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Articles
A JA WORLD EXCLUSIVE
JANE JENSEN ON GRAY MATTER, OBERON MEDIA & BOOBY TRAP
By Randy
Sluganski
May 3rd, 2004
Days before the 2004 E3,
I had the pleasure to speak with fan favorite Jane Jensen about her
new development company Oberon
Media,
Booby Trap – her newest work in
progress and the fate of
Gray
Matter
- her first game since the classic Gabriel
Knight 3
- that was announced by Dreamcatcher at E3
2003.
First the news on Gray Matter that everyone in the adventure community has been breathlessly anticipating. Gray Matter (aka Project Jane-J) has temporarily been put on hold. It is though possible that development on Gray Matter may eventually be resurrected with another company under the right circumstances (which will be outlined later in this article). If so, believe me it will be well worth the wait. I have read the script and it is fantastic.
Asked for specifics as to why Gray Matter has been placed on hold, Jane said, “Dreamcatcher’s big adventure game titles like Broken Sword: Sleeping Dragon and Syberia have not been very profitable and they could not justify putting a large budget into the title so the game was put on hold.”
“The times and the demographics have changed and today’s marketplace will not support a big-budget adventure game as evidenced by the recent cancellations of Uru Live and Sam ‘n Max 2. We need to find a way to make adventure games financially viable again.”
Jane firmly believes that the future of adventure gaming is through downloadable online games with high content value and lower budgets and her new development company – Oberon Media (which Jane founded with three business partners) -- is poised to lead the charge.
Her
newest project – announced here for the first time anywhere – is
Booby Trap, the follow-up to Oberon Media’s
very successful first game, Inspector Parker. The highly
addictive
Inspector
Parker is an online-like
game that was one of the top three downloads at Yahoo! Games for
over two months.
Now Oberon is preparing to take their
attempts to target the casual gamer a step further with Booby
Trap.
Booby Trap is a full-fledged attempt to capture both the casual online gamer and the hardcore adventure gamer. Already underway and with a projected fall 2004 release, Jane promises that “Booby Trap will have a real story, with a length and tone similar to a Laura Bow game.”
This is indeed a hefty goal for a downloadable, online game, but upon further questioning Jane revealed that while Booby Trap will be a puzzle/adventure game, “You can play the game as a puzzle game, like Inspector Parker. But in addition it will feature an adventure game mode set in 50 castle rooms and featuring thirteen different characters. In each room you solve puzzles unique to that room and pick up clues to the overall mystery. For example, the gamer will be able to overhear conversations between characters, find notes or physical evidence. The mystery itself is a real mind-twister.”
The music will once again be scored by Jane’s accomplished husband, Robert Holmes, and the graphics – we’ll have some screenshots late next week – will be high quality, similar to The Sims. All conversations will be text-based, with no voice-overs or lip-synching. This is one of the production points that Jane says makes Booby Trap financially feasible, quick to market and small enough to be downloadable. It is possible that voice-over may later be added if there’s a call for a CD version of the game.
And that is where Gray Matter comes back into the picture, for if Booby Trap is a money-maker, then it’s possible that more adventure games, including Gray Matter, will follow suit. While many of you may think that Gray Matter as an online adventure game has completely changed course, the truth is that it was originally envisioned as an episodic, online game and it would, in fact, be returning to its roots.
Jane is taking the adventure community on a bold journey forward, not only by co-founding a company to develop her own games, but also by having the courage to attempt to sell her product to a new demographic online. This fall will be the time for the adventure community to show its support, for the future of the adventure genre and Gray Matter may well reside in Booby Trap.
Besides Jane Jensen, there is also another high-profile developer interested in producing an online, downloadable adventure game and he has asked Just Adventure readers for their input. Please let your voice be heard by participating in the poll at JA Forum. No registration is necessary to respond to the developer’s questions.