Holy crap, how did I miss this? Dreamfall was just released.

For those who don’t know, Dreamfall is the sequel to The Longest Journey, one of the most renown adventure games in recent memory. Now, for the record, I hated The Longest Journey: the gameplay sucked, the puzzles were often pointless, and the story was so amazingly rich that when the ending resolved almost nothing, it actually made me angry. Nevertheless, despite my dislike for the original game, the world it created was remarkable enough that I can’t quite leave it behind.

By all accounts, Dreamfall is like TLJ, only more so. It’s a remarkable accomplishment, but the review’s that I’ve read indicate that the gameplay is somehow even more maddening in Dreamfall. The story is even more engaging, and the ending is even less satisfying.

However. Ragnar Tørnquist, the game’s creator, has this to say on his blog, and it’s enough to make me willing to play the game:

Dreamfall was from day one designed as the first part of a two-part story… and also the middle part of a trilogy. (Which again is part of a larger saga. Phew. No wonder people are getting confused. I’m getting a headache myself.) There are lots of unanswered questions because the story isn’t over. Yet. I know exactly where it’s going and how it will end, and I know how the next game plays out, chapter by chapter. It’s been planned from the get-go. We’re not making this up as we go along. Promise. I hated that about The X-Files. I felt so cheated when I realised that the writers had no idea where the show was heading. Betrayed, even… So try and trust me on this: this story has an ending. I know what it is. It hasn’t been told yet.

Because, yes, the story will be completed. If, for some reason (the collapse of Western civilisation, for example) I don’t get to make an interactive (emphasis on ‘interactive’) sequel, I will do everything I can to complete the story in some other way - be it through the pages of a comic book, a novel, a serial on my website - or, if all else fails, just sending out my super-secret story notes to anyone who’s remotely interested. I know that it would be horribly, incredibly, unbelievably frustrating to never find out how it all ends, and I’ll work hard to make sure that no one who’s invested in Dreamfall (or The Longest Journey) will be cheated out of a proper conclusion - to this part of the saga, at least.

Bear in mind that it’s been over six years since TLJ was released. So we may be in for a bit of a wait. It’s almost like reading George R. R. Martin in that way.