suffer through the nonsense. And the guy narrating the lets play was fantastic.
Now I am playing Dreamfall, liking it a lot more (no dumb puzzles so far, more engaging gameplay, same quality of writing), and wanted to know what QT3 people thought about it. Found this thread, and immediately got a laugh out of it:

So good :)

Anyway, I am looking forward to playing more Dreamfall and then Chapters.

Really nice thread necro, dude.