Wheel of Games Journal

She is the creator of the well-known Gabriel Knight adventure game, as well as the author of several books, with Judgement Day and Dante’s Equation among them. After a small visit to the casual game area, she’s now back with a new game: Gray Matter.

Jane Jensen and Gabriel Knight

The American mystery-writer and game designer Jane Jensen was born in Palmerton, Pennsylvania, in 1963 and has been fascinated by two things ever since she finished her BA degree in computer sciences: Creating stories and working with computers. With Sierra Online, she had her beginning in the games industry in 1991 and initially worked on games like Police Quest III and King’s Quest VI.

Fascinated by dark and mysterious stories, she finally got the chance to design her own game, which became known for exactly that dark and mysterious character: Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. Her fascinating and thrilling style of writing made the game, which was released in 1993, popular and gave the deep story a nice shot of horror. Back then, the game was highly praised and even got the “Computer Gaming World’s Adventure Game of the Year” award.

In the Point & Click adventure trilogy Gabriel Knight, the player is going on dangerous adventures and solves various mysterious murders with the main character Gabriel Knight. With the well known point and click style, the player is moving through the game and looks for clues that may help solving the various riddles. Next to locations like New Orleans, the player is also visiting Munich in Germany, and the French village Rennes-le-Châteu together with the character Grace in the third part of the trilogy. While Gabriel Knight was still a classical 2D Point & Click adventure, part 2 surprised with a more modern realization as a movie-styled game. The player was able to launch different actions with his mouse and real actors then executed the command. This was proportionally mirrored in the size of the game box: A whole 6 CDs were included in the packet.  After the third part, it got silent about Jane Jensen. But that is supposed to change now.

Gray Matter

Strange things are happening in the British manor “Dread Hill House”. Years ago, the neurobiologist David Styles M.D. lost his wife in a horrible accident and has been living in recluse ever since then. But events come thick and fast when Samantha Everett shows up and he hires her as his assistant.

Gray Matter is the new Point & Click Adventure by Jane Jensen, which is supposed to be released at the end of 2010 for the PC. The player is on the hunt for a job as the student Samantha Everett, when she, by chance, meets David Styles, who promptly wants to hire the young woman as his assistant. Her first assignment is to find six volunteers at the Oxford University, who would be willing to undergo an experiment that has been prepared by Styles. But it’s not long until it becomes apparent that something strange is going on. When Styles is mysteriously haunted by his deceased wife, it’s up to Samantha to solve the weird riddles of the Dread Hill House.

Next to a PC version, which will be released in the 4^th Quarter of 2010, there are also plans for a Xbox 360 version. More information on this game can be found on the official website or on the weblog of Jane Jensen.