Dreamfall: The Longest Journey

Find April Ryan... Save her!

—Faith

The Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo to the Adventure Game classic The Longest Journey, Dreamfall: The Longest Journey was released in 2006. It introduces a new heroine Zoë Castillo, a 20-year-old college dropout living in Stark (our familiar Earth, albeit two centuries into the future) ten years after the events of the original The Longest Journey. After she starts receiving eerie messages from a Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl to go "find April, save April" (and her ex-boyfriend disappears on top of that), Zoë has no choice but to delve into another conspiracy investigation. Meanwhile, April, the heroine of the original game, is effectively trapped in Arcadia (the magical alternate reality) and fights against The Empire of Azadi, while an elite Azadi Super Soldier and third protagonist Kian Alvane is sent to assassinate her. Fans welcomed Dreamfall enthusiastically, but the reviews were rather mixed, primarily "thanks" to unsatisfactory (and, according to many, superfluous) action-adventure elements and the ending being a love child of a Cliff Hanger of cosmic proportions and the No Ending trope.

Yet another Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo, Dreamfall Chapters, was first announced in 2007 and was released from 2014 to 2016 as five episodes. According to the Word of God (i.e. Tørnquist's late blog), it ties some of the numerous loose ends that were Left Hanging after Dreamfall back together, but won't be the long-awaited Grand Finale of the saga. The latter will have to wait until what Tørnquist has called the true The Longest Journey 2.

Tropes used in Dreamfall: The Longest Journey include:

• 108: Only one copy of Roper Klack's book remains because when the reader reaches page 108 they explode. The last remaining copy has been de-enchanted though, and is safe to read.
• And Now for Someone Completely Different: Playing as Zoë, April and Kian.
• Apocalypse How: Class 0 in the form of the Collapse.
• Arcadia
• Arc Words:
  • "Faith will bring you where you are needed the most."
  • "The Undreaming is unchained."
• The Bad Guys Win: While Zoë is able to stop Faith from inadvertantly destroying Stark, she fails to stop the launch of the Dreamer console. Back in Arcadia, the resistance suffers a crushing blow, leaving no one able to stop the Azadi's mysterious plans.
• But Not Too Foreign: In Real Life Morocco, just over 99 percent of the population is Arab-Berber, about 90 percent speak Moroccan Arabic and/or a Berber language, and nearly everyone is Muslim. Zoë Castillo is from Casablanca, but has a European surname and speaks with a British accent (and drinks wine, has premarital sex, and celebrates Christmas). There are a few people walking around in normal Moroccan/Muslim outfits, but they're set dressing, you mostly can't even talk to them. Also, for some reason, most important people in the Japanese corporation you visit are white. You could argue that it has something to do with it being set in the future, but why does the future have to be increasingly more white?
• Call Back: Dreamfall is full of these.
• Cliff Hanger: The ending.
• Constructed World
• Corrupt Church: The Azadi's religion, Kian calls them out on it before he's arrested.
• Cyberpunk: Dreamfall is more sleek about it than the original game.
• Darkest Hour: The ending: April Ryan was hit with a spear and tumbled into the water, never to emerge; Kian had a crisis of faith and was promptly imprisoned; Zoë was sent into a permanent coma.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose In Life: The theme of Zoë and April's arcs.
• Downer Ending: Calling it this would be a serious understatement.
• Dying Town: Newport in Dreamfall. Marcuria begins showing early signs of this.
• The Empire: Azadi, though their portrayal is slightly ambiguous.
• Fantastic Ghetto: The Marcuria ghetto for the "magicals", set up by the Azadi occupants.
• Fantastic Racism: Between humans and magical races and magical races themselves, most notably the Azadi and their treatment of magical races.
• Goal in Life: Discussed in-depth, especially with Zoe's story arc.
• Government Conspiracy: Project Alchera.
• Heel Face Turn:
  • Roper Klacks actually helps April numerous times.
  • Kian had the beginnings of one at the end of Dreamfall.
• How We Got Here: Most of the narration is Zoë recounting the events of the past few days.
• In the Future We Still Have Roombas: One level has Zoë sneaking into a corporate headquarters by following cleaning bots through passages that open for them.
• It's Pronounced Tro-PAY: The deity of the Azadi Empire is the Godess, emphasis on the second syllable.
• Knight Templar: The Azadi, who seek to destroy the world in order to "cleanse it".
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Several locations contain game boxes of the game itself. For an added bonus, they have not only the final game cover but many designs discarded before the release, as well as some old The Longest Journey boxes.
• Left Hanging: Just WTF happened to all the main characters in the end?! That's for starters, and if you want to know how bad it was, go to the WMG subpage and marvel at its size.
• The Library of Babel: The Dark People's library.
• Limited Wardrobe: Partially averted, with different, context-sensitive outfits for both April and Zoë.
• Lotus Eater Machine: The dreamer machines can have this effect. They even have a flower component that covers a person's face.
• Luke, I Am Your Father: Faith is really Zoë's sister, and their mother is potentially yet again the first White Dragon.
• Matriarchy: The Azadi Empire is ruled by six Empresses, political power is expressly the woman's domain (though military power is the man's), they worship a Goddess, and the term for an orphan without fortune or connections is a "motherless" child. Sub-trope Enlightened Matriarchy (great cultural and scientific achievements, started off saving the entire civilization), or Original Matriarchy (overstayed their welcome big time to become an occupation, Well-Intentioned Extremism on full display including the Fantastic Ghetto, repressive government, assassinations and mass murder).
• Mega Corp: Lots of them in Stark (e.g. WATIcorp).
  • The police is owned by a megacorp. What does this mean? When you're arrested, you're read both your rights and a catchy soda ad.
• No Grubbers Were Harmed
• Noob Bridge: In Dreamfall, the music puzzle that lets Zoë out of the caves into Marcuria has been known to cause lots of trouble for new players, who didn't realize that a certain item from the previous location could be picked up and used on the wall symbols to reproduce the melody hummed by random encounter enemies on said location.
• No One Could Survive That: The jury is still out on April's case... and will remain thus until Chapters, apparently. But Death Is Dramatic, right? Right?...
• Oddly-Named Sequel 2: Electric Boogaloo
• Our Dragons Are Different: The Draic Kin.
• Physical God: The Guardian, after the Changing of the Guard.
• Precision F-Strike: Alvin Peats when talking to Zoë: "You're connected to that fucking girl."
• Ridiculously Human Robot: WATICorp's trademark talking-animal robots, which in the past have been programmed with features such as ADHD.
• Shoot the Shaggy Dog: April is killed near the end.
• Simple Score of Sadness: A simple piano solo from "Rush" when Faith dies.
• Simultaneous Arcs: Occurs throughout the game after you're introduced to the other two characters. Produces a very striking moment, when Kian meets April and player is being switched from one to other in their dialogue.
• Stealth-Based Mission: Several parts, most notably the Grubber cave and the WATICorp building.
• Stepford Smiler:
  • WATICorp's museum and staff . The museum has fluff in regards to WATICorp's robotics history, and the mechanically cheerful voice uses the same tone to describe how fluffy-wuffy much everyone loved Roboy and the fact that the prototype Watilla's habit of soiling itself was a controversial design feature, not to mention glossing over the original Robunny's numerous injury cases ("of which WATICorp has been completely absolved"). Meanwhile, security guards and mechanized drones tell you that almost no one was hurt in today's exhibit rampage, and that since you're somewhere you shouldn't be, they're going to very politely use force now.
  • Zoë realizes that WATICorp's products are Stepford Smilers: at the beginning of the game, she realizes that when Wonkers, her Watilla, talks about what he does while she's not home, he's trying to communicate that he's lonely, even though he's not programmed to know the words to tell her so, or even comprehend what he's feeling. Rezza's Watilla Lucia is similarly unable to communicate or understand her mental state in regards to his disappearance, but it's clear she's even worse off than Wonkers, who can at least rest assured of Zoë returning home once in a while.
• The Stinger: The ending... again.
• Stringy-Haired Ghost Girl: Faith, who is actually far more benevolent than most other examples.
• Took a Level in Badass: April is just a normal art student in the first game, but a competent fighter and a huge rebel leader in the second.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The plot structure, albeit with three plot strands.