Dreamfall discussion *spoilers*

[Duncan]

Now... as to the death of April. It's hard to understand what is going to happen with that. Is the ending from TLJ still cannon?

I think April not actually being dead is almost as obvious as Westhouse being the one who killed the Dragon.

I'm still not sure how I feel about the three-character system.

It was interesting to see the difference in perspective, but Kian didn't get enough screen time for you to really adjust to him, and most of the time you spent as him you were just hacking away at people you didn't want to kill.

Man, did Kian turned out to be a big load of useless or what? He could only have been in, like, one hour of the game and was so annoying. You knew exactly what his little character arc was going to be before he even showed up, like reading the back of the box you knew what he was going to be. Also I think he's the character the game's lack of facial expressions hurt the most.

I am struggling to quantify what Kian's contribution was, both of his big scenes with April were absurd: the impromptu ethical debate in the middle of the street and his monologue before her "death" -- "Yeah, soldiers are coming to kill everyone in your sanctuary here but hold on, I really want to tell you about my character growth which apparently came out of nowhere, it'll just take an hour." I guess it's implied between this game and TLJ that he and April will get married at some point but I really hope that doesn't happen. He's such a ludicrous character. I think I hate him. Just one more character who can mention "faith" about FIFTY TIMES because that was such an under-represented theme in this game.

Man alive. "Faith". So blatant with the themes, seriously, you don't have to keep bringing it up all the time! Did faith even matter in the end? Was it relevant at all? It felt a lot like having a "theme" for the sake of having a "theme" rather than actually having anything to say about it. And of course her name turns out to be Faith, like Lord of the Flies didn't need a kid called "Humans Are Inherently Evil".

Resolving the plot seems to be the only time the writing isn't incredibly straightforward. Zoe talking almost immediately about how she has no goals and no direction in life, man. Not so subtle with the character development. What game has this dialogue?

"You're stuck, Zoe."

"Yes, I'm stuck here in Arcadia."

"No, stuck in life."

THANK YOU.

It was worth playing for the characters and the story elements, but I didn't feel any fulfillment at the end. I didn't really feel that I accomplished much, and everyone that I liked ended up pretty much screwed over in the end.

I would play another TLJ game, but I know that it’ll take forever for them to release… and I want the rest of the story.

Sometimes I like the ending and sometimes I think it's ridiculous. I think if the last hour were the season finale to a TV show it would rock, but there you know you only have to wait a few months. It's totally set-up for the next game, which I guess is fine, because now I really want to play the next game, but come on, give me a little more than that. The plot was obscure enough and I still don't fully understand it, but the mass cliffhangers... Reza is a Cylon? Where did that come from? You know what, I'm actually fine with the cliffhangers. I just really wish there had been some pay-off in this game, make me feel like I learned something, like I did something. Like, come on, show Westhouse killing the Dragon. We all know it's him. I guess if he's the Prophet you might want to save that reveal but it's pretty clear he's a bad dude. Also I honestly can't remember what the Prophet's deal was at all, or if we even learned that.

The thing with Faith and Zoe at the end is the only conclusion there is -- at least I THINK it's a conclusion -- and I still don't know what happened there. It's the most confusing scene in the game! Zoe and Faith are sisters, OKAY, also Helena is their mother, and Faith was visited by "the white lady", which is cocaine, and apparently something bad is happening in Arcadia at the end which is...? And there's not even any payoff to "save April Ryan" which -- that was the whole point! How did I save her exactly? And if that's supposed to relate to her "death", then what did Zoe do to influence that in ANY way? Yeah. There's a difference between teasing the next installment and thoroughly confusing everyone. Tell us something, seriously, other than that Zoe is stuck in life and that the game is about faith. Dreamfall has two positions, "needlessly obvious" and "arbitrarily obscure".

I actually really liked seeing Cortez at the end there, and surprised that I recognised him immediately, given that I played TLJ six years ago, forgot entirely about his relationship to Westhouse and thus why he would be around in the thirties, he has a different voice, and they called him "Chavez".

Anyway, there's no way April is dead.

[netmonkey]

I was disappointed with the voice of Chavez. I loved the voice in the original game; it was so mystical and the accent was so romantisized; (all my years of great english with a small accent could have been thrown out the window when I could have had a thick accent that everone thought was h4wt). I dunno why they didn't bring the same guy back just for those two lines.

And TLJ and Dreamfall are the same in over the top verbose and redundant dialog. I think it's nice that there is a lot of dialog, but I think that it's much better if they just mentioned things like once or twice and moved on. I know that the dialog is trying to be real, but real life isn't really dramatic. I particually remember the conversations with liv where Zoe says something important and then she says "oh by the way, I'm having a party...". It kind of kills it.

Grumpy kind of mentions it in this article about voice acting and timing.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I don't believe that April is dead. (I was just making sure everyone else agreed.)

I don't feel that the ending qualifies as a cliff hanger. All of the major characters have been, as far as this story shows us, completely brought down by your in-game actions.

It's not even a question of April, Zoe, and Kian... it's everyone that you met in the game that you cared about except for Crow and Theoretically Blind Bob.

I would have liked the game to let me figure out some of the puzzles for myself.

"I could open this window if I had a handle!"

"I know someone who sells potions!"

"I know someone who knows someone who knows someone who knows someone who has the freaking spice mix!"

I guess that's my problem. The ending, for me, is plays out like the damned spice delivery. A lot of running back and forth for very little actual information.

[Shminty]

Something Moo said about Faith's drawings got me trying to remember all the child-like drawings from TLJ (I think April kept some in a small round box in her wardrobe; I even looked for the box in Dreamfall.) And were there drawings either on the main menu or special features menu in TLJ? I wish I could play TLJ again right now but my CD fractured in my drive oh so long ago.

Are they actually the same drawings?

[netmonkey]

No, the drawings by Faith seem to be a connection between the past, present, and future with zoe dressed in her typical clothes as well as the black house.

The drawings by april ryan come from images in her dreams about Arcadia, and they also represent past, present and future, as some represents april's journey that is to come (since she was a girl when she drew them).

They really need to go over the time stuff on the series, it's probably one of the most interesting things, and I'm sure it all has to do with the Storytime.

[Shminty]

ysbreker:

But as soon as you're in a conversation it just irritates me no end that there is no facial expression other than a flapping mouth and some rolling eyes. If only the voice acting wasn't so liveless I'd might have overlooked all this.

Just a quick note on this; I think after playing Half Life 2 and experiencing the complex rigging of the characters for animation it really does set a new level of immersion that you might not forgive other games for not achieving [i remember wanting every action game after Hitman to use ragdoll physics]

Just today I revisited Outcast (an often overlooked title) because I was reminded of how impressed I was with the animation all the way back in 1999 (almost same time as TLJ!) Its a simmilar situation in which you have long sequences of dialogue between characters within a complex story arc.

So, given the importance of story and dialogue in TLJ series maybe the dev team will expand on the middleware engine they used to include more complex animation rigging.

Anyway, I managed to suspend my disbelief long enough to be enthralled in a cleverly written story. Which leads me onto;

How would someone get to The Storytime? Brian gets there with the help of some monks (which was probably intentional.) Zoe seems to just appear, after her out of body experience as I would imagine Faith could have done. So if both "magic" and "science" can open up the Storytime from Stark perhaps the same could be done from Arcadia? Check out the top of the manual on p18 (credits.) Looks like a man with a sword stepping away from the Storytime guy. It may be someone from Arcadia (not to mention any obvious names.) Or maybe its just nothing.

Was there any mention of the storytime in TLJ? Perhaps the pro-/epilogue with Lady Alvane was the storytime (the title:threads might be a very weak clue) and the reunification of the worlds may include this realm.

Whatever else happens, it looks like things will come full circle back to Lady Alvane, Crow and the world they live in (which just happens to be accessible via a strange door near the fringe.)

Just out of interest, I wonder what part pseudo-Reza could play in the second sequel because surely there's nothing left for him to do (unless Zoe's dad knows something of interest! He is after all in Biotech)

[NoodleNeko]

ysbreker:

Just a quick note on this; I think after playing Half Life 2 and experiencing the complex rigging of the characters for animation it really does set a new level of immersion that you might not forgive other games for not achieving [i remember wanting every action game after Hitman to use ragdoll physics]

Just today I revisited Outcast (an often overlooked title) because I was reminded of how impressed I was with the animation all the way back in 1999 (almost same time as TLJ!) Its a simmilar situation in which you have long sequences of dialogue between characters within a complex story arc.

So, given the importance of story and dialogue in TLJ series maybe the dev team will expand on the middleware engine they used to include more complex animation rigging.

Anyway, I managed to suspend my disbelief long enough to be enthralled in a cleverly written story. Which leads me onto;

How would someone get to The Storytime? Brian gets there with the help of some monks (which was probably intentional.) Zoe seems to just appear, after her out of body experience as I would imagine Faith could have done. So if both "magic" and "science" can open up the Storytime from Stark perhaps the same could be done from Arcadia? Check out the top of the manual on p18 (credits.) Looks like a man with a sword stepping away from the Storytime guy. It may be someone from Arcadia (not to mention any obvious names.) Or maybe its just nothing.

Was there any mention of the storytime in TLJ? Perhaps the pro-/epilogue with Lady Alvane was the storytime (the title:threads might be a very weak clue) and the reunification of the worlds may include this realm.

Whatever else happens, it looks like things will come full circle back to Lady Alvane, Crow and the world they live in (which just happens to be accessible via a strange door near the fringe.)

Just out of interest, I wonder what part pseudo-Reza could play in the second sequel because surely there's nothing left for him to do (unless Zoe's dad knows something of interest! He is after all in Biotech)

I'm guessing the image you're talking about is this one:

http://www.minstrum.net/concept_art/dreamfall_124.jpg

This is one of the man from the dreaming world:

http://www.minstrum.net/concept_art/dreamfall_129.jpg

The one in the back does look similar to the man you see in this dreaming world, but the outfit is a little different. It may just be a random costume design. However, I do see your point.

PS. Is anyone here willing to help a fanfiction writer with a little brainstorming?

[Flægg]

This game gave me the reason why I still look foundly back at the old point and click adventures: Double klicking to hike over long walk/jogging scenes to carry your hero/heroinne back and fourth four five times, because she seems to stupid to understand that the mysterious soup-lady has more to serve than just a warm meal to beggars.

I just hate how they seem to cram 4 or 5 large scenes for puzzles that before only needed 1 or 2. You just end up going back and forth, resenting the greatness (which you first though was pretty nice) of the new building.

It could actually be interesting if the places were bigger, with perhaps the possibility to get lost? but no, you know what were is, and by the third carry-job, you also have gotten all those injokes, and has gotten board of them...

And as some other has stated before... The ending gives wery little more than the beginning. The only thing I got was understanding of the troubles at hand, and not solution to them, but perhaps opening of them. Perphaps that is the silly talk about ending being beginning and all that...

I'm really left caring less and less about the problem that arise at the end. As all the characters I started to get interested in just slowly crawled into their own missery, or just blatently ignored it without reason, I just feel that these people just went empty. And since the world also seems so shallow, and empty why should I care about someone mindcontrolling them all perhaps taking lifes, destroying both worlds in the process?

Then again, I only played dreamfall and not the longest journey. perhaps I've missed a big part there.

I thought the game was fun though. A great exploration at the start, but it just got less and less deep towards the end, and I got less bothered about it. Did Zoe find her friend at the end? In a way I wonder why she went after him at all, as he seemed less and less important, and his papers more and more important.

[Shminty]

I'd like to see how Ragnar uses the 'Tibetan monks' story-telling tool in the next game. We can't forget about them now can we? If they can send one person they could send another albeit perhaps if the order/knowledge to do so exists a few hundred years later. Anyone for getting back in touch with Zoe in this way?

Wish I worked with Mr. Tornquist.

PS Thanks to netmonkey for answering so quickly [and with pictures!]

[schepton]

I just beat Dreamfall but sadly never played the original.....

Can someone summarize the plot and characters, or link me somewhere please?

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I just beat Dreamfall but sadly never played the original.....

Can someone summarize the plot and characters, or link me somewhere please?

Buy a copy online. It is a much better game. It's worth playing as opposed to having someone give you the jist of it.

[elmuerte]

yeah.. TJL is worth p(l)aying (for)

[dnatrance]

now I know everyone is saying that Westhouse is the one that went after the white dragon, but if I remember right, he pointed April to the white dragon in the library????

Also, he mentioned he was privileged enough to go there, and saw the white dragon there???? so what does that mean exactly..

Then when he goes there with Zoe, he acted like he had never been there and like he never met the white dragon.... I totally dont get this

I know someone will come back and say he used Zoe to find the Dark People, but why didnt he go with April?

The whole Westhouse thing totally doesnt make any sense, but there is something shady with his character

What role exactly does the white dragon have? They portreyed her as godlike, only fearing the one that that she could not explain, but was intrigued with Zoe for not actually really being there.

I too also thought that the white dragon was attracted to Westhouse... then I thought??? goosebumps???? think about that for a minute. obviously she got a chill down her spine, not a hot flash!

They never really touched on Zoe's background, but I do think Helena is Zoe's birth mother. Possibly she gave Zoe up for adoption.. she mentioned earlier in the game that her last name sounded familiar, but brushed it off as coincidence. I Helena didnt really realize at first that this was her real daughter, also if she was really one of the bad guys, she had a bug on zoe the whole time, I think she would have stopped all of this a long time ago.

Also what happened to the guy from Japan???? I mean they got all intimate and everything, and even said he was going to those coordinates in russia. Not even a single mention of him. Seeing how Zoe got the datacube and everything being perfectly intact he never made it there

Finally, who is that guy in the end???? it wasnt his turn for the story, it was hers??? also he was saying she had to hurry up??? what exactly for?

bah thats enough to stir the pot for now

[Aussie Ben]

Well....I don't really have that much to say about Dreamfall, to be honest, except that I enjoyed it very much. Someone said that due to its ultra-simplistic puzzles it was more like reading a book than playing a game, and I certainly agree with this - but I hardly think that this was a problem. I enjoyed easily being able to go with the flow of the story, and watch the progression as it rolled along, faster, and faster, swallowing up everyone and everything in its way, kind of like a snowball.

The bits I didn't like were the fighting (horribly clunky) and that stupid bit with April where there's those statues and running around avoiding a blue monster guard so that you can open a door and continue to follow the prophet. I'm no good at stealth. Interestingly, although I didn't like the fighting, I did like that it gave you multiple options of solving certain puzzles. For example, when in Victory Hotel, you can storm into the lounge room and bluff your way through, or fight. What I did though, was set off the pizza machine straight away and hid behind the door when the guy came in to check it. Then I snuck off upstairs.

There were other situations where I know that I avoided combat, too. Like the woman waiting at the WATI elevators. You could sneak up behind her and knock her out cold, but what I did was just walk up to her and talk to her. She said "Are you new?", so I went along with that, and we ended up taking the elevator together and having a hilariously awkward conversation during the cutscene.

I also loved that Roper Clacks popped up. I couldn't help laughing when April first looked at him and thought "Why am I suddenly thinking of moving stairs?". And he talks about how he had to learn advanced triginometry to escape the calculator. And then found a self-help group for world domination addicts. Classic.

And sure, I'm as eager as everyone else to find out what happens next, but there's really nothing I can do in the meantime, so I guess I'll have to wait.

...okay, so maybe I did have something to say about Dreamfall, after all.

[General Fuzzy McBitty]

I felt that it was too short.

I very much doubt that I could go through the original again, knowing the answers to most of the puzzles, in the amount of time that I finished Dreamfall.

[MrHoatzin]

This game did not need to be an adventure game. It didn't need to be a game, but more importantly it didn't need to be an adventure. It would've been so much better if it had some Beyond Good and Evil light platforming gameplay (oh, man that would've been so sweet), or something more Thiefy, again very apt. Oh, god, I was so disappointed. I blame Randy and his vocal enclave of fundamentalists.

The fact that this time around all the characters were zoomed in on in conversations didn't really do much good for the overal cinematic feel either. When the camera is far away, like in the previous game, you can excuse the total lack of body language and emotiveness because of your relative distant vantage point, you can fill in the blanks based on the delivery of lines... but this was frighteningly flat in places. It was like a stiffly-acted, badly edited film. Badly edited because the game in this "game" is running in the streets between story nodes, something that would've been mostly cut out and implied by any proficient editor.

For some reason I cannot force myself to say outright that it is just an awful game, because there is this great, transcendental feeling of disappointment buffering the outright dismissal of the whole experience. Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy I just tossed out without a blink because it was total shit, but this... just... ;( What have you done, Ragnar?! I believed in you! So much was wasted!

[Duncan]

It was like a stiffly-acted, badly edited film. Badly edited because the game in this "game" is running in the streets between story nodes, something that would've been mostly cut out and implied by any proficient editor.

Absolutely, and actually I think what passes for gameplay in Dreamfall would have been cut out of any other game. Take a random half-hour from Dreamfall and chances are good that all the player will get to do is run from one end of the map to the other. This game was in development for how many years, with how many people on staff, and this never set off any alarms?

incidentally, here is the Dreamfall drinking game suicide by alcohol poisoning game:

1. take a drink for every minute that passes without you having to do anything

2. take a drink every time the word 'faith' is used

And obviously it doesn't help that when the gameplay gets more complex -- which is what, like five or six times -- it's really not very good at all. That ogre cave bit is terrible.

Dreamfall is a couple of edits away from being the ultimate embodiment of narratology. I mean, you can actually refer to the "gameplay sections" of Dreamfall without irony. I'm a guy who cares about writing -- maybe not more than gameplay, but probably more than a lot of gamers do -- and the format still doesn't really work for me. I hated Fahrenheit, but even that, with all its "interactive cinema" pretensions, still thought gameplay was important. The solution, the DDR stuff, was lame, but still. Character movement and intermittent, overlong stealth sequences, that's gameplay now? Dreamfall could have been a book or a TV miniseries or whatever and nearly every thread on the internet about it would be exactly the same.

Dreamfall is so bad at being a game. Take out all the puzzles from The Longest Journey and it's the same thing. And I still can't say I hated it, even though I think there were major failures on both narrative and gameplay levels. It's definitely disappointment more than anything.

[Moosferatu]

Dreamfall could have been a book or a TV miniseries or whatever and nearly every thread on the internet about it would be exactly the same.

hmm... now that I think about it some more you've got a point. I still really enjoyed the game my first time through (my second was a little boring), but maybe Ragnar should try to get into the tv industry. I doubt he will, but, you're right, at present his games would probably work better as miniseries. Hopefully there will be more game to his next game.

[yodahome]

So... what are your thoughts on Dreamfall?

[..]

The second thing is probably the thing that bugs me the most about the game because I feel like the answer is there but I just don't see it -- how did Zoe save April? No, I don't mean because April "died". What I don't understand is what Zoe had to do with anything. I somehow fail to see how she had any impact on either April's character or the situation leading up to April's "death". Does anyone get this?

Hi!

I don't know if anybody else already had this idea, i only read the first and the last page of this thread, but...

I guess, April has been saved by Zoe in a more metaphoric sense. Actually she didn't want to become involved, didn't want to help Zoe when she first appears in Arcadia. But Zoe keeps coming back and I guess it's rather obvious that it has an impact on April and her view of things over time. It's pretty much about purpose as somebody here has already pointed out. So while we don't know for sure what happened to April it seems, that Zoe mere presence changed her and (although she is told by the guardian that she is not to become involved) made her re-think her idea of her future and that's why she (April) ultimately decides to help and save her (Zoe). This really changes April's character and brings her back into the story which makes the following even more disturbing. I also believe that the meeting with the guardian has parallels to the famous Matrix movie, when Neo visits the oracle and is told that he is not the One. I believe it's kind of a deceit-with-purpose.

I have to say I really loved the game. I've been studying (in a scientific sense of the word) 'interactive storytelling' for some time and it's really hard to tell a story and make a game out of it without cutting short on at least one of the two halves which means making it too much a game (like HL2) or too much a(n) -interactive- movie. The story is really great, would be a great movie but it's also embedded in a really fascinating interactive world. I would go with some of the inquiries like the movement of the characters could have been more fluent (especially the facial animation) and that there are many scenes during which you feel like watching a movie but all-in-all the unique story doesn't get hurt too much by it and that's most important to me. And you always feel involved/immersed.

About the ending, yes it's very, v e r y open. I really couldn't believe at first that the game was -already- over. So many question remained. But I guess in a way that is very brave as well and it's as far from hollywood stereotypes as you can get. I'll definitely want to play the next sequel.

A common problem with interactive stories is that there are not really common tools in computer games atm to tell stories with. It's like with movies in the 1920s and 30s when they were mostly just filming stage plays because that's what the people knew about. And accordingly today's game developers use techniques from movies, novels etc. to tell stories in interactive software because there are no media-specific tools yet. Therefore we have a lot of non-interactive sequences in story-driven games which is not such a good thing as many of you pointed out. But they will develop (just look how the language of film is still changing after almost 100 years). So I guess we'll keep seeing experiments with the -still very new- kind of media combined with familiar techniques. But for the time being I really think games like Dreamfall prove that it's actually possible to tell great, in-depth stories with a computer game and that it's worth the effort.

[nightwalker840]

well whoever has played and finished this game ,,, will Definitely be waiting for its sequel ,,, and this time they ought not to release it after a long gap of time ,,,

[elmuerte]

no I won't

[RobotronOmega]

This might be just a stupid hunch, but maybe Zoe "saved" April by allowing her and Kian to meet. After all, if it weren't for Zoe being at Friar's Keep, April and Kian would have never had their conversation that practically converted Kian on the spot. Or, at least, that's what we have to believe since Ragnar and Co. left out the two or so hours of gameplay that could have been used to let us witness Kian wandering around and seeing the problems his people were causing first hand. I have a feeling that if Kian had killed her, she would be D-E-A-D dead and not just "supposedly" dead like she is. Just a thought.

Also, am I the only one who thought that the Minister or whatever in the Tower looked a whole lot like that other lady in charge of the project for WATIcorp? And how they both seemed to be estranged from their bosses in some form? (Kian is sent without consulting the Minister, Petes gets killed by his own "pets" led by the other) It would seem that someone was using both of these projects for their own ends, perhaps to unleash the Undreaming?

[Archer28]

Not a bad hypothesis Robotron. The "save April" issue is one of the main issues I've been grappling with. I agree that Kian would have done a much better job killing her if he hadn't had that rediculously abrupt change of heart (he must be the most impressionable person ever), but I think it's more than that. I'll get to my theory in a second.

Someone pointed out on a message board that all the arcadia stuff could be basically taken out of the game and the whole story in stark would stay in tact. So that being said, why was it important for Zoe to go to Arcadia? The only one that seems to know the answer to that is the white dragon.

She was the one that felt april needed saving, and she was the one that managed to find a person (faith) who could recruit Zoe to come to Arcadia. What angle is she playing? Any speculation on her ultimate goal?

Now my theory on how Zoe saved April: Zoe sent april on a journey where she refound Crow and found out she could still shift. I think she opened a shift to safety (back to Stark? I can imagine a scene where Emma finds April in a hospital) which she couldn't do if Zoe hadn't sent her to meet the white dragon.

[spinn]

Also, am I the only one who thought that the Minister or whatever in the Tower looked a whole lot like that other lady in charge of the project for WATIcorp? And how they both seemed to be estranged from their bosses in some form? (Kian is sent without consulting the Minister, Petes gets killed by his own "pets" led by the other) It would seem that someone was using both of these projects for their own ends, perhaps to unleash the Undreaming?

I noticed this as well. I think both the blond lady in charge at Waticorp and the Priestress in Arcadia are the same person. The lady in Waticorp could easily be using the device to move between Stark and Arcadia. Even enough Morpheus, one can easily have full control of the dream. Other than shifting, dream is also the other way to travel between the two worlds.

----

On a different note ... is Faith really dead? She was stuck in "Winters", neither in Arcadia or in Stark. When you are in a dream and you fall asleep, where do you go? If your body is still alive you go back to your body, but if the body isnt there do you end up going else where? Like Zoe said at the end, you are never truly dead if you are dreaming.