Hullo everyone, and welcome to 2014, the official Year of Dreamfall Chapters! (And also horse, according to the Chinese zodiac.)
In today's mail, we have a production update, a brief T-shirt update, and some fancy new art. Enjoy!
Please note that there are light spoilers below. If you don't want to know anything about the story in Dreamfall Chapters, please tread carefully!
Production update
With the pre-alpha completed, the design team has switched attention back to the beginning of the game. Until the end of February, the focus will be on chapters one and two, iterating on and polishing the gameplay, story and dialogue for the early parts of the game.
(Chapter nil consists of two important non-interactive sequences, bridging Dreamfall and Chapters: those won't be revealed until the game is released, and we plan on completing that chapter towards the end of the production phase.)
![[IMG]](https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/567/447/dfc3419acc9153d43d368a544d8d36bd_large.jpg?1390820720)
The art team is following the same roadmap as the designers, but since most locations appear in multiple chapters, they're spending a bit more time polishing things up now before moving on. Consequently, they're a half-step behind the designers.
The latest location to receive those final artistic brushstrokes is a location we added during the Kickstarter campaign: The Enclave. After bringing that location back into the story, we realised how lovely and atmospheric it is. It's therefore grown significantly in importance, becoming the headquarters of the rebel movement in Marcuria.
Here is an early piece of concept art from the Enclave.
![[IMG]](https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/567/450/38c816e955c0ff24752afb127e215b64_large.jpg?1390820843)
In this in-game screenshot — taken straight from the Unity engine — a couple of the rebels are conferring at the Enclave. The girl on the left is Enu-Mar Sand'ya, Twilight Child, Daughter of Te'a-Mar; a very important new character in Chapters. The gentleman on the right will be familiar to Dreamfall players: he was once known as Blind Bob; or, more accurately, Theoretically Blind Bob. What his name and role is in this game, we won't spoil.
![[IMG]](https://s3.amazonaws.com/ksr/assets/001/567/470/0f7d7004b17939b4d270bcf658be14ee_large.jpg?1390821408)
And the bird on the left? Why, that's only
the second best game sidekick of all time:
Crow!
Contrary to rumours, he didn't kick the bucket in Dreamfall; he's not an ex-bird, pushing up the daisies. Crow's back, baby, and he's the same old Crow. Sort of. Things
happened in the previous game, and Crow will never be
quite the same. But he's still funny, sarcastic, inappropriate and, well, Crowy. (Crowish? Crowesque?)
Also, Crow's looking better than ever. We'd argue that he's the best looking talking bird sidekick in any game ever made. And as solid evidence, we present this brief, never-before-seen in-engine animation of Crow crowing, all birdlike:
The Crowmancer (YouTube link)
Groovy! And don't worry: he'll have a lot more to say in Dreamfall Chapters with proper words and stuff (once we've actually recorded his dialogue).
Friar's Keep walkthrough
Just before Christmas, GameSpot featured an exclusive video walkthrough with almost thirty minutes of gameplay from Friar's Keep, the jail where Kian Alvane has been incarcerated since the end of Dreamfall.
That walkthrough is now available in HD quality via
our official YouTube channel (subscribe!), and (by popular request) we've also posted a second, commentary-free version of the video, for those of you who want to hear all of the dialogue (some of which is still placeholder and work-in-progress):
Friar's Keep walkthrough with commentary track (YouTube link)
Friar's Keep walkthrough without commentary track (YouTube link)
Click to expand...
