BonusWeb interviews Jane Jensen
Conducted by Petr Ticháček - December 1999
This is the English version of the interview published by BonusWeb on December 23rd 1999. The interview, released only in a Czech translation, is still available on BonusWeb 
. Many thanks to Petr Ticháček for having taken his time and digged up the original file from his archive.
Q: Hello Jane. First of all, thank you for having dedicated me some of your valuable time. As a beginning, please tell me some basic information about yourself, what did you study, where did you work and how did you join Sierra OnLine.
A: I grew up in the American mid-west, in various states. My father was a Protestant minister. I got a college degree majoring in Computer Science. I worked for Hewlett-Packard for six years as a systems programmer while writing fiction in my spare time. My dream was to be a novelist. When I found my first Sierra game (King’s Quest IV) I saw a perfect match between fiction and programming and I applied to Sierra. I began working there in 1991.
Q: What was the first game you worked on and what was your first impression of this kind of work?
A: I wrote documentation for Police Quest IV and loved being able to write for a living.
Q: The greatest success of yours was indisputably the GK trilogy. I wonder what exactly inspired you to make such a wonderful game (I mean GK1) and especially how did you came up with the Gabriel Knight hero? Isn't Gabriel partially "the mirror" of yourself, by any chance?
A:
When I got the chance at Sierra to propose my own series, I came up with GK. I had previously thought about a novel series where the hero is a detective but the cases were supernatural. In the book the lead character was a parapsychologist, but as the GK1 story took shape the idea of the Schattenjäger replaced that. As for Gabriel, he was intended to be a James Dean kind of character – a kind of sexy but unreliable guy. His character grew from there.
Q: GK1 had great success and it became the game of the year. Then there came the sequel (The Beast Within), which was (unlike GK1) photo-realistic and full of FMV. Some players (including myself) hate FMV games, so they weren't interested in this sequel. I'd like to know why actually did you choose this kind of graphics for GK2 and what were game players' reactions?
A: GK2 is many gamers favorite game, even after GK3. There are those who love FMV and those who hate it. It was chosen at the time because that was the cutting-edge new technology, just as 3D was when we made GK3.
Q: Let's leave history for now and get down to the main theme of this interview – GK3. I would like to know if there were any big changes in the development team (in comparison with GK2) and in which areas of dev elopement have you participated?
A: Only myself, my husband (composer) and one programmer worked on GK3 who also worked on GK2. The team was mostly different. Naturally, we needed 3D artists and animators. I write the complete story, design the puzzles and game flow, write most of the dialogue, and basically „direct“ – that is, oversee art and characters and playtest as the game is coming along. I don't do any programming or art myself.
Q: How did you came up with the idea of situating the game into the mysterious Rennes-le-Château village? And why did you choose the templars, freemasons and vampires topic?
A: I always thought GK3 would be about vampires, before I learned of RLC. Then I picked up a book called „Holy Blood, Holy Grail“, which was about RLC and about the bloodline concept. I’d never heard of this before and found it fascinating. After I saw another book that tried to lay out geometry on a map I realized that RLC was perfect puzzle material, and fit in with the vampire theme quite well. The Templars and Freemasons are part of the RLC mystery.
Q: I have heard that before you start writing the game scenario, you usually travel to search the "place of action". You have been in Germany before you started Beast Within and this time you have travelled to Rennes-le-Château. How did you feel the atmosphere of that place? Have you been booked in the same hotel as Gabriel, by any chance?
A: The atmosphere of RLC was spooky, magical, cursed, gorgeous, intense. It was wonderful. As for the hotel, we had to take some liberties with the town in order to make the game/story work. There’s no hotel like that in RLC.
Q: There is a rumor that you took photos of almost everything in Rennes village for later use for graphic designers. So, is the GK3 environment the same as in real Rennes village?
A: We tried to stay true to a) the general texture and style of the town and b) if anything was directly involved in the mystery, it is reproduced exactly – for example, the church. As already noted, the hotel and moped shop are fictitious. The museum is based on real museums in town, but it is not exactly like any of them. Many of the locations out in the valley – C. De Serres, C. De Blanchefort, are based on the real locations.
Q: It can be said that GK3 is the first real 3D adventure. Whose idea was to create the third Gabriel game in 3D? There was a risk that this non-traditional project may return empty-handed. Or am I wrong?
A: It was Sierra’s idea. They didn't want to do any more FMV. Of course, any project is a risk.
Q: You have created your own engine for GK3. It had to to take some time. Did you think of licensing some other time-tested 3D engine? And will you offer the G-Engine to others for licensing?
A: Other 3D engines Sierra tried to license in the past didn't work out very well. For example, they licensed one on Mask and ended up pretty much rewriting the whole thing. And we knew what we were doing was unique and so there wasn't anything out there. The G-Engine will probably be used primarily by other Sierra products.
Q: 3D environment gives fantastic opportunities to the game. The most valuable is the movement freedom. But, from other side, GK3 doesn't appear to be a classic 1st person game, because you move with the camera instead of the main character. How did you came up with the excellent moving camera idea?
A: It was just instinct. In the first prototype of the engine, Gabriel was on screen, and you could move the camera a bit on your own. I felt strongly that we couldn't be in first person (had to see Gabriel) but that I wanted freedom of movement. So we had to work out a ways to make that work smoothly – such as skip-to-view (when you do an action, Gabe walks in from behind camera & doesn't have to cross the interposing space).
Q: All the game characters are perfectly designed. Especially the faces are excellent. You can recognize when a character is smiling or frowning. How did you make it… I mean all the gestures… it is unbelievable.
A: It just took lots of work and experimentation. That and some really talented engine programmers!
Q: The voice acting is very good too. Especially Tim Curry's performance is excellent. But I want to know one thing – why did you choose Tim for GK voice acting and not the actor from GK2, who was very good too?
A: Since GK3 went back to a more animated look like GK1, we decided to go back to professional voice-over actors.
Q: For an adventure game, it is quite unusual to play as two different heroes. In GK3, you can play both as Gabriel and Grace. And what's more, Gabriel's work is classic investigating and Grace's job is to work with SIDNEY and to solve Le Serpent Rouge puzzle. They both complement each other in the game. How did you came up with this idea to play both as Gabriel and Grace?
A: You didn't play as both in GK1, but Grace turned out to be such a strong character that I decided to give her more of a role in GK2. You played both characters in GK2 and I liked the way it turned out.
Q: Let's stay with these two heroes for a while. It is very interesting to keep an eye on them, especially when they are talking with each other. Or when Gabriel is talking with Mosely about himself and Grace… What actually is the real relationship between them? There are several romance sequences between them in the game (not counting the final one).
A: What’s the ‚real‘ relationship between them? Just what you see in the game. :)
Q: Grace spends a lot of time working on her laptop, respectively with the SIDney program. This database is really fascinating. There is so many things you can do with it. How did you came up with this thing? And where did you get that incredible amount of information for the "research" menu?
A: It was developed because I wanted to do the ‚Le serpent rouge‘ puzzle. Doing a map puzzle was the whole idea behind using the RLC theme, so I had to get it in there. SIDney was designed for that purpose and gradually expanded as the rest of the puzzle design took shape. The most ‚game related‘ material in the SEARCH database was written by me (i.e. vampires, grail), but a good bulk of the material was licensed from a web site, www.mystica.com.
Q: There is one thing that is very valuable in adventures – NONLINEARITY. I have to say that GK3 is one of the most nonlinear adventures I have ever played. There are some actions you may, but don't have to do (for example recording Abbe's phone call). I wonder if these activities give only some additional clues to the player, or if they influence the further game story (which may lead to possible variable game endings)?
A: There’s a main storyline – discovering the RLC treasure and rescuing the baby – which includes all scenes you have to see (and the game will make sure you see). All the other scenes relate to sub-plots about the different suspects and are optional. The biggest „variable endings“ area is actually in the denouement scene at day 3, 3pm. That scene will branch in all kinds of ways based on what you have or haven't learned about the suspects. But the ending (temple) is the same no matter what you've done because that’s no the main story path. The idea was to make the game replayable, to reward really thorough, meticulous gaming, and to give people something new to see even on the 4th or 5th time through.
Q: The release date of GK3 was delayed for almost one year. Where was the problem? I think that the development process was more difficult than you thought.
A: Yes, the 3D engine took a lot more time to develop than we thought (a year longer). And when it was done it took more time and effort to put together the 3D world than we thought (a lot longer than 2D).
Q: When you play GK3, your work is rewarded by some amount of points. I wonder what is the maximum number of points you can reach (my final score was 848 and I don't think that anybody is able to get all the points – 965)?
A: You should be able to get the maximum points that are listed on the score if you did absolutely everything.
Q: It is indisputable that GK3 starts new trend in adventure games genre. Atlantis did the same a couple of years ago and there are many Atlantis clones nowadays. Do you think that GK3 will be a model for other game developers too (not counting Simon the Sorcerer 3D, which was under development in the same time as GK3)?
A: I really couldn't say. Adventure games are very shaky in the US right now. Who knows if there will ever be anymore? But you may see GK3 influencing some action/adventure games, particularly things like the camera movement and game interface.
Q: You have made three GK games for the present. All of them were completely different (GK1 – animated 2D, GK2 – photorealistic with FMV and GK 3 – 3D). Which of the graphic style do you like most of all?
A: I love having the live actors, but don't like the camera/interactivity restrictions of FMV. So I guess my ‚favorite‘ has not been invented yet.
Q: Gabriel Knight is a quite famous character nowadays. And it is said that famous personages should appear on the big screen. So, is there any movie with GK in the main part under development? And if not, would you like to see this character on the big screen?
A: We haven't had any serious offers, but of course it would be great if that happened.
Q: The work is finally done – GK3 is in the stores. And what about GK4? I hope that Blood of Damned isn't the end of this series. I know it is better stop when you are on the top, but hey! I WANT THE SEQUEL! errr… sorry…. WE ALL WANT THE SEQUEL!!! So? (and if there wont be any new Gabriel game, just tell me about you other future plans).
A: I'm currently working on a new novel. My first ‚big‘ novel came out a few months ago called „Millennium Rising“. Perhaps after I finish the new book I may think about a GK4. But I honestly don't know if Sierra will even fund another GK project. I may end up doing GK4 as a novel instead – who knows?
Q: Now it's time for my traditional question. And I think you are the right person to ask. Tell me, how do YOU see the future of adventure games? Are they almost dead, or will they live again, especially after GK3 release?
A: I think the traditional form is pretty dead, but I think in the future, especially with Web TV and eventually Virtual Reality, we'll see „story“ come back in a big way.
Q: The very last question is pointing to one little interesting thing. In the game, I was walking on the town square in Rennes and I found the bookstore. In the shop window, I saw a picture with a face of a woman… I wonder who might that be… and how did it get there… :)
A: The artist’s idea of being funny....
Last update: November 27, 2007
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