Start Your Dragon Age Journey Early

If Dragon Age: Origins is promising an RPG feast, BioWare and EA are serving Flash appetizers to tide us over until November 3rd.

Dragon Age Journeys, produced by EA 2D, is just the thing to get our collective mouths watering. Not only does it give a taste of the new and original DA:O world, turn based gameplay and inventory system, it also offers achievements in the forms of in-game goodies transferable to your DA:O character via your EA account.

This simple Flash-based browser game is reminiscent of click and drag environment of the original Diablo. Thirty minutes in and I’m pretty much hooked on searching the map for treasure and XP, leveling up and kicking butt with my human rogue. Before beginning the game, you have the opportunity to create a basic character (hair style, face colour, five o’clock shadow shape, etc) complete with basic back story. True to the concept of Origins, you can select between human, elf or dwarf and their relative specializations.

Once in game, you’re quickly introduced to a simplistic (if not completely throwaway) story of a child (you) and their father in the underground dwarf realm of Orzammar looking for a bit of gray-market trade and commerce. Naturally, things go badly: father dies, child flees and story begins. Once past the exposition and play orientation, the game becomes fairly entertaining and the search for loot is on. Thanks to online saving, it’s just perfect for lunch/coffee/smoke break filler.

While the game is certainly not long, it’s a nice way to keep us going as the days count down to D-Day. Some of the content on the site suggests there may be future additions to this Flash game–an interesting expansion of the Dragon Age universe. As BioWare sees to expand its IP in whatever way it can including comics, novels and tabletop gaming, it wouldn’t be a surprise to see a EA 2D pursuing a parallel path with a free and viral avenue such as Journeys.

You can check out the game for yourself here.