Introduction

The adventure game genre still has some life in it, thanks largely to efforts from publishers like The Adventure Company who have released a number of European titles over the years to the US, and to UbiSoft, who currently own the rights to publish the Myth titles along with the upcoming game Paradise. However, one of the most anticipated adventure games this year has to be Dreamfall: The Longest Journey, the PC-Xbox sequel to the acclaimed title from Funcom. At the Game Developers Conference last month we got a chance to get some time with a build of the game courtesy of Dreamfall's US publisher Aspyr (after our GDC demo it was announced that the game had gone gold).

While technically a sequel to Funcom's original title The Longest Journey which was released back in 2000, the developers decided not to make this a direct sequel so thankfully people unfamiliar with the first game won't have to know anything about it to enjoy Dreamfall. The sequel allows the player to take control of three characters at some point in the game. The Longest Journey's heroine of April Ryan is back for the sequel but her character will have some changes for people who have played the original game.

Two new characters make their debuts in Dreamfall. Zoe Castillo is a 20 year old woman who uses both charm and her use of technology get through the game. Finally there is the male character of Kian, a mysterious sort who is likely the main person you will need to control for Dreamfall's combat sequences (more on that feature later).


While there are three playable characters in the game, the main action centers on Zoe in the year 2219 in a city named Casablanca (whether this is supposed to be the future version of the real Casablanca is not explained). Zoe has everything a woman would seem to want in this time period; a cool pad, great location, and a cute pet robot (the game's main designer Ragnar Tørnquist told us during the GDC demo that the actor who voiced the cute robot is the same actor who voiced a similar character, Teddy, in the Steven Spielberg movie A.I.). Of course it wouldn't be an adventure game without some, you know, adventure in it and Zoe will venture out of Casablanca out into unknown worlds and settings. There are three major locations in the game; a world of magic, a world of science, and a world which Funcom calls "The Winter".