5 days with Dreamfall

Ragnar Tornquist just posted the first post in his "DreamFall: Post Mortem" series. Ragnar is the creator of The Longest Journey and it's sequel, Dreamfall.

This is a review I wrote for Just Adventure, that was never actually published. I was paid for the review in the form of a free game, but I think the guy behind the site just spaced (he told me at least once he forgot about it). Ragnor stated that they were hoping Dreamfall would be better recieved than The Longest Journey, which is what prompted me to finally post this. I can't imagine

I had dated my review 5/16/06. All screenshots borrowed from the Dreamfall web site. Read on.

Prequel:

It took about two weeks after its release, but Dreamfall finally showed up in a local store, and I bought it today. I remember buying King's Quest 4 (many years ago) and being completely amazed that the game came on ten 5 ¼ inch floppy disks. Before that, two discs were considered a lot. The code (and graphics) that make up the Dreamfall game come on 6 CDs. I think that makes it the biggest game (in size) I ever played.

I'm a bit trepidacious about this game. First off, the major character of the game is not the star from the previous one. Zoe (a brand new character) takes center stage. April Ryan does make an appearance (as a playable character), but the focus is on Zoe. Second, the first game used tons of dialogue to fill in the back-story and keep things moving forward. It was an Ultima-level of dialog, except with voices. In this one they tried to cut back on that. There are just as many characters, but the dialog is less. Third, they added a combat system. It's impossible to have a combat system that will keep FPS players interested, while also not frustrating the expert adventurers. I can't think of one game that pulled it off successful. Going into this game I know that Ragnor has made three questionable decisions. I'm excited to hear how they feel out.

Installation:

Wow, this is a lot of discs copying to my computer. It took about an hour to run through the install process. An odd thing happened on the way to playing Dreamfall, though. After I clicked the first next to start installing, the DirectX installer popped up. I wondered why that came up (no explanation was given). I checked my current version of directX (using dxdiag) and decided that there was no need to reinstall something I already had ( I was wrong by the way ) and hit cancel. Step through the install and the game won't run. I guess the reason is here. In short, the directX runtime does not include all relevant files, and it's up to people who use these features of DirectX to install them on their own.

I'm wary of downloading files off the Internet, though, and wanted to reinstall the DirectX version included w/ Dreamfall (assuming that should have the correct installers). I pop disc one back in. Choose "repair" my installation. Once again the DirectX install pops up with no explanation. This time, I try to step through it. Unfortunately, it gives me an error and points me to some error logs in the windows directory. The error logs were of no use.

After some trial and error and a completely random error log (not one they told me to look at), I decided to switch my CD drive's letter from D to E; then re-repair the install. That did the trick. Apparently the DirectX install on the Dreamfall disc will only work if the disc is in your D drive. If I were a less advanced user, I never would have figured this out. I switched my CD drive back to E; and I have no idea how this will affect playing dreamfall.

Let me launch the game to make sure it works. [wait] Yep, it works. I have a one complaint about the install process. The install instructions are kept on a readme file on disc 6. No printed install instructions are included in the package. ( The package does include some game instructions, just nothing for the install ). The readme conveniently pops up AFTER you finish the install. Maybe the install instructions would have been useful an hour earlier. I also noticed that the install process installed a PDF manual. I thought this was great until I realized this was an unfinished manual with content missing. They really needed someone in the quality assurance department to test this.

Day 1:

My first day of playing I went through the prologue (which was trivial) and the first two chapters. I'm in the middle of Chapter 3. The controls for this game suck. It easily took me 3-4 hours to get used to them. I'm dealing with them, but am still not happy. I downgraded the image quality from "high" to "medium" before it started to get useable. I haven't experimented with bumping it back up, though. Since I have 4 times the processing power and 2 times the memory, I would have expected the game to run fine in "high" mode. My video card meets (but does not exceed) the minimum requirements and is on the supported list.

The controls consist of a combination of mouse and keyboard. The "point and click" of many adventure games does not exist here. I wish there was a keyboard parallel for every command, but there isn't. Some things need the mouse (and some things need the keyboard). It's really a horrible system. I expect it'd be easier with the Xbox version, though. Instead of using 'w-a-s-d' for my control keys, I started using the arrows keys on my keyboard (next to the numerical keypad). For some reason they appear to be responding differently than the 'w-a-s-d' keys for me and after that I started to get the hang of it.

The prologue is a nice homage to the first game, with Brian Westinghouse making an appearance. I think the prologue only exists to get the player familiar with moving around in the new system (it wasn't successful in that). The game is an interesting mix of 'First Person Shooter" and adventure games. There is combat in this one, but it's easy enough to get used to. You can hit light (left mouse button), hit hard (right mouse button) or block (space bar). Other than practice, I haven't come across much real combat yet. I'm not sure if there will be enough throughout the game to truly get the hang of it.

There was one really cool interface element that I've never seen before. Under normal circumstances you can only interact with objects you are standing right next to. If two objects are close to each other, it gets a might complicated to stand in the right place and select the other one. Dreamfall has something called "focus" which allows you to look at things far away. Click the right mouse button and focus mode starts up. This is a 'blue' line representing Zoe's vision. You can rotate Zoe's sight and the blue line moves with you. When the blue line touches something you can look at, the interaction icon pops up.

The game, thus far, is very linear; more linear than any I've ever played before. Whenever you complete one task, you are told exactly what to do next. Sometimes you get a phone call on your 'mobile' that says "come here / do this". Sometimes Zoë (the main character) says "I should really do this next." Chapter one was like a straight line. I don't think there were any puzzles. You just showed up at the appropriate place and things happened. Chapter 2 had more to offer in the puzzle department, but not by much.

At the end of chapter 2, things start to get interesting. This is where it ties in with the first game. You return to Venice Newport (the main area of the first game) and start to interact with some places and characters from the first game.

The game has an unexpected guest appearance by Samara. You may remember her seen her videotape (and died one week later) in the Ring. Samara has made her fourth (or third?) appearance as I shut down for the night. It's really creepy and is not what I would have expected from this game. Perhaps it wouldn't be creepy with the Ring movies behind it? I'm unsure; we'll see how that plot unfolds. The story is intriguing thus far, but has not yet fully revealed itself. We've only had a small peak on Arcadia (And April), and the excursion was pretty pointless. How will Zoë get to Arcadia if she isn't a shifter? I suppose I'll have to continue playing on.

The story from the first game drew me in despite the constant crashing. The story for the second game is drawing me in despite the flawed interface.

Day 2:

I was finally able to devote some more time to playing Dreamfall. My work schedule has kept me away from the game for almost 5 whole days. I played an hour tonight before going to bed. The controls, once again, took a little getting used to. But, I came up to speed quickly this time. I was able to get through Chapter 3 and am at the start of Chapter 4. Chapter 3 was just a lot of sneaking around. This game reminds a bit of King's Quest 5. KQ5 was the first Sierra adventure game with a point and click interface. They had mastered the typing interface and were making great games. But, when KQ5 hit with a new interface, they were still learning how to work within the limits of that interface. The result was a good story (in the vein of KQ), but not a good game in the way of adventure puzzles. Since Dreamfall uses a 3D style interface, the puzzles need work.

The 'puzzle' that gave me trouble here was that Zoe had to kill a guy before he could warn another guy. I thought stealth would help me get through it without fighting, but I had trouble doing so. The game has bad puzzles for adventurers and bad fighting for FPS.

I really love the story, though. It's great to meet all the characters from the first game. Emma, April's best friend from the first game made an appearance, along with Marcus, the creep from game 1. April disappeared from Stark after the first game. I'm not sure if they got the same voice actors, but they are close enough that I can't tell the difference. At the start of Chapter 4, Zoe travels to "The Winter" and then ends up... well, I don't know where but I assume Arcadia.

Day 3:

Today was a day of almost no progress. I did some experimentation with the video settings. Have you ever tried to walk to the bathroom for some medication while nauseous with a high fever and dizziness? If "effects" are set to 'high,' then the game operates as if you were under that condition. The world spins around at a chunky rate and you can't get a good feel for anything.

I have turned both "effects" and "video" back down to normal. I might try to bump up video to high while keeping effects at normal to see how the system handles that. Keep in mind I have double the RAM and 4 times the processing power of the minimum. My video card is on the approved list (although I only have the minimum memory on my card).

The second reason I didn't make much progress today is that I came across a "puzzle" that stumped me. It was one of those sound puzzles. Play the notes in order. There are two things that hinder me here. Despite being a musician, I don't have a good ear. (It's better than it was, but I don't have perfect pitch by any stretch of the imagination). If Loom didn't have the 'music staff' interface, I never would have been able to get through it. The problem with this sound puzzle is that you don't know what sound you have to repeat. You have 3 sounds to choose from, and there are four sounds in the pattern. That is 81 possible combinations, right? I went through about half of them before referring to Google. It turns out that you hear this four-note symphony earlier in the game. It is during a cut-scene. There is no indication that this sound is something special. The game is full sound and music everywhere (as you'd expect from a game made in the 00s). Why should I pay more particular attention to one sound or another? To make matters more complicated, the sound you initially hear is high pitched and flute-y. The sound you replicate it with is more bassy / orchestral. Same tune, different tone / octave. There are hits and misses; this "puzzle" was a miss.

If they get an opportunity to do a game update; they should add an entry in the mobile after the cutscene. The entry should allow you to re-listen to the initial sound. The first game made use of the journal to provide hints on what to do next all the time. This game does not seem to be utilizing it as much.

It's been a long day; 'morrow I'll do more.

Day 4:

I'm finishing today somewhere in the middle of chapter 8. I've played parts with all three characters, and just finished up a conversation between April (from the previous game) and Kia (new to this one). I had an astounding revelation today. It has not been stated yet, but "Lady Avalane" has the same last name as Kia. I bet April and Kia hook-up. Sorry Charlie! (There were hints that Charlie had a thing for April in both the first game and second).

Today I went through an unbelievably cool sequence when Zoe controls a spider robot. You actually play as the spider Robot. It was wicked awesome. Unfortunately, the sequence that came next was the worst point in the game. April went through a cavern maze. I had no problems with the maze, as I've mapped out many Infocom titles and done all the dungeons from the Ultima series. As far as mazes go, this one was trivial. The problem was that this one was in close quarters, so the camera kept doing close up on the back of April's head, which prevented you from seeing anything else. This made it rather hard to navigate. Especially when trying to avoid the monsters that are also traveling through the cave. That was a bit frustrating.

But not as frustrating as what happened next. There is a scene where Zoe has to run away from two other characters. You don't know exactly where you're running and you don't have time to do it. The good news is that it does a quick save before the sequence starts. The bad news is that you have an unskippable die scene when you get caught. That plus reloading adds 30 seconds or so onto each attempt at getting away. There is a 90-degree turn in your running path. If you don't hit the angle just right you stop on either a mailbox-thing or a tree stump. There is no room for error if you want to escape. It took me a dozen tries before I got it right.

A lot of the parts with April or Kia could easily have been done with cut-scenes and have told the same story. I think giving the opportunity to play these characters through the 'cut scene' adds a tremendous value to the game play. It keeps the player involved and is very well done.

Crow made an appearance (finally). The game does a good job of revisiting the same old haunts / characters, while showing them in a fresh way. I wish Roberta could have revisited Daventry in such a manner (KQ8 doesn't count).

Day 5:

I finally got another few hours with Dreamfall; and completed it. The story unfolded rather nicely between chapter 8 and Chapter 10. Twice I was just blown away, shocked by what I saw happen on-screen in front of my eyes. I was reminded of when Emma was shot in the first game. Never in a hundred years would I have imagined something like that would come in a game.

Switching between characters made for an interesting way to unfold events. When April breaks Zoe out of jail, is just a fantastic use of dual characters, switching back and forth between them where appropriate. I hope that in "The Longest Journey 3" we get to play Crow.

One thing that struck me today is that the game visuals are lacking, when compared to the first one. The first game reveled in creating two visually different (but consistent) worlds, with the neo-industrial stark and the fantasy dream world of Arcadia. Arcadia is still a bright spot, with great impressive landscapes. Stark is just cookie cutter boring.

Unfortunately, the last few chapters were like a walkthrough and devoid of any puzzles. I don't have problems with walking through a maze, but when the maze is a single path from point A to point B it gets kind of boring. I remember the later chapters of the first game moving along very quickly too; maybe it's a by-product of Ragnor's storytelling prowess.

What about the three questionable choices that I spoke about in the beginning of this article? It doesn't bother me in the least that April is not the central character of this game. The story won me over. I didn't even notice that the game had less dialogue / writing. In fact, I might argue that the dialog was about the same just the journal usage was seriously trimmed down. In the first game many events were accompanied by long asides in the journal. This game left that out completely. But, I didn't miss it. And, finally, we have the combat. The combat in this game was a waste of space. I'm sure that was put in there for the console gamers and I expect them to be just as disappointed as I.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. I love the story. I hated the ending and I'm sure you will too. But, it leaves me clamoring for the conclusion.

Buy it