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- Dream Chronicles: The Book of Water (often shortened to Dream Chronicles 5 or The Book of Water) is a 2011 adventure and puzzle casual game developed by KatGames and originally published by PlayFirst. It is the fifth installment in the Dream Chronicles series, the fourth sequel to 2007's Zeebys-winning game Dream Chronicles, and the middle part of the second unfinished trilogy titled Lyra's Destiny. Set in a mystical world of realistic fantasy where mortal and fairy realms collide, continuing the story from where Dream Chronicles: The Book of Air ended, The Book of Water tells the strange journey of an extraordinary girl named Lyra who has found her way home only to discover that the Fairy Queen of Dreams—her family's biggest rival—has cast a menacing storm over all of her beloved Town of Wish. The town is completely desolate, her mother is missing, and her father is gravely ill, forcing her to embark on a quest to counter the evil spell and seek answers to save her family and hometown. The game includes both new and returning characters and locations from the previous games. The Book of Water was first presented limitedly as a beta version on December 3, 2010. Another beta version was leaked on January 18, 2011. Just two days before the game's scheduled release, the content was leaked online. It was released worldwide as a digital download under two editions, Collector's and Standard—on April 24 and May 27, 2011 respectively—by PlayFirst. Each edition was quickly available on PlayFirst's exclusive partner, Big Fish Games, on the following day of each release date. Both editions feature the main single-mode game, while the Collector's one also includes a bonus game in which players can play as Faye, three extra locations, several mini-puzzles, eight wallpapers, and a detailed walkthrough from the developer. On August 31, 2011, a high-definition version of this game was available via App Store for iPad device. Similar to the fourth game, it was met with mixed reviews from casual game critics, describing it as "a pure point-and-click adventure experience of the old Myst school of gameplay, with some minor hidden object elements mixed in," though they heavily criticized it for "[having] let the [Dream Chronicles] franchise down" and for being short, dull, uninteresting, and ending terribly, which is "bound to leave a bad taste in your mouth." The game itself was moderately successful, and reached the top-ten of the charts in most major casual game charts, but failed to attain the top position in any of them. It only reached the top of the iWin.com's Top 100 Games and Shockwave.com's Top Download Games chart. Compared to other games in the series, it is the lowest charting and reviewed Dream Chronicles game to date. The Book of Water was preceded by Dream Chronicles: The Book of Air (2010). As PlayFirst had initially announced and The Book of Water's final scenes implied, there would be a sequel called Dream Chronicles: The Book of Fire to be released. But soon after The Book of Water was released, since July 2011, PlayFirst cancelled releasing casual games on PC/Mac platforms in order to focus on its growing mobile gaming market. Because PlayFirst holds the rights to publish the Dream Chronicles series, that forced its developer KatGames to move on with other projects; namely The Cross Formula, a Dream Chronicles-alike game was released in early 2012. Partly due to that cancellation, The Book of Water was cut short its development time, thus making itself felt unfinished and awkward; it was also the last collaboration between PlayFirst and KatGames, and The Book of Fire will not be developed and released. (en)
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