[Larry Emmo]

I just finished playing Dreamfall and I got to say the story was perhaps the most intriguing that i have ever encountered, I mean sure Full throttle was good too and so many other game stories have been good, but the lack of puzzles and general gameplay helped move the story in Dreamfall along much faster then in most games which really made me think after I finished it that they should have cut out the puzzles and gameplay completely instead and just made an animated movie out of it, cause the fantastic story is the single only reason you would play the game in the first place. I would have liked an option to replay it without all the boring fights, and running back and forth to solve some over simplified puzzles and just enjoy the story instead, anyone else agrees?

[Heleo]

I just finished playing Dreamfall too (a few hours ago in fact) and I was also struck by the total lack of gameplay. It was as if they missed the game part out and I really wish they hadn't because I'd have liked to see something that was both a good game and had a good story.

Actually I think what got me most was that it did have the feel of a movie about it. Nothing I said or did seemed to have much of an impact. I was there, watching the inevitable happen and like an actor with his lines I couldn't stray from the script.

Like near the end of the game, I had a choice to make and I chose one thing. My choice was ignored though and the character decided he couldn't do what I'd chosen as the option and I found that really frustrating.

Spoiler:

If you're curious I chose to have Kian kill April. It seemed logical to me so I was annoyed when he then said that he couldn't. Why give me the choice and then snatch it away from me? How difficult would it have been to have played that scene out differently? The end results are the same, the method of getting there different.

There was little interactivity. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the story and it swept me away but I found myself stopping many a time and wondering where the game had gone. It did seem very much like a game that wanted to be a movie.

The graphics weren't good enough to be a movie, it was also far, far too long. I go to the movies and I expect one thing. I play a game and I expect another. I do not expect to pay game prices (the shop's are still selling Dreamfall for £30 here) for what's essentially a movie (those tend to be £15 max). Okay, yeah Dreamfall was far longer than your average movie but still...

Actually, yeah, I'd have liked the option that once you've played the game through once you could then just let it run and it'd play the game again for you but without the sneaking and the fights and the dull bits. But what I'd have liked more is if they'd just made some better puzzles.

When I had to get the potions why couldn't I make them myself as I did in TLJ? I'd have enjoyed that rather than just running to a character, picking them up and running somewhere else. I suppose there was a vague puzzle in working out who to talk to but it wasn't that difficult. It did admittedly remove some of the frustration I have with adventure games and I didn't have to sit down and use a walkthrough constantly for it (apart for for those stupid action sequences) but I'd have liked more 'game' in the game.

[Yorolepal]

I belive most of the gameplay was missing due to budget restraints. Thats only my speculation, no facts to back that up.

And while I think, sure, would have made a good movie, I really don't think I would have felt as immersed if I couldn't run around and (in a limted manner) explore my surroundings.

Dreamfall was too beautiful to me to be cut down to 2 hours.

[Larry Emmo]

Originally Posted by Heleo

I just finished playing Dreamfall too (a few hours ago in fact) and I was also struck by the total lack of gameplay. It was as if they missed the game part out and I really wish they hadn't because I'd have liked to see something that was both a good game and had a good story.

Actually I think what got me most was that it did have the feel of a movie about it. Nothing I said or did seemed to have much of an impact. I was there, watching the inevitable happen and like an actor with his lines I couldn't stray from the script.

Like near the end of the game, I had a choice to make and I chose one thing. My choice was ignored though and the character decided he couldn't do what I'd chosen as the option and I found that really frustrating.

Spoiler:

If you're curious I chose to have Kian kill April. It seemed logical to me so I was annoyed when he then said that he couldn't. Why give me the choice and then snatch it away from me? How difficult would it have been to have played that scene out differently? The end results are the same, the method of getting there different.

There was little interactivity. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loved the story and it swept me away but I found myself stopping many a time and wondering where the game had gone. It did seem very much like a game that wanted to be a movie.

The graphics weren't good enough to be a movie, it was also far, far too long. I go to the movies and I expect one thing. I play a game and I expect another. I do not expect to pay game prices (the shop's are still selling Dreamfall for £30 here) for what's essentially a movie (those tend to be £15 max). Okay, yeah Dreamfall was far longer than your average movie but still...

Actually, yeah, I'd have liked the option that once you've played the game through once you could then just let it run and it'd play the game again for you but without the sneaking and the fights and the dull bits. But what I'd have liked more is if they'd just made some better puzzles.

When I had to get the potions why couldn't I make them myself as I did in TLJ? I'd have enjoyed that rather than just running to a character, picking them up and running somewhere else. I suppose there was a vague puzzle in working out who to talk to but it wasn't that difficult. It did admittedly remove some of the frustration I have with adventure games and I didn't have to sit down and use a walkthrough constantly for it (apart for for those stupid action sequences) but I'd have liked more 'game' in the game.

Well I choosed to have Kian stall for more time instead, but that's interesting, I'm replaying it now to try different options but it feels so weird, I cant believe I've allready finished the game and it took me less then a week, probably could have done it in a day if I had, had enough time, it's just all the dialogue that takes up so much time, they could have defintely cut down a bit on that. You are right though it felt more like a movie or a tv-series then a game.

I hated the sneaking around part, especially in those caves where you had to avoid the small monsters so the big one didnt come and kill you, for that one I used to walkthrough, I used to fight instead of sneak whenever possible, the fighting I found quite easy, especially when you were Kian or April, a bit to easy but I'm a bit divided here, had it been more difficult it would have been frustrating probably, like those small hacking mini games could get towards the end. So maybe it was all for the best anyway.

I agree with you when it comes to the puzzles and at the same time I don't, because I liked the game so much, I found myself many times wishing that I could do something, especially in the end when there was just videos all the time, I wanted to play too, the last half is hardly any game play at all and that was frustrating, on the other hand with a lot of games I find that I get stuck at some point and it can take days, sometimes weeks before I can move on from that point, somtimes I simply stop playing for a while and then you kind of get lost from the story that had you hooked(which happened in TLJ and then I had no idea who this new guardian guy was cause I had made a 3 months break). So this way you could focus a 100 percent on the story and not worry about anything else, which in a way I was happy about cause I couldnt wait to find out what would happen next cause I loved the story so much. So I don't know, I guess I want two versions like in Monkey Island 3, one without difficult puzzles and one with. That would have been great :-).

[Periglo]

I have been thinking a lot about Dreamfall lately, and this is one of my main conclusions: they decided to drop puzzles and replace them with something else. But this something should have been improved greatly. Sneaking was not so horrible, imho, but for the caves part (I just saved constantly, and recovered the game as soon as I was discovered, to save the unnerving troll.)

But, had fighting been better, the game would have been a delight. Better, not more difficult: more moves, different weapons and styles for each character, maybe fighting skills to master. I mean, if you do action, do it right. This is where lack of resources, I guess, showed. A big company would have grabbed some nice engine from some other game and used it.

[Lee in Limbo]

ARRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!

Not enough puzzles.

Because, you know, it has to have lots of puzzles.

Or else.

Something.

Whatever.

Really, hasn't it occurred to any of you naysayers that these 'games' still aren't reaching their full potential, let alone the broad audience appeal that most of these games should have, thanks to their much more down to earth stories and such? We're not all still playing MYST games over here. Or LucasArts or Sierra games, for that matter. There have been all sorts of stories told in the last fiteen to twenty years of AGs. The audience should be quite expansive. But it's not. The numbers don't lie. Most folks don't play these games? Bad PR? Too much brainpower needed? Too slow and boring?

I wonder why. It can't be because they lack shooting, because not everyone wants to play shooting games. Swords and sorcery? Again, not to everyone's tastes. I play a fair bit of WoW these days, and yet I still find the degree of violence needed in the game to be a little distasteful, even if I've learned a grudging acceptance in order to play with my wife.

There are lots of things that adventure games do or can do that other genres don't. Stands to reason that there should be an audience out there for them. And yet, not so much, I'm told. Most of those other genres are so gameplay-intensive that casual players dare not approach. Intensive games that manage to make their gameplay and UIs relatively easy to use have it all over those that require manuals to operate, and yet, even that isn't the whole answer. Folks will take on a learning curve if the rewards for doing so are palpable.

But not so much with Adventure Games, which should be much more appealing to a wider audience than shooters and other combat games do. It can't be because everyone has a pent up weekend warrior in them, or we'd all be in survivalist groups or something. No.

Some of us want to be armchair sleuths. Heroes of a less physically demanding kind. We can't be completely averse to some danger, or we'd stick to crochet. But there are more than enough people of both sexes who watch dramas and thrillers that use suspense and danger as major parts of the story. And few genres in gaming achieve that same delicate balance as well as AGs can, when they try.

But most of the time, we just trot out the puzzles, because that's all we can think of. That's all we understand as gameplay in AGs. Puzzles. Silly things hardly changed from when they appear in newspapers and on magazine stands in paper form. Brainteasers for the digital generation. Except that they require that rare combination of puzzle oriented mind with a budget and desire for a computer.

As I've said ad nauseum here and elsewhere online in the past, these games can be so much more than digital crossword books. But if that's all you want, then that's all you will get. And when a game dev (or all of them) try to appeal to a wider audience who wants more from their gaming experience, you really can't be too surprised that you've been left behind, because you weren't willing to experience something different from games that are now fifteen and twenty years old (look at how many of you refuse to upgrade your machines. I mean, we're not all made of money, but it makes very little sense to expect anything new for a machine that was barely able to run a game developed less than a decade ago).

Heck, even a goodly number of those games were a fair bit braver than what generally gets trotted out for AGers these days. So narrow has the genre become that almost nothing makes it through the gauntlet anymore. Why would any developer want to spend years to perfect something just to have ti shot down by a finicky, stubborn, unappreciative audience?

I wonder.

Okay, rant over. As you were.

[Jobabob]

a good rant though

I thought Dreamfall was a brave attempt to make an adventure game for todays audience, whilst on the back of a successful prequel that would be too complex to sell today. It was little more than an interactive movie, but it was a brilliant 10-14 hour movie at that, it didn't contain too much action to become as terrible as fahrenheit (or a hopeless plot for that matter).

[Larry Emmo]

Yeah I agree it was a good rant but who are you trying to convince, we're all adventuregamers here or we wouldn't be on this site in the first place.

Farenheit was a biiiiig dissapointment, the game seemed so original and interesting and then to not be able to play the game because of the impossible action sequences sucks, I bet even seasoned action game players would have problems with those combats! Big fuck up on their behalf!

[Heleo]

I dislike Myst-like puzzles whereas I've more of a fondness of inventory based ones but not games where you need to pixel-hunt for the objects you want and pick up everything including the kitchen sink. Actually, I think my favourite puzzles are magic-based ones, like in Loom and Kyrandia (mostly loom).

I suppose I'm a hypocrite because the one big puzzle in Dreamfall where there was that underground chamber with all those monsters that you had to try and avoid I ended up reading the walkthrough in order to find the solution to it and using a map. I just couldn't be done with the stress of sneaking and avoiding the enemy as well as working out the puzzle solution on how to open up the gate.

Maybe it's not puzzles as such that it needs. I think I'd have liked choice. I'd have liked interactivity that amounted to more than run from A to B and I'd have liked my choices to matter.

Yes, give me an interactive story instead of a game but let me interact with that story. Let me become a participant as opposed to an observer. With so many conversations in the game I'd have liked to have been able to change character's opinions towards me. I'd have liked that choosing the rude conversation choices would have had different results from being nice, and that those results would have had repercussions. That I couldn't just then go back and be nice, that I'd have to live with the consequences of my past choices. Not for any choice to result in a dead end, just for it to cause differences. Maybe not differences in the over-arching plot, but differences in the little things.

I did like Dreamfall, the first half of the game was good and had a decent dash of interactivity, the second half it just felt like they'd given up on the player in order to tell the story.

I think more of the game should have run like the Borderhouse/Hotel area did.

Spoiler:

I liked the Borderhouse section. I'd have liked it more if I could pick up that axe and use it on the dog as an option. I liked how once you got in you had three choices, that you could talk your way past the guard, sneak by him or fight. I didn't like how it ended up with me having to fight him on the top floor since I just couldn't get by the guy upstairs. I liked how you had to do the lock puzzles to get in and then once you were inside that you had to explore, then work out the whole making a rope with sheets tied together to get out.

I didn't like that you could die and all you got was a 'dead' screen especially since the game had already started with Zoe telling the story, so how could that happen if she died because some monster killed her? So the deaths were a bit frustrating since they didn't fit with the plot. They seemed there for the gamer and not for the story but there's no fun in dying. I kinda wish that if they had insisted on the deaths then maybe they'd done the broken sword thing of giving us a screen showing what happened after we'd died.

[noknowncure]

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

Stands to reason that there should be an audience out there for them. And yet, not so much, I'm told. Most of those other genres are so gameplay-intensive that casual players dare not approach.

That's becoming less and less true all the time. We're living in an era where games are being designed to tell stories, not give you hell after level 1. The majority of action games that were made in the past, were designed to be difficult as hell. If I go back and try to play some of the games I persevered with as a kid, I'm horribly killed within seconds of pressing 'forwards'. These days, story has become the key. Most modern games are designed to tell epic sweeping stories of all kinds, and because the developers want people to reach the end, they're not as difficult.

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

But not so much with Adventure Games, which should be much more appealing to a wider audience than shooters and other combat games do. It can't be because everyone has a pent up weekend warrior in them, or we'd all be in survivalist groups or something. No.

It's because most modern adventure games are bad. Take a look at how successful some of the DS adventure games have been recently. They've tapped into the mainstream audiences and have caused something of a stir, because... they are good. They are exciting, funny stories that are engrossing, involving and challenging - everything that most PC games aren't.

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

But most of the time, we just trot out the puzzles, because that's all we can think of. That's all we understand as gameplay in AGs. Puzzles. Silly things hardly changed from when they appear in newspapers and on magazine stands in paper form. Brainteasers for the digital generation. Except that they require that rare combination of puzzle oriented mind with a budget and desire for a computer.

Yes, you constantly misinterpret the word puzzle as meaning 'slider puzzle/crossword/sums/push buttons in the correct order/etc. Often, when people use the word puzzle, they mean obstacle, conversation tree, inventory based problem etc. Hell, all games have 'puzzles' in that sense, that's what makes them games. In Doom - to pick a classic example of a mindless shooter - to get through the blue door, you need to find the blue key. That's an incredibly basic puzzle, but it's the foundation upon which all games are built on. What adventure gamers tend to want is a slightly more complicated and intellectual problem in that style.

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

As I've said ad nauseum here and elsewhere online in the past, these games can be so much more than digital crossword books. But if that's all you want, then that's all you will get.

Yes, Doctor Preposterous’ Brain Training on the DS. I can do sums without shelling out for a bloody game!

Originally Posted by Lee in Limbo

And when a game dev (or all of them) try to appeal to a wider audience who wants more from their gaming experience, you really can't be too surprised that you've been left behind, because you weren't willing to experience something different from games that are now fifteen and twenty years old

The trouble is, that when a game developer - or all of them - try to appeal to a wider audience, they do it VERY BADLY. I was playing a more action based game with my mate a couple of years ago and I reached a point where sneaking was required. "Ah yes, the obligatory stealth sequence" my pal observed, and it's true, based on the success of Splinter Cell and games of its ilk, every game includes stealth. I'm a big fan of stealth games, but just bunging a stealth sequence into the middle of an adventure game doesn't mean it's any good and that's exactly what non-adventure gamers think.

There's more fun, drama, excitement and, dare I say it, Puzzles, to be had in your average platform, action, stealth or survival horror game these days than you'll get in any adventure. They're also faster, slicker, have better graphics, dialogue, characters, voice actors and stories than any adventure game of recent years.

[nl4m]

I loved the game because it was easy. The storyline, at first, I thought that the story was plan. Your just doing a favor to your boyfriend. As the game moves on they give you a few mysters, a few unanswered questions. By the middle I got the feeling that she was desprite for a man and was willing to do anything to get one (just joking). The game moves at a normal pace, just going from one event to the other, nothing dramatic. Then came the last 3/4 chapters. They were breath takingly GREAT with such passion, compassion, and sorrow The ending was perfect. Yes they didn't tie off all loose ends, but it was great none the less. I don't think I've seen such a great ending even in movies.

[noknowncure]

Originally Posted by nl4m

I don't think I've seen such a great ending even in movies.

I don't think you've seen enough movies.

[nl4m]

^ Ha-ha. Dude, in the game everyone backstabs you.

Spoiler:

You get back stabbed by Marces, her mother, Na'i (sp ?), by Westhouse (sp ?). The one who killed the White Dragon. Even Alvanai (sp ?) lets Raven die ! and the bad guys win !

Such a thing I have not seen yet.

[carlotta von uberwald]

I loved Dreamfall, the movie sequences where cool but what's with the end movie has the story come full circle or will there be a sequal???? and I wanna know what happened to the white of the driac kin??? etc... Is she safe or not??? I think they should make the modern AG more like movies it would attract a bigger audience. And to get rid of the stigma that AG are just for Kids they should make the stories more appealing to an adult audience.

[nl4m]

They are making part 3. In part one they saw an old Raven.

[noknowncure]

I showed my mate, who usually hates adventure games, both Dreamfall and Fahrenheit. He was bored by the former, but enjoyed and eventually bought the latter.

He agreed that Fahrenheit - despite its failings, i.e.: the story becoming ridiculous, dreadfully derivative and contrived - works far better as an 'interactive movie' than Dreamfall.

You can see the potential that Fahrenheit holds, and while it still needs lots of work, it's clearly a step towards greater things.

Dreamfall is given a lot of slack, story-wise. Most computer games are, because the immediacy of the interaction acts as a substitute to story credibility. A movie is judged on its story alone, and were Dreamfall a movie, it would be slow, clunky, trite, and boring.

So much would have to be either re-written, re-organised or simply chopped out completely, that it might as well just be a different story entirely.

[AFGNCAAP]

Originally Posted by carlotta von uberwald

And to get rid of the stigma that AG are just for Kids

There are many labels used to dismiss AGs - some rightfully, some not. However, I am not sure I have ever heard anyone expressing the "stigma" that Adventure Games are just for kids (I am, of course, not counting those claiming that all games are just for kids). Seriously.

[Heleo]

Originally Posted by nl4m

The ending was perfect. Yes they didn't tie off all loose ends, but it was great none the less. I don't think I've seen such a great ending even in movies.

I thought that the ending was terrible. It wasn't a proper ending. It wasn't a case of not all of the loose ends were tied off. It was a case of most of them weren't. There was only one thing you managed to achieve.

Spoiler:

Zoe 'died.' April 'died'. Kian got captured and is going to be tried. The white dragon is attacked by an anonymous foe. The dreamer is released. The tower is built. That's not an ending. It's a 'to be continued.' That's the sort of things that you expect from a trailer or in a prologue of a book. It's not an ending.

Even Zoe's search for Reza failed. What happened to him? We don't know for sure though a few guesses can be made.

Dreamfall was just question after question and so few of them answered. It was a dreadful ending storywise. The only thing that was achieved by the end of the game was the static was stopped. That was it.

Don't get me wrong, I did enjoy Dreamfall, but as endings go it was a bad ending.

Originally Posted by noknowncure

Dreamfall is given a lot of slack, story-wise. Most computer games are, because the immediacy of the interaction acts as a substitute to story credibility. A movie is judged on its story alone, and were Dreamfall a movie, it would be slow, clunky, trite, and boring. So much would have to be either re-written, re-organised or simply chopped out completely, that it might as well just be a different story entirely.

I disagree with that. I think that movies are often judged on things other than their story. Movies are judged on the acting, the costumes, the set, the special effects, plenty of things that aren't the story. Just because something is a good movie doesn't mean that it's a good story. You wouldn't say that a book was a bad story because it wouldn't make a good movie, would you? Most books need to be re-written, organised, chopped up etc in order to be turned into movies and by the end of it you have two different experiences. I think that games are a lot like that too. Made for their medium. I wouldn't say that movies are more credible than computer games. They're just different.

[jannar85]

You do know someone filmed the whole game?

[noknowncure]

Originally Posted by Heleo

I disagree with that. I think that movies are often judged on things other than their story. Movies are judged on the acting, the costumes, the set, the special effects, plenty of things that aren't the story.

Okay then, fair enough, but all of those things - acting, costumes, sets, explosions, magic, girls, girls, girls - are found in computer games too, meaning that the main difference between movies and computer games is still the fact that one is interactive and the other aint, which brings me back to the original point.

***Warning, Noknowncure is speaking in broad, general terms. He is fully aware that there will be counter examples to the points he is making***

If a story is bad in a movie, the movie will usually get slated - blah, blah, blah not by everyone blah, blah, blah - however, computer games - and specifically adventure games - more often than not, are judged a lot more leniently because of the distraction of the gameplay.

What I was trying to illustrate is that if you're watching a movie, you are focussing on the story and are, to an extent, detached from the piece. When you're playing a game, you may choose to spend about an hour wandering round in a circle, looking at stuff, which is a distraction from the main story, but can be enjoyable. Because the distraction is enjoyable, people then tend to be more lenient on crappy storylines because they remember what fun they had running backwards and forwards.

Also, these days, most computer seem to insist on biting off more than they can chew. A story that can be really compelling ends up being reduced to a disjointed, poorly explained mess because things got too grand.