I've kept myself unusually busy today - for a Sunday, that is - and even managed to spend three hours working through the detailed design for the opening twenty minutes of the next The Longest Journey.

More than ever, the player's first impressions are crucial. There are so many games out there, so many choices, that designers have to hook players from the get-go. With TLJ.s, once you get into the story, you'll want - no, need - to continue playing. But before you reach that point, and before you've gotten to know the characters, you'll form an opinion about the game. It's inevitable.

That's why the first game opened with a dream sequence, packing a lot of adventuring and excitement into fifteen-to-twenty minutes...before settling down into a more languid pace. Lots of players made up their minds about whether or not to keep playing on the basis of the prologue - and this will be the case with TLJ.s as well.

So it's my responsibility to make sure that nobody quits playing after the first couple of minutes; that the opening levels are so packed with great gameplay, amazing visuals, funnies, scaries, and story hooks, that everyone keeps playing into the small hours.

And I think that, yup, we've accomplished this. Jolly good.  ¶ 00:08