Castle Magus

Copy/pasted from Facebook:

"The Longest Journey" and "Dreamfall" are both on sale on Steam right now for a combined total of $8.98 USD. Just thought I'd point that out.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6310/The_Longest_Journey/

and

https://store.steampowered.com/app/6300/Dreamfall_The_Longest_Journey/

Also, "Dreamfall Chapters" is on sale for $8.49 USD. So, all together, that is $17.47 USD for the entire series.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/237850/Dreamfall_Chapters/

And if you already own at least one of these on Steam, but not the rest, whatever's left is actually even cheaper than their individual sale prices added together, if you scroll down to the "Complete your collection" bundle thing, on the individual pages for any of the games in the series. E.g. for me, since I have Dreamfall Chapters on Steam but do not own TLJ or Dreamfall on Steam (I have them both on GOG), TLJ and Dreamfall combined are available for $7.18, rather than $8.98.

(I really need to get around to playing Dreamfall Chapters someday, since I haven't actually done so as of yet, for whatever dumb reason. But first, that would "require" that I replay TLJ and Dreamfall again. Maybe that will be my next gaming thing to do, once I've fully tapped out Terraria.)

---

The last time I played through TLJ and Dreamfall apparently was *over* *eight* *frickin'* *years* *ago.* I honestly can't believe it's been that long. Seriously, what the hell, me? For shame.

https://kane-magus.dreamwidth.org/312136.html

https://kane-magus.dreamwidth.org/309498.html

This news is somewhat amusing to me, because I had somehow missed the previous news that Dreamfall Chapters wasn't going to be episodic. But now, apparently, it is episodic again? How about that. *shrug*

All it means for me is that I'll simply be waiting until the entire thing is available before I try to play it, same as I did and will do for all of the various Telltale Games series, such as The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, or Phoenix Online Studios games such as Cognition. (See also StarCraft II, though it's looking less and less likely that I'll pick that one up at all, even when it is all available, simply because I no longer like Blizzard even remotely as much as I used to.)

I just hope they don't end up pulling a Legacy of Kain or a Shenmue or a The Silver Lining and only release part of it, then never finish it. Seriously, for The Silver Lining, they released the first four episodes over a relatively short time frame during 2010-2011, but now, almost three years later, they still have not completed the final fifth episode. Hell, they made an entire other episodic game during the time away from TSL (see Cognition, above, which they created to make the profit that they weren't getting from the freeware TSL), though they keep claiming that they're "still working on it" in regards to TSL. Hopefully that is indeed true. Well, I'll still keep not playing it until the whole thing is released. For what it's worth, I've been waiting for this game for almost a decade now from back when it was still called King's Quest IX (and the game has been brought back and then cancelled again and then brought back again, before finally being released... mostly), so I can wait a little more. In the meantime, maybe I'll someday get around to finishingrestarting Cognition, of which I've still only played the first episode thanks to a game-breaking bug in the second episode which made it unplayable (which, to be fair, they have since fixed, but I still just haven't gone back to it yet).

Wow, I went almost completely off-topic there. So, uh, yeah... Dreamfall Chapters is episodic (again).

The Kickstarter is already well past the original goal, but unless there's a huge push in these last few days or so, I don't think they're going to come anywhere close that $2,000,000 stretch goal.

I'd rather that they'd have just done The Longest Journey Home as a separate Kickstarter entirely, after Dreamfall Chapters was done and released, rather than tying it to this one, since it actually seems to be what I would probably think of as TLJ2 (or TLJ4 if you count Dreamfall and Chapters as 2 and 3), at least based on this. From the article: "it is planned as a 2D point-and-click adventure akin to the original game, rather than as a 3D adventure in the manner of Dreamfall and Dreamfall Chapters. It would feature hand-painted backdrops, 3D character models, and, of course, a story penned by series creator Ragnar Tørnquist." Honestly, I'd almost rather have that than Dreamfall Chapters itself to begin with (though I definitely still want Dreamfall Chapters, too, don't get me wrong). If it does somehow come to pass and they do get another $800,000 or so in the next four days, that would be totally sweet, but I'm not going to hold my breath. I suppose that even if that doesn't happen, it might still be a possibility for it to be its own thing in the future. We'll see, I guess. I just hope they don't simply abandon it entirely if they don't get the $2 million here, though.

Rock, Paper, Shotgun interviews the creator of The Secret World. (Again.)

Some of the ARG elements (especially the part about characters from within the game emailing you and such) seem a bit weird, but overall, the more I hear about this game, the more interested I become. As always, I'll just say please don't screw this up, Funcom. (And, much more importantly, don't let others do the screwing up.)

(EDIT)

And here is Part 2.

This part is much more high-level stuff, and less specifically about The Secret World. They talk a bit about Dreamfall and The Longest Journey (a bit spoilery, maybe), but it's mostly just talking about various things in a general sense.

(/EDIT)

I finished The Longest Journey, for what was probably the fourth or fifth time, about an hour ago or so. I have since installed Dreamfall, and played a tiny bit of it to make sure it works without needing to perform some arcane hoodoo. I'll probably be restarting it again tomorrow when I have more time though.

So far, I'm feeling that they're going to be two completely different experiences, and not just because they're different games. With TLJ, it was all, "And here is the part where... and now I need to go and... yeah, this is exactly as I remembered it." What little I played of Dreamfall, however, has been "Wow, I only vaguely remember anything about this. Maybe it'll be like playing it for the first time all over again." Kind of makes sense, considering that I've only played it once, about 4 years ago (which was also when I last played TLJ as well). I'm looking forward to going back through it again, though, now that I have a super-awesome computer compared to 4 years ago.

Right now, I think I should be getting ready to head to bed.

Courtesy of Rock, Paper, Shotgun and RagnarTornquist.com

"Perhaps the most frustrating, and the most exciting bit of news in there is that Dreamfall Chapters will not tie up the story. Despite being episodic, and despite having a definitive ending itself, it won’t be the big finale. That is, says Tørnquist, for The Longest Journey 2."

Man, that will be so awesome when it comes out in 15-20 years or so.

(EDIT)

Also, I'd not been following The Secret World at all, since I tend to avoid anything MMO like the plague. However, if Wikipedia is to be believed, "Tørnquist has also revealed that the game can be played in single-player mode (but still online), should a player be uncomfortable or unable to play with a group." If that's true, I may actually have to start looking into this more.

(/EDIT)

Ok, I just finished Dreamfall.

The ending, if you can even call it such, is about as satisfying as the ending of... say... Soul Reaver: The Legacy of Kain (the first game)... or Shenmue (both 1 and 2)... or, hell, frickin' Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

Let's just say that it's safe to assume that when they make a sequel to this game (and, based on the above, I'm totally certain that it's already in the works), I will be on that like white on rice when it is released. It had just better not take them another seven or so years to make it is all. (EDIT 2) It actually took them 8 to 10 years to make the sequel. (/EDIT 2)

(EDIT)

Hmm... Yeah, well, he doesn't have to convince me to play the game again. As with The Longest Journey, I'll probably be playing this one through several more times. Not right now, mind you. I think I'll be starting Kingdom Hearts in a few minutes. But I'll definitely be coming back to Dreamfall again later at some point, of course.

(/EDIT)

Made it to the start of Chapter 4 in The Longest Journey tonight. Heck, at this rate, I may actually finish it tomorrow and can then start on Dreamfall immediately afterward.