http://www.gabrielknight20th.com/
The classic Sierra adventure game Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is coming back in 2014. Today series creator Jane Jensen announced a partnership with Activision to re-imagine the game for PC, Mac and iPad in 2014 with newly upgraded HD graphics. I spoke to Jane about the news yesterday, and what follows is a transcript of the conversation. Fun fact: I served as a volunteer beta tester for the original game 20 years ago!
So now we can finally reveal what "Mystery Game X" is on your website! Fans will be thrilled to hear you are finally reunited with Gabriel Knight. How did this deal come about with Activision
There were some people at Activision who were passionate about the old Sierra titles and one of them contacted me during our Moebius Kickstarter last year. There was more visibility of adventure games at that time with the various Kickstarter campaigns and the success of some big titles, so it looked like a good moment for them to get a project like this rolling at Activision. Those supporters inside Activision are really to thank for getting the project off the ground and for helping me get the license to do this game.
You aren't announcing a Kickstarter for this — it's already happening. Does that mean this is being funded by Activision and definitely coming out?
My indie studio, Pinkerton Road, is licensing the game from Activision and developing it ourselves. We’re not crowd-funding the project. And yes, it’s definitely coming out!
Let's talk a bit about your strategy with this re-release. You are re-making the art, but the core gamplay is going to stay the same, a point and click 2D adventure. As many fans know the GK series experimented with everything from live action to 3D. Did you ever consider re-making the game in a different style, in other words taking the story but re-interpreting it for a new generation?
When we looked at remakes like Monkey Island or Broken Sword, or even some of the King’s Quest remakes, we really felt Sins of the Fathers needed to stay true to the original story and gameplay, both for reasons of nostalgia but also because it worked. We didn’t want to completely change the formula and break it! And the game deserved to be remade lovingly, just as it was. We are adding in a few new things here and there, but I wanted the original to be fully represented.
How do you think the point and click gameplay is going to hold up 20 years later on PC, Mac and iPad?
Ultimately, the heart of Sins of the Fathers is a thrilling and compelling story mystery story with a romantic twist, and that still holds up. The gameplay is being tweaked a bit for the iPad version but is still quite similar to the original. Other point-and-click remakes have done well and are fun to play. As we get further into development and can playtest the game with both fans and new players, we may make some adjustments here and there to make it more fun if we see a need or a way to do so.
Is there anything new we can expect in the design, any new puzzles, scenes or dialogue?
One of my goals going in was to pump up the New Orleans flavor and also the spookiness where possible, so there are a couple of new backgrounds and puzzles that aim to do that. But that’s on top of the original content, not replacing it.
I understand that the great Tim Curry will not be reprising his voiceover role in the game. In fact you've had to re-record and re-cast the entire game. Why is that?
Tim Curry was great! We didn’t have the original audio files, and at the time Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers shipped, the audio was pretty compressed. So to just strip it out of the original game didn’t yield a good quality. We had to rerecord. Because it’s been twenty years, most of the original actors would not sound the same and also the cost of getting that original cast was prohibitive. We really lucked out with Sins of the Fathers in 1993 because it was one of the first video games to use Hollywood actors like that, so everyone gave us a smoking deal (including SAG)! For the remake we used Bay Area Sound, who have done a lot of games with Telltale including Sam & Max, Tales of Monkey Island, and The Walking Dead. So we were in good hands and got good results.
Your husband Robert wrote an incredible score for the game, I still remember how fantastic it sounded on my Roland sound card. Is the music being updated or re-recorded as well?
Yes, like the art, the original music is being redone with all the modern tools and it sounds amazing!
You and the team are surely busy working on your Kickstarter game Moebius, so how are you balancing the workload between the two projects? is Moebius geting close to completion?
Moebius is getting there. We have all of the logic in the game now and quite a bit of the cutscenes done. We are doing the last voice session this week. So our plan is to ship around Dec/Jan. It’s a bit tricky to work on both at the same time, but because Sins of the Fathers is a remake there’s no writing to do for me, which is what makes working on them together possible. It’s mostly the team’s work on programming, and me on playtesting and making sure everything’s as it should be.
Is the deal just for a re-make of the original, or does this open up the possibility of a NEW Gabriel Knight adventure down the road as well?
The licensing deal we have with Activision is for this game only. However, I think there’s a strong chance that if we create a good game that does well with the critics and in sales, we can persuade Activision to allow us to do a new GK game. I certainly hope so! After all, there’d be no point in remaking the first Gabriel Knight game if not to relaunch and rejuvenate the series. Also, this is the first time since leaving Sierra that I’ve been able to do anything with the GK license holder, so that’s huge! I hope it’s the start of a beautiful friendship.
Any ideas where you would take Gabriel for a GK4 if and when it happened?
Yup. I have two fairly developed game ideas sitting on my hard drive. But I wouldn’t want to spoil it.
Il remake di Gabriel Knight the Sins of the Fathers
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