The Longest Journey series just got a lot more interesting, which I didn't even think was possible. Funcom announced recently that its epic adventure franchise, which includes The Longest Journey and its sequel Dreamfall, will become an episodic series titled Dreamfall Chapters. Funcom said Dreamfall Chapters will pick up exactly where 2006's Dreamfall: The Longest Journey ended. The episodic series will continue the epic saga of the twin Earths, Star and Arcadia, in "a brand new format" that promises to reveal "the greatest mystery of them all - one that will bring the groundbreaking saga to a surprising and stunning conclusion."

I have no idea what that means, and I don't care. I'm so pumped up about this that I can barely type the words. I recently played The Longest Journey after I had had enough of people nagging me about giving it a try. Well, I did, and the game was fantastic. And despite begin a seven year old title, it changed the way I think about games as an interactive narrative. Rarely have I felt more passionate about a game and its characters. I just started Dreamfall: The Longest Journey recently, and I curse the Game Developer Conference for taking me away from it for a week.

It seems that Longest Journey fans like myself have the government of Norway to thank for the new development. Funcom, which is headquartered in Oslo, Norway, announced last week that the Norwegian Film Fund awarded the game developer with a grant which will partially fund the research and initial development of "Dreamfall Chapters." The company said the grant gives it the ability to establish a core technology team that will concentrate on online-only delivery of episodic content and create the foundation for the pre-production phase of the episodic series.

According to Funcom, each new installment of 'Dreamfall Chapters' will initially be delivered as online-only content, but said there may be retail releases with combined chapters both for console and PC at a later date. In addition, the company stated that there may be potential for an MMO version of The Longest Journey.

Seriously, I just got goose bumps.

I caught up with Funcom product director Jorgen Tharaldsen, who was giving previews of Funcom's forthcoming MMO Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures at Microsoft's press preview today for GDC. I asked him about Dreamfall Chapters, and he said Funcom isn't planning on releasing many details about the episodic series. "We had to announce Dreamfall Chapters last week because of the funding. We knew we couldn't hide it because we're a public company, but we wanted to keep it secret," Tharaldsen said. "So we're not going to announce any more information for a while because we don't want to give anything away. But we're excited because we think in a year or two, the digital distribution market will be really strong and will be right for this kind of content. This is the kind of game we want to make. We probably should make shooters since they're more successful. But we love adventure games and we're good at making them, so hopefully the fans are as excited as we are."

After I was done drilling Tharaldsen for information, I gushed like a total fan boy about how much I loved The Longest Journey and how crazy excited I am for Dreamfall Chapters. I can't wait to learn more.

Speaking of gushing, I put April Ryan and Zoe Castillo of The Longest Journey and Dreamfall, respecitvely, on the TwitchGuru list of the 50 Greatest Female Characters in Video Game History. Enjoy.