• Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!

Dreamfall Chapters: The Longest Journey Kickstarter [Ended, $1.5 million funded]

aw9yxRP.jpg
Click to expand...
ragnar-faith-zoe.jpg


hmm ...
 
Here, then, are our first three stretch goals:

$900,000 - Apples & Penguins: Mac and Linux versions of Dreamfall Chapters. Pledgers will be able to choose which version of the game they want to download, and to receive on DVD and/or memory stick
$950,000 - The Loremaster, which includes the Great Library of Marcuria (rebuilt in secrecy, of course), a fully-voiced librarian character, and tons of books, documents, ancient parchments and tomes of lore in-game for players to read, explore and dig into!
$1,000,000 - A Longer Journey, which allows us to create new locations, characters and side stories, adding great depth to the world, additional gameplay and new dialogue, lore, magical creatures...and some cool surprises! Check back later for more information about this stretch goal!
Beyond $1,000,000 lies many more mysteries, and we will announce additional stretch goals as soon as we reach our first one -- including, of course, more information about The Longest Journey Home!

0Dhf0Lu.jpg


http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/redthread/dreamfall-chapters-the-longest-journey/posts/406579?ref=email&show_token=fb8a938c3cdaa5f1
 
The $1 million goal is probably a sure thing. $2 million may not even be out of the question if TLJH turns out to be a compelling enough thing.
 
Was not that interested in this but the prototype looks really nice. I feel like I want to explore the world already! Might back it afterall!
 
Beautifully Shaped Monsters said:
Not sure I agree. A large part of what actually killed them was that designers tried to shoehorn 3D elements and action sequences into them in an attempt to 'make them modern' and 'expand the audienced' in order to get them greenlit for development. Dreamfall suffered from this, but it happend to other notable series as well, such as Monkey Island and Broken Sword. Early prototypes of Space Quest 7 also suggested this direction before it was cancelled (years later an Action Platformer using the SQ franchise was apparently in production for Xbox for a while, there are concept art out there that was leaked.)

One of the few games that actually had a decent transition was Gabriel Knight 3, but the game has not aged well (unlike a lot of 90s 2D adventure games). That was probably another thing that killed Adventure games for the existing audience. They were used to gorgeous 2D art, the original Broken Sword still looks very nice today, Monkey Island 1, 2 and 3 as well, but suddenly the only adventures were these butt ugly abominations. For me personally it was a huge turn off. It took me forever to get around to play GK3. I remember buying Simon 3D the moment it came out because I loved the first 2, only to be shocked at how ugly it was. Broken Sword 3 was a mess of box moving and slow walking. In short, weak attempts at 'revitalising' the genre, was what really killed it.

The audience for adventure games didn't really shrink, but it didn't grow either, certainly not in the pace of other genres, notably FPS, so these games became less attractive to fund for publishers which prompted all these weak attempts. However the fact that there was and is an audience for classic 2D adventure games should be very evident from the revival they have seen in the last few years.

This new TLJ game look gorgeous, and I have no qualms backing it, however to me personally the 'open world exploration' that they talk about here is not a selling point for an adventure. I believe in these guys, since I know they can deliver a solid experience, but if these were untested developers, this would probably put me in a 'wait and see' mode.
Click to expand...
Nice post, I'm bumping it to the new page. Yes, the transition to 3D was mostly very awkward for the adventure genre in late 90s/early 00s. Personally, I really like the first person adventure genre like Uru or Penumbra. There's something really immersive about the perspective when you focus on interacting with the world and not violence.

The Longest Journey Home is supposed to show an episode in April Ryan's life where as a poor student of art academy she needs to earn/find money for her journey to visit parents for Christmas and it'll show the journey itself.
 
I'd like them to focus ALL their efforts first and foremost on making the best Dreamfall Chapters game they can make before giving us goals for HD remakes.
 
TLJH, I hope it's a HD remake. Oh god, that would be so groovy. Still waiting on being paid, so when that occurs, I am upping my pledge.
 
TLJH seems to be, for me, more of a sequel to the April Ryan saga rather than an HD version of the game. Either way, I hope it does reach $2mil. It may seem too much of a stretch though (positive thinking! I haven't even pledged yet!)

I'll be happy if we just get a longer journey though (the $1mil stretch goal). It isn't that much of a stretch and we can probably reach that many pledges by the end of next week.
 
Jucksalbe said:
Giving a 2 million dollar stretch goal when you haven't even reached your original goal of $850,000 yet seems kinda greedy.
Click to expand...

I think it's more of a marketing ploy to get more attention like the 'Beneath A Steel Sky 2' one. I doubt it'll make it but I can see it happening in some form, even if it's just a downloadable epilogue.
 
Catatonic said:
At first I was okay with the redesign. But now looking at the prototype in action, I don't really like the new Zoe. Hopefully once the game is finished the character looks better.
Click to expand...
They mainly just need to raise the corners of her mouth a bit. She looks extra frowny in her neutral expression, especially when looked at from a low angle which they've shown her from a lot.
 
Jay Shadow said:
They mainly just need to raise the corners of her mouth a bit. She looks extra frowny in her neutral expression, especially when looked at from a low angle which they've shown her from a lot.
Click to expand...

I'm being nitpicky, but I also don't like how the hair is pulled back. I like how it's more down and flowy in Dreamfall. It suits her face better.
 
Catatonic said:
According to gamers, everything is greedy when known developers use kick starter.
Click to expand...

That would be going to far, though they may have been some questionable cases.
But if you're already begging people for money, you could at least show some modesty and wait for such huge goals until you're a little closer to that goal than they are now (maybe around 1.5 million).
Oh well, not that it matters much. But I found it a bit strange when I got that email.
 
Jucksalbe said:
That would be going to far, though they may have been some questionable cases.
But if you're already begging people for money, you could at least show some modesty and wait for such huge goals until you're a little closer to that goal than they are now (maybe around 1.5 million).
Oh well, not that it matters much. But I found it a bit strange when I got that email.
Click to expand...

why modesty? a bigger budget simply means a better game or at least more options and freedom to make a better game.
I think it's only reasonable after they saw how many people were backing it. a lot of people want to invest in the project, doesn't feel like begging to me.
 
Jucksalbe said:
But if you're already begging people for money, you could at least show some modesty and wait for such huge goals until you're a little closer to that goal than they are now (maybe around 1.5 million).
Oh well, not that it matters much. But I found it a bit strange when I got that email.
Click to expand...
At the pace it's slowing down they won't hit 1.5 until near the end if they even hit it at all. So announcing a 2 million goal now may get new people to get a higher tier then they would normally if 1.5 was the only ceiling they were given.
 
2 million sounds like their final stretch goal, so I'm happy they revealed that number this far in advance.

I think that, combined with the inevitable Paypal donations, they can hit the mark.
 
Beautifully Shaped Monsters said:
Not sure I agree. A large part of what actually killed them was that designers tried to shoehorn 3D elements and action sequences into them in an attempt to 'make them modern' and 'expand the audienced' in order to get them greenlit for development. Dreamfall suffered from this, but it happend to other notable series as well, such as Monkey Island and Broken Sword.
Click to expand...
The de-adventurefying/action elements thing was really after the genre was already left for dead. I'm talking about that transitional period around the time everything was starting to go 3D, like 1995 to 1998. This is when adventure games should have been asking "How can 3D make our games better?"

That's the part of this I don't think you're getting. Yes, games like Escape from Monkey Island and Grim Fandango went 3D, but like you said, it was shoehorned, and superficial. The 3D didn't add anything to the formula except awkward controls. They were worse.

But it didn't HAVE to be that way. If they embraced 3D as a part of the gameplay, I think audiences would have seen it as a step forward, rather than a step back, in the same way they did with other genres.

That was probably another thing that killed Adventure games for the existing audience. They were used to gorgeous 2D art, the original Broken Sword still looks very nice today, Monkey Island 1, 2 and 3 as well, but suddenly the only adventures were these butt ugly abominations.
Click to expand...
But other genres all went through this too, to different extents. Early 3D was pretty ugly across the board. But those games made up for it by offering an experience that was in some way transformed or made new, so people tolerated the uglier look for the newness that came with it.

Adventure games never answered the question of how 3D can make them better. Under a Killing Moon and its sequels were literally the ONLY ones during that critical time period that were fundamentally different, and couldn't have just as easily been 2D, because you had to look under and around things for clues and the 3D navigation was actually part of the gameplay.

In short, weak attempts at 'revitalising' the genre, was what really killed it.
Click to expand...
So rather than actually exploring how to evolve the genre, you think they would have been saved by just staying 2D? The operative word here is "weak attempts." I think we needed people to approach this problem differently. And we still do. I'm really glad Dreamfall Chapters wont be stuck in the 90s. You can still be an adventure game without a scripted camera and tiny sets.
 
Man, I thought I was being ridiculous when I was saying that we could reach 1.7m. The $2m stretch goal just sounds like it sits right outside the bounds of plausibility. I hope whatever the incentive is at that milestone isn't too big a feature for the game.
 
USB key design, featuring Wonkers the Watilla

By popular request, here is a preview of the USB key that comes with some of the physical tiers.

We can't guarantee that the final version will look exactly like this, but we will try our best! After all, this cherished character many of you may recognise from Dreamfall: The Longest Journey is a natural fit for a USB key:

pXEvBFG.png


Wonkers can hold up to 16GB of data, and comes as part of the $350, $500 and $750 physical tiers.
Click to expand...

So sexy!
 
Rewatching the gameplay update, does anyone else feel like Martin is overselling things just a bit?

"I really love the way it feels so natural..."

"This scene is what I love about adventure games. You're walking around in the forest exploring, and BOOM! There's a house there. What happened here? What's going on?"

"

LOL.

It all looks very good, though.
 
Finally pledged my 50 bucks but I wasn't overly fond of that video. And yah as I said earlier, I do not like the Zoe redesign but gripes aside ragnar's storytelling is why I am supporting this anyway.
 
Frogacuda said:
The de-adventurefying/action elements thing was really after the genre was already left for dead. I'm talking about that transitional period around the time everything was starting to go 3D, like 1995 to 1998. This is when adventure games should have been asking "How can 3D make our games better?"

That's the part of this I don't think you're getting. Yes, games like Escape from Monkey Island and Grim Fandango went 3D, but like you said, it was shoehorned, and superficial. The 3D didn't add anything to the formula except awkward controls. They were worse.

But it didn't HAVE to be that way. If they embraced 3D as a part of the gameplay, I think audiences would have seen it as a step forward, rather than a step back, in the same way they did with other genres.

But other genres all went through this too, to different extents. Early 3D was pretty ugly across the board. But those games made up for it by offering an experience that was in some way transformed or made new, so people tolerated the uglier look for the newness that came with it.

Adventure games never answered the question of how 3D can make them better. Under a Killing Moon and its sequels were literally the ONLY ones during that critical time period that were fundamentally different, and couldn't have just as easily been 2D, because you had to look under and around things for clues and the 3D navigation was actually part of the gameplay.
Click to expand...

It depends what time period you mean, but there were several adventure games trying to push the envelope and attempt new things, including the one I mentioned who tried, but failed to make compelling changes. You might be right about using 3D. Very few adventure games really did that with any notable success, but you can ask yourself then is that really what Dreamfall Chapters are trying here? From the gameplay it seems they just combined the Zelda'ish idea of running around in an area with various points of interest with traditional point and click mechanics.
Of course they might have other things up their sleeve, but just giving the player a big area to 'explore' is hardly trying something different. It just happens that the technical aspects are more capable so it looks less ugly.

Frogacuda said:
So rather than actually exploring how to evolve the genre, you think they would have been saved by just staying 2D? The operative word here is "weak attempts." I think we needed people to approach this problem differently. And we still do. I'm really glad Dreamfall Chapters wont be stuck in the 90s. You can still be an adventure game without a scripted camera and tiny sets.
Click to expand...
Interestingly 2D adventures did kinda survive in Europe. Not amazingly strong and vibrant, but enough to keep the community alive. The old big publishers, such as Sierra, Lucasarts etc dropped it, not because the games sold less, but because the bar had moved and games needed to sell even more to stay relevant compared to FPS shooters and other competing genres.

Also companies like Sierra went through transformations that was not directly related to adventure games, but none the less had a huge effect on them being made or not.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

The CIA Funded Source Engine Games
Opinion Analysis Trailer 
7
213
IAmRei replied
What game have you been playing the longest?
2 3 4
178
2K
cireza replied
Aphelion - A Musical Journey
Trailer 
2
203
IbizaPocholo replied
  • Featured
  • Poll
Trails in the Sky 1st Chapter |OT| The Journey of 1,000 Hours Begins with a Single Game
|OT|  8 9 10 11 12
564
7K
LyricalShrike replied
D.O.R.F. - Official Kickstarter Trailer
Trailer Indie 
10
261
IbizaPocholo replied
Top Bottom