GDC 2014 – Dreamfall Chapters
Told by the warden that he would hang in the morning, Kian was left alone in his cell when the Captain—a member of the rebellion we met in Dreamfall—showed up to break him out. “A lot of adventure games are very static; you stand there and talk to people. We’re fans of walk and talk,” Ragnar said as Kian followed the Captain out of the cell. “It’s more natural, people don’t ever sit there and talk… There are a lot of points in the game where, if you’re the impatient sort like me, you can explore a little bit while the characters are talking.”
With Kian and the Captain chatting as they moved through Friar’s Keep, Ragnar explained that the game will support a combination of keyboard and mouse controls (WASD for movement; mouse for camera) or a gamepad. Initially they also developed a point-and-click mode, but found that none of their early players were using it. “It’s very context sensitive,” Ragnar said of the keyboard controls, directing Kian through Friar’s Keep’s hallways and up a winding staircase. “You’ll always get a little dot that shows what you can interact with. It’s not about pixel hunting, it’s about figuring out what to do.”
What to do will frequently involve finding and using inventory items: “Inventory puzzles are often abstract and weird; we’re trying to embrace the humor of that while also trying to be, not realistic, but at least as sensible as possible.” [b][Puzzle spoiler warning][/b] In the example we saw, Kian and the Captain needed to find a long, thin item to pick a lock. Kian picked up a broom (too long and not thin enough) and headed into an empty cell. Looking out the window revealed Azadi soldiers shooting arrows from below. Combining the broom with a pillow from the cell bed created a makeshift dummy that could then be used to trick the soldiers into firing an arrow into the pillow. [b][end spoiler][/b] The interface for all of this seemed straightforward: press Tab to display inventory items in a row at the bottom of the screen, then click one to select it or drag one over another to combine them.
Besides adventure game mainstays like dialogue and inventory puzzles, Dreamfall Chapters will follow in the footsteps of Heavy Rain and The Walking Dead by presenting players with choices that influence the story. “We have something called, ‘The balance has shifted,’” Ragnar explained, referencing the delicate link between the twin worlds of Arcadia and Stark. “Every time you make a choice in the game, you get the ‘balance has shifted’ icon, so you know that was significant. And when [something happens as] a result of that, we also tell you, ‘This is because of something you did earlier.’ This makes it feel like the story reacts to you and it feels much more personal.”
Similar to the internal monologue that gives context for what your character is about to say—and unlike Telltale’s “Clem will remember that” messages that only display after you’ve done something significant—Dreamfall Chapters will indicate beforehand when your decision will cause a shift in the balance. We encountered one such decision point when Kian and the Captain came upon an injured prisoner and a dead guard lying on the floor. “The inmate begs to be killed. He knows he’ll be tortured if the guards find him,” Ragnar explained. “We can pick up the shiv that this guy used to kill the guard. And now we’re going to choose what to do. We can leave him there and run off, and if we do we’ll hear the result of that later on. Or we can assist him in his death, and that has consequences as well.”
As the prisoner begged Kian to finish him off, the “balance has shifted” icon appeared to let us know that Kian’s decision here would matter. At this point we could also see what percentage of players made which decision, and even which path was chosen by friends from services like Facebook, Steam, or PSN. Such metrics are included to encourage conversation outside of the game: “We did it to create this virtual water cooler where decisions are talked about, where decisions are discussed, where decisions are not in isolation. You’re not the only one playing the game, you’re part of a whole world playing the game.” (That being said, if you prefer more of a solo experience you can choose to turn off the stats.) Seeing what your friends did should add a community element to otherwise solitary gameplay, but Ragnar stressed that there are no correct or incorrect choices, no ‘good’ or ‘evil’ path: “They’re not black and white choices. We’re trying to make it so it’s always a moral quandary. And trying to never say, ‘You did the right thing.’”
Arrow in hand, Kian was able to open the locked door, but at the top of the stairs the warden blocked his way. This was where listening carefully to that initial dialogue sequence paid off. [b][puzzle spoiler warning][/b] “We learned earlier he doesn’t take well to threats and he listens to reason, so we can choose to threaten him or reason with him,” Ragnar explained. “He told us he’s a practical man, he’s not a man who’s trusting of people, so that gives us a clue. And you have a choice to try to bribe him, to try to threaten his family, or to appeal to his sense of family. He told us family’s important but he doesn’t react well to threats.” [b][end spoiler][/b] Choose the right dialogue options and the warden will step aside. If you don’t remember what was said earlier you can redo the sequence as many times as necessary, with any incorrect options you’ve already tried eliminated. So even if you clicked too quickly through the initial dialogue, you’ll be able to progress through trial and error.
Having successfully convinced the warden to let him pass, Kian was faced with another big choice: let the warden live or kill him. Seeing that 90% of players so far had taken the pacifist route, I suggested we shift the balance and slit the warden’s throat. “This is going to change the story and have an effect near the end of the game, doing this,” Ragnar said while the Azadi assassin took down the pleading warden. But even though choices like this will change aspects of the story, Dreamfall Chapters won’t have multiple endings. “The end of the journey’s the same, but the way you get there, the characters who will be with you, the relationships you’ll have, what happens to you getting there—those will change. We want players to be able to shape the journey, but everything is destined. It is a game about destiny, after all.”
As for April Ryan, run through by an Azadi spear near the end of Dreamfall—what is her destiny? We didn’t see her during our demo, and Ragnar said that when players reach these points in the game, they won’t know her fate yet, either. So the wait for answers continues, but with Red Thread Games hoping to ship Dreamfall Chapters by the end of 2014, a return to the balance has never been closer.
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