It's certainly taken her long enough. Indeed, one can only assume that after writing and completing the excellent Gabriel Knight trilogy of adventure games for Sierra, Jane Jensen was somehow imprisoned in a small room with naught but a couple of random objects at her disposal. After combining every single item with every other one in her possession, she must have finally attained to freedom by combining the giraffe-shaped balloon with the priceless fabergé egg.Since her dramatic escape, Jensen has been hard at work on Gray Matter, a new adventure set to debut at the Leipzig Games Convention later this month. Published by dtp entertainment (they're staunchly opposed to capital-ism, it seems), not much is known about the game aside from a fourth quarter 2007 release. Carsten Fichtelmann, marketing director of dtp, seems pretty confident that Jensen, "a real star of the adventure gaming scene," will be a great asset to the team. "We are very happy to be working with her on her new project, Gray Matter, bringing the adventure gaming genre forward once again."
Many would argue that bringing the adventure genre forward would result in it bumping its head against a sealed coffin lid. A great article on Old Man Murray once suggested that the genre had committed suicide, largely motivated by the kind of puzzles found in Jenson's own Gabriel Knight 3. In one infamous puzzle, the protagonist had to create a disguise using a ridiculous combination of masking tape, maple syrup and a cat. In other words, a contrived act of following "daredevil of logic Jane Jensen as she pilots Gabriel Knight 3 right over common sense, like Evel Knievel jumping Snake River Canyon." She's undoubtedly a superb storyteller, but let's hope that she utilizes her own gray matter more effectively when it comes to puzzles this time around.
