Recent years have produced an abundance of story-driven adventure games from publishers like Double Fine, Telltale Games, and smaller independent creators. The runaway success of something like
Gone Home and more esoteric adventure titles like
Kentucky Route Zero demonstrate that there’s an audience eager for more than shooting, driving, and abstract puzzle games. The latter category is an interesting parallel to
Dreamfall Chapters - Book One because there are plenty of puzzles to be found here. They go beyond the fetch quests of a typical RPG or action/adventure game, but don’t always rise to the level of smarts we’d like.
What you’re getting with Dreamfall Chapters - Book One is essentially a lean-back experience punctuated with choices that keep you engaged in the progress of the story. Objects present around you at any given time are almost all useful, with a few extras thrown in for color. It’s interactive fiction on steroids, but as an adventure game, it largely runs on rails. Compared to some of Telltale’s work in this genre, Dreamfall Chapters - Book One appears to have much more contained choice, preferring to keep you on track rather than give you an open world. The style of this game is very story-centric, making it great for players more interested in being entertained than in having their brains twisted.
