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General discussion (archive)Ask a developer a question: Gabriel Knight(201 posts)(201 posts)
(201 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted April 16, 2012
It’s been a while since we’ve had a special interviewee on GOG.com, but whenever opportunity arises, we love to sit down with people behind classic PC games and ask them some of your questions. Today, you have a chance to delve into the process of creating an amazing adventure game like the gripping, captivating, supernatural detective series Gabriel Knight because we have Jane Jensen, series designer and writer, ready to answer 6 questions from the GOG.com community.

Jane Jensen began her career in the gaming industry in Sierra Online, co-writing and co-designing Police Quest III and King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow. Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers was her first solo game and it was a debut worth the Computer Gaming World's "Adventure Game of the Year" title. The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery and Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned followed later and established her position as an acclaimed designer and writer. In 2012, Jane, along with her husband (composer Robert Holmes, who wrote the music for the Gabriel Knight series) formed a new game development studio Pinkerton Road.

What do you want to know about Gabriel Knight series?
Are you interested in the creative process behind creating PC adventure games?
Maybe you want to know more about Jane’s future plans?

Whatever questions you want to ask, now is the time to do so! We’ll select 6 questions to send to Jane along with a few of our own, and the authors of the selected questions will be rewarded with any free classic $5.99 or $9.99 GOG game of their choice. You can submit as many questions as you want until Wednesday, April 18 at 11:59 p.m. EDT.
Posted April 16, 2012
With the awesome power of perfect hindsight and the Godly ability to fix the unfixable, what would you change to make the original GK series better or more to your liking? Is there something you would do different had you known the outcome in advance?
Posted April 16, 2012
1) If you could choose between your own studio financed from Kickstarter( but with very small budget) and big studio with big budget and free hand in creating new "video game experience" what would You choose?
2) Let us assume that You are the main producer of the well known AAA series. Seeing as the most of games now are sequels( and sequels of sequels of prequels) that usually do not add new, different or experimental content would you risk adding, for example, mature, dark story to( lets say) CoD?
3) And the last question: Have You ever thought about making game with problems like: are people fundamentally evil or good? If they are fundamentally evil and try to change it, are they worth more than people who are good from the start? Or maybe the good ones are worth more since from the start they are good? What I mean is to answer the question: "If the impostor can be as good as original is he worth more than the original?"
Posted April 16, 2012
Why adventure genre has fallen into decadance today (it has, right?)
What is your personal favourite adventure game, your ensample?
What is your favourite and most interesting part of game design, and why?
Posted April 16, 2012
What in your opinion made the Gabriel Knight series so memorable and so very near-and-dear to the hearts of such a diverse audience? From where you stand as a developer now, 10+ years later, would you ever attempt to recreate this range of emotions or has the task become too daunting?
Posted April 16, 2012
Will adventures change in the future, and how?
What do you think about ScummVM project?
PC or console?
Post edited April 16, 2012 by CSXbot
Posted April 16, 2012
I want to ask about a games story and narrative elements. In many games we simply get on with the adventure with little details in the past like Uncharted games; we start the game, a little briefing on the story welcomes us and we move along and continue it. In some games however, the background can even overwhelm you, like in Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. Thousands of years' lore stand before you and for some of us, that's paradise. But nowadays much gamers "just get on with the action" so they just skip it.

My first question is, for you, what is the perfect balance? To make the player not bored or overwhelmed but at the same time, intrigued, what would your approach be?

My second question is about narrative. A good story or a scenario is always a good start for a game. Developers have different narrative types to tell that story to the gamer: multiple characters (and narratives), first personal narrative and so on... With these narrative options, narrative elements greatly expands, in The Darkness 2 you can learn the lore by the objects you found along the way. In Alan Wake, Alan tells his own story and you play it too.

For adventure games, what narrative suits better? A simple narrative (like Leisure Suit Larry) or multiple narratives (like Dreamfall) or...? And what are these narratives' benefits and challenges to the storyteller?

Thank you Jane Jensen and GOG for this chance. (:
Post edited April 16, 2012 by WTElessar
Posted April 16, 2012
Does this mean we will see moebius on GoG if it gets funded? Answer yes here and ill happily toss in another 30$ :)
Posted April 16, 2012
Has game development been your preferred way to tell a story, or do you prefer working on novels? What are the strengths and weaknesses of those different formats?

Are there any lessons you've learned from designing adventure games that you'd like to share with aspiring designers?

Will we ever get to find out what happened to Grace?
Posted April 16, 2012
In a time of first person shooters what makes you not jump on the bandwagon and slap your name on any FPS game and call it your new next big thing from the maker of the GK series?
Why would you go back and make the classic style point and click Adventure?
Posted April 16, 2012
As a one time Pinkerton employee, I'm curious, what's behind the name "Pinkerton Road"?
Post edited April 16, 2012 by WhiteElk
Posted April 16, 2012
Any chance of releasing Gray Matter on GOG?
Posted April 16, 2012
What do you think about the Kinect for a Graphic Adventure?
Posted April 16, 2012
The genre of point&click adventures is "dying" since a few years, but unlikely the flight sims it keeps struggling and gives us great jewels like Machinarium or Gemini Rue, but still they have short impact on the market and the players. Why do you think they don't succeed on bringing back the genre? Is it the players, the developers or the market? Do you think it's because there's no room for innovation on gameplay desing or the stories are no longer atractive? How would you redifine or create something new in the world of point&click?
Posted April 16, 2012
what did you think of the overall reception and reviews of gray matter? what do you think could have been done differently to make it more successfull?
Posted April 16, 2012
Oh yeah, in case no one's asked this one before:

Everybody knows the infamous "cat hair moustache puzzle" that was credited with killing the adventure genre. It is known that it was designed as a replacement for your own original riddle that apparently could not be realized in time for technical reasons. Can you tell us something about the original puzzle?
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Community
General discussion (archive)Ask a developer a question: Gabriel Knight(201 posts)(201 posts)
(201 posts)