Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, winner of multiple E3 awards as the best game in its genre, is the continuation of a saga that began with the award-winning The Longest Journey. In Dreamfall, players are taken on an epic journey of exploration and adventure as they venture through a thrilling and emotional storyline. Dreamfall features a fully interactive world where beautiful music, stunning graphics, fascinating characters and unparalleled gameplay variety promises to bring the adventure genre into a new era. Prepare for a spiritual, fantastic and powerful gaming experience.

Features:

• Unparalleled Gameplay Variety —Use your brains or your brawn; sneak, fight or talk your way through the many challenges the game offers. Be polite or rude, threaten or sweet talk; in Dreamfall you make the choice, resulting in a game where you never quite know what to expect next.
• Three Playable Characters – Experience the story from three separate perspectives, and learn how their destinies blend together in an epic finale. Each character has unique abilities and world views, giving you constant gameplay variations.
• Three Worlds - Dreamfall spans three beautifully realized worlds, multiple chapters and a stunning amount of detailed locations. Travel across a futuristic version of our earth, journey into a magical fantasy realm and unravel the mysteries of the Winter.
• Unique World Interaction – Bridging the gap between the classic point and click adventure game, where you could click on any given point at the screen, and the action adventure, where you need to move up to an object to interact with it, Dreamfall intoduces the brand new focus field feature. In this easy-to-use context-sensitive interface you can scan your entire visible environment as seen by the characters, and use it to get information on far away objects, as well as triggering remote gameplay opportunities.
• Mature “Thriller”-type Storyline – Dreamfall delivers a mature and compelling storyline that mixes the futuristic, fantastic and spiritual with a tale of murder, deceit and a conspiracy threatening our very existence. Bringing the classic adventure game into the world of the modern action game, Dreamfall delivers a rare and special story experience.
• Stunning Sounds and Soundtrack: Listen to an emotional and epic soundtrack in 7.1 surround. Hear gripping voices as recorded by more than 50 professional actors, and enjoy soundscapes bringing players to the edge of their seats.
• A game for everyone: 50% of the players of the original The Longest Journey were women. With its cinematic approach, believable characters, mature storyline and easy-to-grasp interface, Dreamfall is a game that any teenager or adult can pick up and enjoy, regardless of their gaming background.

GCM:	Thank you for your time! Please get us started by introducing yourself and telling us about the team behind Dreamfall.
Ragnar Tørnquist:	My name is Ragnar Tørnquist, and I’m the Game Director of Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. The team behind the game includes people who’ve worked on Dreamfall’s prequel, The Longest Journey, and Anarchy Online, plus a lot of extremely talented new people who were hired to work on this game.

GCM:	Creating the sequel to what many consider to be the “best adventure game of all time” must certainly come with a lot of pressure. What were some mandates the design team set forth when undertaking the project?
Ragnar Tørnquist:	Our largely self-imposed mandates have been to stay true to what people loved about The Longest Journey, to tell a captivating story, and to provide a varied and exciting gameplay experience. It’s definitely not been an easy task combining those three, and the expectations are running very high, but we appreciate a good challenge!

GCM:	Dreamfall promises some impressive open-ended gameplay. Do all paths lead to the same conclusion or will there be multiple endings based on our actions?
Ragnar Tørnquist:	There’s only one ending. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of multiple endings, and with a story as complex and deep as Dreamfall’s, it’s doubly important to bring everyone to the same point in the end. But actions taken – or not taken – in the beginning of the game do have repercussions in the end, so while the ending plays out the same way for everyone, there are definitely subtle variations.

GCM:	Three characters, three viewpoints, and three skill sets is a bold concept for an adventure game of this scale. Does the game dictate who you will be playing and when, or is this a player choice?
Ragnar Tørnquist:	The game – or more correctly, the story – dictates when and where you play the different characters. We briefly toyed with the idea of giving players some leeway to switch, but I think it would have just ended up being confusing. The way it is now, the switching between different characters is a central part of how the story is told, and it’s very effective.

GCM:

Adventure games often fall into the rut of “item collection and manipulation” or even worse, “explore all dialogue tree branches”. How will Dreamfall put a fresh spin on these adventure game clichés and what new elements will be added to make this the “next generation of adventure games”?

Ragnar Tørnquist:

Item collection is definitely kept to a minimum, and all dialogue branches don’t have to be explored – not unless the player wants to. What Dreamfall does differently is mix ‘traditional’ adventure gameplay – like exploration, conversations, and puzzle-solving – with stealth, combat, mini-games, quests, and so on. The fresh spin is simply in the enormous variety of gameplay, and the choices you have in how to approach any given situation. There’s often more than one solution, and the game lets you experiment.

GCM:

There were some complaints about “too much listening to dialogue and not enough playing the game” in The Longest Journey. What steps are being taken so Dreamfall offers a better balance of gameplay and narrative?

Ragnar Tørnquist:

First off, dialogues are a lot more interesting in Dreamfall than they were in The Longest Journey. Our characters are a lot more detailed, there are much better animations, facial expressions, and lip-synch, we have dramatic camera angles, special effects, and lots more – all of these add up to more dynamic and exciting conversations. Secondly, while there are more speaking characters in Dreamfall, there’s less dialogue in total, and players are less likely to spend 15-20 minutes talking to one character. I think the balance between playing and watching/listening is pretty good. There are sections where you do a lot of talking, and sections where you don’t talk to anyone for more than an hour.

GCM:

The Longest Journey offered one of the better adventure game interfaces of its time; one that still holds up today. Were you able to improve upon that successful design in any way?

Ragnar Tørnquist:

Dreamfall is a very different game, and – in my opinion – a better one, so yes, I’d say so. But it’d be like comparing apples and, um, Italian sports cars? The Longest Journey was a 2D point-and-click adventure; Dreamfall’s a fully 3D modern adventure with gameplay ranging from exploration and puzzle-solving to stealth and combat. So, outside of the obvious links in story and characters, it’s hard to compare the two. I do believe that the inclusion of direct control – of both the character and the camera – and the unique focus field feature makes Dreamfall’s interface a world beyond that in The Longest Journey. I’m also really happy about how we’ve facilitated for pretty much everyone with the PC control system. You can play the game with the mouse and keyboard, with just the keyboard, just the mouse – a very unique control method, and definitely worth checking out – or with a joypad.

GCM:	Adventure games, especially the good ones, are known for stumping even the best players. Will there be any type of hint system built into the game?
Ragnar Tørnquist:	Hints are provided organically by the world and the characters in it, and also by Zoë’s constantly updated diary. I don’t think people will get stumped for too long in any given scene, and Dreamfall’s not a particularly difficult game, but given the size of the game and the number of locations, players will still spend a good twenty hours getting through it.

GCM:

Explain a bit about the new graphics engine and any challenges creating a game for both Xbox and PC.

Ragnar Tørnquist:

The engine is indeed brand new, and Dreamfall’s the first game to use it. We licensed Spinor’s Shark 3D engine, and built on top of that, modifying it to suit our needs. It has all the latest and greatest visual effects, from lots of cool full screen filters and Pixel Shader 3.0 support, to things like parallax mapping, which makes surfaces look extremely realistic. The PC and Xbox versions share all assets and technologies; the only differences are the shader set and the texture resolution. Everything else is exactly the same, which made the production a lot easier. It also means that the Xbox version looks surprisingly close to the PC version. I personally think it’s one of the best-looking Xbox games out there.

GCM:	Are there any plans to release an enhanced version of Dreamfall for the Xbox 360, now or in the future?
Ragnar Tørnquist:	We’re definitely considering that, and if the game sells well, we’d love to do something on the next-generation platforms – be it expanded editions or sequels…or both. Whether that happens or not, it’s going to take a while, so people shouldn’t hold their breath. Go out and buy the PC and Xbox versions now!

GCM:

Dreamfall currently boasts a cast of 50 professional actors. What were some challenges in casting the various roles? Did you have certain actors for certain roles in mind during the story-development phase?

Ragnar Tørnquist:

The returning characters from The Longest Journey are all voiced by the original actors, so all of those were definitely on my mind when we wrote the story and the dialogue. Crow, in particular, is a character that’s synonymous with the actor playing him. As for the new characters – most of them were written before they were cast, so it was just a question of finding the actor to suit the character, rather than the other way around. The biggest exception was Jack Angel, who plays Wonkers the Watilla. Wonkers was an homage to Teddy in Steven Spielberg’s AI: Artificial Intelligence – and Teddy was also played by Jack Angel. So it was only natural that we got the same actor to play him, and his dialogue was definitely written with that voice in mind.

GCM:

Please give us some details on the scale of the soundtrack, composer, orchestra, etc. Will the soundtrack be available on CD?

Ragnar Tørnquist:

Yes, the soundtrack will be available from our online store, and it’s definitely worth picking up! We’ve had a bunch of different people provide music for the game, but the main man is Leon Willett, who’s composed – and performed – the orchestral soundtrack. He works out of Barcelona, and he’s written a wonderfully textured score that adds so much to the experience. Aside from Leon, our in-house sound people have also provided music for the game – there are tracks from sound designer Simon Poole and audio director Morten Sørlie, and we’ve also worked with an established Norwegian recording artist to get some exclusive tracks into the game. All in all, it’s added up to an immensely varied and enjoyable soundtrack that I believe people will appreciate.

GCM:

Dreamfall is already earning critical acclaim even before its final release. Was there one defining moment during the creation of Dreamfall where you “knew” you had something special?

Ragnar Tørnquist:

It’s easy to get completely lost inside a game when you’re working on it, and you definitely don’t see the forest for the trees. I think that ‘wow’ moment came only a few weeks ago, when we sat down to review the Xbox version prior to completing it. That’s when we realized we’d actually made a really cool game. It looks gorgeous, and all the little bits and pieces have finally come together. It took a while to get there, but I think we’re all very happy with how it’s turned out, and I can’t wait to see what the world thinks of it.

GCM:	Thank you again for your time! Do you have any last impressions or thoughts for our readers?
Ragnar Tørnquist:	If you loved The Longest Journey, I’m sure you’ll feel the same way about Dreamfall – it is, after all, the next chapter in the saga. Even if you haven’t played The Longest Journey, this isn’t a direct sequel: it’s a brand new story with brand new characters, so it’s definitely worth checking out. I can safely say that there’s no other game like it out there.

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