I'm on a sleep-work cycle: Sleep, work, sleep, work (etc.). This coming weekend, however, I'll be in New York, enjoying a couple of days off before flying to L.A. on Monday.

I used to think Dreamfall would only use action sequences for key events in the game, but now I get the impression that action will be an important part of Dreamfall. If possible, could you give us an estimate of how much time of the game we'll get action, and how much will be exploration?

There will be lots of exploration, lots of adventure gameplay, lots of interesting places to see, people to meet, puzzles to solve, quests to embark on...and the action will be an integral and natural part of that gameplay.

The action and the adventure won't necessarily be clearly delineated. Is sneaking past a guard 'action', for example, since that guard may discover you and attack - or is it 'adventure', because you may use the environment - or an inventory item - to avoid being spotted? In a traditional adventure, there may only be one scripted solution to that particular scenario, but in our game there's often no right or wrong.

In other media, the word 'adventure' usually describes a story with lots of different elements. When you go see an adventure movie, for example, you expect action, daring-do, romance, heroes and heroines, villains, set-pieces and cliff-hangers. Adventure stories are great fun: they allow us to dream about impossible places and situations, they engage and thrill, they make us cheer for the good guy (or girl) and hiss at the Big Bad. Good adventures can be simple or complex, long or short, deep or shallow - but the one thing they have in common is that they keep us entertained, keep us excited, keep us intrigued and eager for more, more, more!

And that's exactly what we're attempting to pull off with Dreamfall: create an exotic world filled with interesting characters, varied gameplay, stunning graphics and sound, and a good, solid story. A real adventure - in the traditional sense of the word. Conversations? Puzzles? Exploration? Check, check, and check. Action? Danger? Thrills? Ditto. We're not attempting to please everyone by creating a mish-mash of genres, but we do want a mix of gameplay elements to keep players on their toes, and to ensure that there's something new and exciting around every corner.  ¶ 21:46