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Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey (Drømmefall: Den lengste reisen) is an adventure video game released for the Windows and Xbox platforms on April 17, 2006. It is the sequel to Funcom's The Longest Journey and takes place ten years after the events of the first game. On 1 March 2007, an episodic sequel entitled Dreamfall Chapters was announced, and Funcom reportedly has further plans to create an MMO type game set in the The Longest Journey universe.

Story

Synopsis

In The Longest Journey, players learned that the Earth exists as two halves... both never seeing one another but existing together as parallel worlds. The world of Stark is where science and technology are the primary driving forces behind it and those that live there. As a result, the people of Stark live upon a futuristic version of our Earth. The other world, Arcadia, is one where magic continues to hold sway over a land filled with the trappings of fairy-tale inspired fantasy. April Ryan, the unwilling protagonist of The Longest Journey, was an art student living in Stark before she was swept up in the events that would make her the reluctant savior of both.

To her friends in Stark, April's apparent disappearance at the time she had gone over to Arcadia has continued to be a mystery that has troubled them. At around the same time, the world has found itself the victim of a calamity called the Collapse, when technology suddenly failed and all contact with Earth's colonies was severed. In the ten years since then, humanity managed to pick itself up from these events but the world had significantly changed. A wireless network called the Wire was created, linking anything with an electric heartbeat into a unified whole, communicating across the world. It is illegal to destroy Wire receivers and transmitters, but the Wire is not without its critics and a black market thrives in items that can 'break' the link that devices have with it.

Enforcing the protection of the Wire and of the laws that govern the world is an omniscient organization known only as the Syndicate, formed from the chaos of the Collapse. Through the EYE, its multinational enforcement arm, the Syndicate ensures that corporations continue to work within the law. More often than not, they are a police force that operates across all nations and ruthlessly enforces the law with little compassion, partly as an attempt to ensure the prevention of another Collapse.

It is now 2219. Living in this "new" world is Zoë Castillo, a student who has left college to try and find herself. However, it hasn't been easy for her as she finds that she is wasting a lot of time doing... absolutely nothing. Although the so-called Static seems to be growing worse across the Wire, disrupting communications and causing the occasional blackout of information, there is little else in her life that has brought her out from her personal malaise.

When a close friend disappears and when she begins the search for the answers that he held, she will become involved in more than a simple investigation. As Zoë encounters new friends and foes in her struggle to understand the worlds that she will journey to, the story will also be seen from their perspectives as they try to uncover the truth behind the dark force threatening to destroy all that they know.

Characters

In brackets are the taglines found on promotional posters for each of the three main characters.

Zoë Castillo (Seeker, Nomad, Dreamer) is one of the main characters in the game. She lives with her father in the city of Casablanca (her mother has supposedly died before the Collapse), and has recently dropped out of university. The beginning of the game finds her in a state of malaise, lacking motivation and questioning her purpose in life. The story opens with her ex-boyfriend, Reza, asking her for help.

April Ryan (Rebel, Emissary, Chosen) is a Shifter, originally from Stark, who was pivotal in restoring the Balance ten years ago. After that success, though, she was left without a purpose, and chose to join the effort to liberate the Northlands from the occupation by the Azadi Empire. She has turned her back on her former world of Stark and considers herself a citizen of Arcadia now.

Kian Alvane (Soldier, Apostle, Assassin) is an Azadi soldier and skilled swordsman who resides in the holy city of Sadir. He has pledged his life to the Six and the Goddess. He is an Apostle, a special agent of the Six, much to the scorn of others in the hierarchy who look down on his common ancestry.

Olivia DeMarco is Zoë's best friend. She owns a small electronics and repair shop in Casablanca, and is an expert on the technology of the time period.

Reza Temiz is a journalist who goes under the alias "Jericho". He was once Zoë's boyfriend, but now the two are just good friends. He also seems to be part of the main plot device, as Reza's disappearance was what prompted Zoe into traveling around the world to find him.

Damien Cavanaugh works for WATIcorp, a Japanese corporation. When he first appears in the game, he is involved in the development of WATIcorp's top-secret "Project Alchera".

Benrime Salmin is the owner and proprietor of "The Journeyman Inn", an inn located in the Arcadian city of Marcuria. She made her first appearance in The Longest Journey, where she became a friend and confidante to April Ryan. In Dreamfall, she is a rebel sympathizer and often aids April and the rest of resistance movement against the Azadi occupying force.

Brian Westhouse is a traveler and scholar who resides in Arcadia. First appearing in The Longest Journey as a stubborn and frequently inebriated man who helped April Ryan along on her adventure, he revealed that he had also breached the divide from his native Stark to Arcadia in a crossing that took nearly three hundred years. He returns in Dreamfall as a more sober and eloquent man who accompanies Zoë Castillo to one of the few places in Arcadia he has never visited, and scenes in the game suggest that his transition between worlds may be of significant importance to the central plot.

Roper F. Klacks is a magic shop keeper. He first appeared in The Longest Journey as an evil alchemist who lived inside an enchanted flying tower. He reappears in Dreamfall claiming to have been reformed of his evil tendencies, and crediting this to the actions of April Ryan in the first game.

Crow is an Arcadian talking bird who is not actually a crow but resembles one visually. He has been April's sidekick in The Longest Journey and resumes this role in Dreamfall, though later he decides to follow Zoë instead.

Unresolved issues

The numerous cliffhangers and apparent plot holes in Dreamfall, which have caused a great commotion among the players, have been discussed by Ragnar Tørnquist, who stated that the game is, in fact, the first part of a duology and that all questions will be answered in the second installment. Also, several elements of the story have been at some point identified as plot holes but a feasible explanation has been later found within the game itself.

Cultural references

While the first game of the series mainly established its own mythos, Dreamfall borrows numerous names and concepts from the Australian Aboriginal mythology, such as the Eingana and Alchera/Dreamtime. Similarities can be found between the decoration and architecture of the Azadi buildings and the Islamic art and architecture. Also, "Kian" is a Persian name and "Azadi" is "freedom" in Persian. In addition "Reza" is an Arabic name which is widely in use in Iran. "Temiz" means "clean", is also Arabic and used as a surname. Some scene involving Brian Westhouse in the "real world" takes place in Tibet, although it could be a careless mistake that those Tibetan monks speak in Mandarin Chinese rather than Tibetan language.

Within the game, there are also references to other games published by Funcom, for example, to Anarchy Online: a copy of the Anarchy Online novel can be found in Zoë's apartment; there is an engineer wardroid at the street dealer in Newport and a small yellow cleanerbot (seen in many large cities of AO) in Olivia's store; and the music that plays on the first floor of Reza's apartment is also a track from the Anarchy Online. Perhaps, one of the most unusual features of Dreamfall is the in-game presence of its own disc covers, as well as those of TLJ, on multiple locations, e.g. on Reza's bathroom shelf, on the floor near Zoë's TV, behind the Chinese merchant in New Venice, etc.

Several popular movies are referenced, as well, for example, when Crow is telling Zoë about being a sidekick, he makes a reference to The Lord of the Rings films directed by Peter Jackson. He implies that right after he was elected the Sidekick of the Month by the League of Sidekicks, Samwise Gamgee (portrayed by Sean Astin) "stole" the title from him. Wonkers the Watilla, a stuffed purple gorilla visually resembling the notorious spyware mascot BonziBUDDY and acting as Zoë's personal assistant and playfellow, is voiced by Jack Angel who previously voiced another talking stuffed animal, Teddy in Steven Spielberg's A.I.. When Zoë first arrives in Arcadia, her comment that "[she isn't] in Venice any more" is a possible reference to The Wizard of Oz. And the most notable homage pointed out by critics is the disturbing similarity that the character Faith bears to Samara Morgan from The Ring, who is, in turn, based on Onryō from Japanese ghost stories.

Intentional or otherwise, the two closed taverns near the South Gates of Marcuria are named "The cock and the pussy" and "The Salty Seaman" ("Best nuts in Marcuria!"), which may have connotate sexual implications ("seaman" is a homophone of "semen"). Such word plays go back to The Longest Journey, where a character makes a reference to "pubs with oddly suggestive names, like 'The Lazy Cock'."

Releases

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey was released for Microsoft Windows on April 17, 2006 in the United States and April 18 in Europe, available either on 6 CDs or a single DVD. The copy protection of the US PC version is known to have caused trouble to players, such as when it wouldn't allow the game to run if a virtual drive (e.g. created by Alcohol 120%) was detected, whereas the European and Australian DVD version is protected by the controversial StarForce. The 6 CD version is the same as the DVD one and the latter can be compiled manually by burning the entire contents of the former on a single 4.7 GB disc.

The Xbox version of the game was released on April 18 and August 11, 2006 in the US and Europe, respectively, and is backwards compatible with Xbox 360 since June 2006. It was made available as an "Xbox Originals" digital download on Xbox Live on 23 March 2008. The downloadable version is the original Xbox version of the game rather than the Game of the Year edition.

A Limited Edition of Dreamfall is available, as well, containing the DVD version of the game, a soundtrack EP with four songs by Magnet, and a 92 page hardcover artbook entitled The Art of Dreamfall. According to Ragnar Tørnquist, this edition is "an actual limited Limited Edition", since it has only been produced in small numbers.

Rumors of an online demo version of Dreamfall had been circulating over the Internet since August 2006, until plans for its development (as well as that of other "online extensions of the universe") have been confirmed by Funcom in November that year. On December 23, 2006, a 3 GB demo was released.

On January 12, 2007, Dreamfall was made available on Steam.

On April 30, 2007, Aspyr announced that a Game of the Year edition would be released to North America on May 24, 2007 and will include The Longest Journey, Dreamfall, and the Dreamfall OST. This release includes three DVDs but no manual.

Tørnquist commented that the developers also considered the idea of making a film based on The Longest Journey and/or Dreamfall but found it too difficult to realize at the current stage.

Soundtrack

Most of the music in Dreamfall was composed by Leon Willett, who joined the production team in the last year of its development. Willett spent ten months writing the score, with the biggest challenge being to make it both cohesive and reflecting the multitude of settings in the game. He later commented in an interview, that the story of Dreamfall required "a broad, Hollywood approach" to music and regretted not having a live orchestra to perform it (instead using synthesized performance). Willett also remarked that because of an entirely new premise and more cinematic way of storytelling in Dreamfall, he had rarely considered the music from The Longest Journey as inspiration.

An original soundtrack album has been released in August 2006. It contains the orchestral music composed by Leon Willett for the game, as well as several tracks by other musicians, like Slipperhero, Octavcat, and Ingvild Hasund. The game's lead sound designer Simon Poole and the audio director Morten Sørlie are also credited for creating three out of the album's 22 compositions. This soundtrack album was nominated "Best Video Game Score" at the 2006 MTV Video Music Awards.

The four songs by the Norwegian musician Magnet were not included in this album but have been instead added to the limited edition of the game as an extended play CD.

Critical reception

Most critics have been positive about Dreamfall, agreeing about the quality of the storyline, the graphical presentation and the voice acting. Some critics lament the shortness of the gameplay, and criticize the game's new combat and stealth elements as simplistic and unsatisfying.

GameSpy rated it as "outstanding":

"The game covers a lot of metaphorical, political, and religious ground. It's a multi-threaded, complex affair that poses profound and troubling questions about the uses and misuses of faith, the limits of corporate, governmental, and religious power, and the significant difference between belief and fanaticism and knowledge and wisdom. More than that, though, it's also a rip-roaring adventure story filled with wonderful dialogue brought to life by a stellar cast of voice actors, clearly defined and supremely likeable characters, and graphic splendor that manages to make both worlds of super-science and bizarre magic incredibly believable." –GameSpy

"It's been a long-time since The Longest Journey was released, with fans of the game wondering whether a sequel could possibly match the original. They need wonder no longer. Dreamfall is an amazing journey that propels players into a world where science, magic, art, and music combine to make a whole much greater than the sum of its parts." –GameSpy

GameSpot also ranked it as "great," stating "Dreamfall does not disappoint, for the most part. It exhibits the unique attention to detail and terrific presentation that made The Longest Journey so remarkable for its time."

Adventure Classic Gaming said "It is contemporary interactive fiction at its best. Its unique blend of storytelling and gameplay should appeal to a broad range of gamers beyond those who are loyal to the adventure genre."

Other critics, while not disputing the quality of the story, were disappointed that the game is primarily story-driven, and would like to have seen more gameplay. For example, IGN said:

"While playing through, it's difficult to shake the impression that intelligent design was given a back seat to painfully simplistic fighting and sneaking sequences. The combat is, for all intents and purposes, a total joke. [...] While the gameplay has been drastically simplified, the story remains as engaging as ever. Characters engage in deep conversation, revealing all sorts of nuance and helping to strengthen this game's unique mood. Be warned, if you don't like watching lengthy conversations or if you generally disregard a game's plot, you'll be absolutely dissatisfied with Dreamfall. However, if you're in the mood for one of gaming's best and most recent narratives, by all means pick this one up. Just be aware that Dreamfall's appeal lies largely in its narrative and characters, and not in the gameplay." –IGN

Rotten Tomatoes gave Dreamfall a "fresh" rating, with 71% of collected reviews giving it at least 8/10, with an average score of 8.1/10.

Windows 2000 and Windows Vista compatibility

Although Dreamfall was released on Windows only supporting Windows XP, many Windows 2000 users have reported being able to play the game on Windows 2000 by copying a file dbghelp.dll (taken from OpenOffice.org 2.0 or higher) to the folder where Dreamfall was installed. Similarly, the game can be played on Windows Vista once the Starforce protection drivers have been updated.