Gamesdomain interviews Jane Jensen
Conducted by Joe Taylor - 1996Recently, the GDR got a phone call from Sierra's security department, asking to please come get a stray reviewer that had apparently got ten loose, made his way to the Seattle company's headquarters, and was making a nuisance of himself trying to jump high enough to peek into the office windows and shouting out Jane Jensen's name. Well, with the capable use of a net, a quick plane trip and a stern lecture later, Joe Taylor was once again safe in GDR hands, but his persistence, as he was to learn, would pay off. Shortly afterward, Jane Jensen herself called and agreed to do an interview with, as she warmly put it, the "crazy person". A brief scuffle ensued between reviewers unclear on who exactly she meant, but our editor Dave put a swift end to it, perhaps with the worry that Joe might otherwise make good on his promise of harming himself with his box of de-cottoned Q-tips. In any case, dear readers, the result is a GDR exclusive: an interview with Sierra's Jane Jensen, designer of the Gabriel Knight series!
For her growing group of fans, Ms. Jensen's Gabriel Knight series represents a refreshing change from other adventure games in how seriously it takes its writing, characters and storyline. Few other games reach the level of richness of the Gabriel Knight tales, and among adventure game lovers, this has all but made modern legends of Jane Jensen and her team of talent. Her latest work, Gabriel Knight 2: The Beast Within, is enjoying even greater success than the original, and a review (also by Joe Taylor) can be found at the GDR. Fans may have gotten to know Gabriel Knight himself, but probably know little about the woman behind his creation. Read on, dear readers, for a rare glimpse into one of the industry's top minds.
Joe: Before joining Sierra On-Line, you worked for Hewlett-Packard. When was that, and what sort of work did you do for H-P?
Jane: I worked for Hewlett-Packard between 1983 and 1989, doing various engineering jobs. I basically worked on their mainframe systems, operating systems, and network software, primarily designing operating-system-level code, writing and testing it, etc...
Joe: How did you end up at Sierra?
Jane: Well, I was basically frustrated with my programming career and felt like it was just something that a lot of people could do and that I wasn't making my mark with it. At the time, I was writing fiction on the side and was trying to publish a novel and various short stories, and about that time, I discovered my first computer games, which were KQ4 and Manhunter: San Francisco. I was totally hoooked by them...I tend to get really obsessive about things once I get into them (laughs). I ended up buying everything else Sierra had in their catalog...it was that level of obsession with it. In fact, it was taking up all my free time, I wasn't writing fiction anymore! So, I wrote Sierra and offered to do just about anything...I told them I could program, or write, or whatever. I sent them a sample of a short story. A year later they replied...they were starting a group of writers, which were to be staff writers who would write documentation and manuals for the games, as well as additional texts and dialogs for the designers, and I was hired on in that group.
Joe: You were involved in the development of several other games before GK1. Was GK1 your first solo effort, as far as design is concerned? How different was the experience, compared to the joint efforts you had done before?
Jane: Before Gabriel Knight, I was involved in the creation of Ecoquest and King's Quest 6. GK1 was my first solo effort. I think it worked out well since Ecoquest was a relatively smaller game, a children's game, and, being my first game, it prepared me to work with Roberta (Williams). Then, working with Roberta on it and King's Quest 6, which was a much larger game, was a good learning experience. With Ecoquest, I learned a lot about the way she sat down and did design, and about her demand for quality and relentlessness in her quest for perfection. It gave me a lot of skills to use in turning around and doing my own first project, both as far as helping me train to design and in having a role model for being the key leader on a project. That said, doing GK1 was much more wonderful, because I got to pull something out of myself and design a game around my psyche and interests, and therefore closer to my heart.
Joe: You claim that one of the greatest strengths of your stories may be the amount of time you spend researching them. It obviously is a technique that works for you. How did research become so important to you in creating a story?
Jane: I guess since I was a kid, I've always loved books and done a lot of reading. When I was young, I just wanted to read supermarket fiction, particularly horror, but as I got older, my tastes changed. In the last few years, I've been drawn more to non-fiction: history, documentaries, and in particular, anything on the paranormal, on various world religions and philosophies and so on. I found that in GK1 (and subsequently), a lot of that was coming out in my ideas for my work. It became apparent that it had a lot of value in giving me a groundwork on which to base my stories and fictional concepts. So, having realized that, I have become much more aware of constantly trying to read interesting things and increase my knowledge base. I just feel that the more informed that I am, the broader my mind is, and the more I'll have to say in my work.
Joe: Do you feel that the real world holds more wonder than one that is made up?
Jane: I guess I do. I think that fiction's job is to reflect reality, and so I don't think that there is much that can be done in fiction that is anything but a reflection of what there is in the real world.
Joe: GK2's storyline is kind to Bavaria's King Ludwig II, kinder than history has often painted him. Does that reflect Jane Jensen's image of the man, and what made you see him in that light?
Jane: When I first started learning about Ludwig II, it was by taking tours in Germany, and of course that version of history is very kind to him...he is painted very romantically. If you go to his castles, they talk about Ludwig the tormented loner and the tormented soul, his love for beauty and so on, and they really present him in a sort of "Prince Charming" kind of way. He was a very handsome man and all. I guess I just really fell in love with that version of it, and as I did my research, I found out about things that were necessarily more realistic and maybe a little darker, and I used them, but I did stick with a lot of the elements of this romantic notion of Ludwig for GK2.
Joe: Why did you choose him as such an integral part of the storyline?
Jane: I chose him for the storyline because he was already so enigmatic, and much of what was known about his life seemed to mesh with the story I was building. His role in the game is like my own JFK-type of theory on filling in the missing pieces of what we know about him.
Joe: Where was GK2 filmed?
Jane: Oakhurst, California, for the most part. In fact, most of the filming was shot on blue screen in a video studio. The backgrounds were shot in Germany, and other bits were shot elsewhere; for example, the scene where Grace is running in the snow was shot in Yosemite National Park.
Joe: What was the budget for GK2? GK1? And compared to Phantasmagoria?
Jane: Well, I'll just say GK2 cost 3 times as much as GK1. It did cost less than Phantasmagoria, because that one had a lot of costs associated with the building of a new video studio. Also, there was a bit less of a learning curve in using the technology.
Joe: Will we see the same actors return for their respective roles in future GK installments?
Jane: I hope so. There are no guarantees, but I'd like that.
Joe: Are there any plans for bringing Gabriel Knight to the big screen?
Jane: There has been *some* interest expressed, but there's nothing firm in the works at the moment.
Joe: GK2's greatest difference from its predecessor was in the use of full-motion video instead of computer-generated graphics. Can you tell us about further innovations and developments you see in the future of computer games?
Jane: I think everyone is a bit confused about the future. Sierra at the moment is feeling pretty negative towards live-action video, simply because it is enormously expensive, possibly more expensive than can be justified by the potential sales in the market, particularly given the flood of products and so forth. The question becomes what else is there to do, and is it always necessary or preferable to keep raising the bar? A lot of people are going more with the virtual-reality, 3D kinds of worlds, which are fine, but they're quite hard to do with complex worlds and characters. So I don't know what the answers are. I think it'll be a combination of a lot of things, but I think that over the long haul, there will tend to be a convergence between the computer industry and the movie industry. They will probably be using more and more computer-generated imagery, and we'll probably keep using video and get more versed with movie-making techniques to be used in game development.
Joe: Has Sierra made the decision to switch to Windows 95 and abandon DOS with its games? If so, how quickly will this manifest itself in future releases?
Jane: As far as I know, we have not officially abandoned DOS. We certainly didn't do that with GK2. I guess I won't find out until my next game shows up. I doubt it, though...it probably wouldn't be that big a deal to do both (DOS and Windows) versions if necessary.
Joe: You have previously mentioned your work on the novelization of GK1. Is it out yet, and is it basically a novelization of the GK1 plot?
Jane: No, we just verbally agreed to an offer from the publisher. It will probably not be actually out until next spring... quite a long lead time. I'm pretty happy that it's finally a done deal and on its way to the print shop, though.
Yes, the plot is essentially that found in GK1, although this is what I found: my initial goal in writing it was to take the story to a broader audience, mainly because most of the people I know, personally, don't play computer games...either they don't have a PC, or aren't comfortable with it, or think it's for kids or whatever. Not that I don't love games or that I would poo-poo the game audience at all...it's been very good to me...I just wanted to publish it in a way that everyone could just pick up and read. That was my motivation, but then as I was writing it, I found that I was able to get so much more in depth with the internal thoughts of the characters, and the struggles that Gabriel was going through, and the pacing and all that...it really was a lot of fun for me. I think that even if you played the game, particularly if you played it a while ago, you'd find that the book is a lot more intimate with the characters. Games are much like movies...puzzles and dialog, where you don't get into the characters' heads as much. So I think of it as more of a new element in the progression of the series as opposed to just a novelization of the first game.
Joe: With the introduction of full-motion video in The Beast Within, and this novel, are we going to see Gabriel Knight become a household name? What about Jane Jensen?
Jane: Well, I feel I've been very fortunate in the way that my career has been going. I think it takes a long time to become a household name. The best I can hope for is to simply grow an audience for the books and games. I mean, it may take, who knows, 10 years before there is a significant penetration of the mass-market, and even then it will probably be people who like mysteries or the paranormal or whatever. I'll be happy with that.
Joe: Recently, over the last couple of years, computers have become fashionable, if you will, and in particular, computer games have seemed to explode. Do you think that that, as a factor, can account for Gabriel Knight becoming more of a household name? Do you think that GK2 is reaching more of a mainstream audience because of it?
Jane: Well, I personally don't think that there is the explosion that people think is there. GK1 came out just before the mass-marketization in the press about games, and so we may have missed that whole wave. I still think that if you asked most people in the street, most of them would not have heard of it. We are hitting more broad publications now; recently, GK2 was reviewed in Billboard, Rolling Stone, Entertainment Weekly. That's real exciting for me, but I don't think that makes it a household name, and I don't think that, other than games like Myst, any game is really seeing the vast increases in sales that we would hope would be there. We think that, along with the interest in the genre, there's also been a gazillion people who have jumped on the bandwagon with competing products. It basically crosses channels and confuses the buyer, and it has impacted us.
We're still in the top-ten lists, but we're not seeing the millions in sales that Myst may see, for example. It's hard to pin down the combination of timing and whatnot where you can cross that barrier to mass-awareness. I think that, if you're not chronically fortunate enough to catch one of those waves, all you can try to do is make excellent product, and in the long run, win out with sheer perservence and product quality. Yes, it's great to see more recognition in the product line, but it doesn't necessarily translate directly in sales. I mean, especially this year, everyone in the industry is freaking out over how bad sales were this year.
Joe: Oh, really! And 1995?
Jane: Yes, the Christmas of 1995 and particularly up to now in 1996. There are going to be a lot of products that spent a lot of money and will fail quite badly and get a bad return. Basically, we're just not seeing what we hoped, and I think that products like Wing Commander, that spend $10 million or whatever, are going to have a hard time making that back. I wish there were this explosion going on, but there doesn't seem to be, and cautious people, like at Sierra, are continuing to approach the market cautiously in terms of where they invest. GK2 is selling well compared to the rest of the industry, yes, but if we sold 3 million units, for example, we could afford to be a lot more aggressive and spend more on the next game, but unfortunately that's probably not going to happen.
Joe: Is it safe to say that GK3 is now under development, and if so, can you possibly give us a tidbit or two?
Jane: At the moment, work hasn't yet commenced on GK3. Currently, I'm working on another game, tentatively called Millenium, which has a lot of prophetic, apocalyptic, religious and disaster aspects, that sort of thing. It will have a War of the Worlds-type element in the storyline.
Joe: Is it an adventure?
Jane: Yes, but I try to stay away from general game labels. The focus on this one will be to increase the sense of realism within the game and increase the player's sense of immersion in the game world. With the "standard" definition of adventure games, it gets a bit tiring to keep designing similar puzzles and so on. With GK2, for example, although there are still a lot of puzzles, an effort was made to make them feel more realistic and not contrived to challenge the player at random intervals. Millenium will try to continue in that direction. I like to think of my work as being heavy interactive fiction, and a sort of modern mythology. Millenium will hopefully have those qualities as well.
Joe: Any last words on other projects the gaming community can look forward to from Jane Jensen?
Jane: Well, Millenium will be the next project, and will both in game and book form, to be released separately. There is also a contract for the novelization of GK2. And finally, yes, there will definitely be the start of work on GK3 at some point. It's way too soon to tell, but it may be a sort of prequel...dealing historically with the Schattenjäger line in some way.
Joe: Any time frames for these projects?
Jane: Well, VERY tentatively, Xmas '97 for Millennium, Xmas '98 for GK3. The GK2 novel will be commenced sometime in between, though I can't really say when it will be finished.
Last update: October 24, 2007
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