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Interviews
THE
BEST DAMN JANE JENSEN INTERVIEW EVER
Conducted by Randy Sluganski
Page 3
Randy-JA: You’ve covered vampires, werewolves and voodoo – where will the new series take us?
Jane Jensen: Well the new series is not quite as fantasy based, it’s more abut the nature of reality. This is a pilot episode of a series. The first Gabriel Knight was written as a series, the first episode - Sins of the Fathers – introduced the characters, gave the back-story of Gabriel and by the end of the game he was set up as Schattenjaeger. This game has a similar structure, it introduces the character, it makes the partners and it sets-up the whole premise for the series.
Randy-JA: Do you think the confidence you exude when someone is talking to you is part of the reason for your success?
Jane Jensen: No one ever talks to me Randy. I think it’s a confidence they feel in the game.
Randy-JA: But I feel a confidence emanating from you when you’re talking about your new series that is infectious.
Jane Jensen: It’s the passion. It’s that passion that goes into the game and I think that’s what people feel on the other side when they’re playing the game. They feel that this is someone’s vision, someone’s passion and somebody was really excited about this.
Randy-JA: Does your husband read your books or play your games?
Jane Jensen: No, but he’s a big supporter of my career. He always hears the plot at least a thousand times before it actually comes out. He hears every impossible incarnation of every character trait so he’s so sick of it by the time there is a book or a game that the last thing he wants to do is sit down and experience it again.
Randy-JA:
What’s the proposed title of your new game?
Jane Jensen: We had a title and I loved the title, but marketing just found out that there was a conflict with the title as there’s a gaming studio that has the same name so we have to change it. The title was Gray Matter.
Randy-JA: And the main characters?
Jane Jensen: The main characters are a male and a female much like Gabriel Knight. Actually in the first game you play as the female more. There are nine chapters right now and you play as the female character in six of them. The reason why is because the male character is actually the more prominent character, but I wanted to introduce him in this story almost from someone else’s perspective. He’s a very mysterious figure in this first game so you actually play more from her perspective, but you do play as him for three chapters and later in the series it will be more evenly balanced.
Randy-JA: Does the male character have a name?
Jane Jensen: He had a name but it’s up in the air right now. What’s in a name? He’s a neurobiologist who lost his wife in a car accident. He’s become reclusive and now spends his time investigating extraordinary occurrences.
Randy-JA: Aren’t you afraid that creating a new game in which the main characters are male and female will only invite comparison to the Gabriel Knight games? Even though it might be the best game in the world, people will be let down because they will inevitably compare everything to Gabriel Knight. Wouldn’t it have been more feasible to do a role-reversal for the new game and have a lead female character and a male understudy?
Jane Jensen: Well you do actually end up playing more as the female character so in a way the male character is secondary in the first game. But this is just the way the story evolved, I’m not going to twist it to try and….look, the male character came to me and he was just great. You know you can’t win, even when Gabriel 3 came out it got some negative critical reactions because people were comparing it to Gabriel 2, even if this was Gabriel 4 people would be comparing it to Gabriel 3.
Randy-JA: But wasn’t most of the negative reaction to Gabriel 3 from the computer magazines?
Jane Jensen: Yes. The game was probably the most esoteric, most ‘intellectual’ of the three and it came out at a time when adventures and story in general were not popular, so it wasn’t a good combination. But I’ve received so much support for that game since.
Randy-JA: There seems to have been an upswing in the media’s opinion towards adventure games. Last year at the E3 there were literally no adventure games here. What do you believe has contributed to this change?
Jane Jensen: There really has been an upswing. Even in the mainstream press you see people asking, “Where are all the adventure games?”
My stepdaughter got a new computer for Christmas and we went to CompUSA to buy a game and literally there were three aisles of shelves and all the titles looked exactly the same and they were all shooter games and car games and you know what, there was not one title I was interested in. I think there has been a resurgence of interest in adventure games just because people probably want something a little bit different and maybe they’re thinking, gee when I was 8-years old there was this King’s Quest game I played that was fun. I think everything goes in cycles and people are ready for something different again.