Gabriel Knight: 20th Anniversary Edition - remake by Jane Jensen

[madrigal]

Maybe someone can give Cobbett a save game that has the snake scale so he can use the bug so he can play the game without ever having to find it himself, because who would ever think to look for a snake scale in a large area of matted grass where a cage has been sitting.

 

[Keshik]

Game's out on October 15th, thought that was already mentioned. That was the announcement at noon EST from Jensen.

http://www.postudios.com/company/games/gabrielknight20th/index.php

 

[Crooked Bee]

You can preorder the remake here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/262000/

Also, new interview with Jane Jensen: http://automaton.am/articles/interv...nsen-20th-anniversary-edition-gabriel-knight/

Excerpt:

For the 20th Anniversary Edition, Jensen has added some new puzzles, locations, and gameplay tweaks. “The approach I tried to take is not to reinvent the wheel on it. To stay as true to the original as was reasonable. It was something that was successful and that people loved, and we knew that the more that we changed it, the more the fans would have a problem with that... In the original game, Gabriel could ask anyone about anything. Which meant you'd have a dialogue tree that had twenty topics, and a lot of times that person wouldn't know anything about ‘Cabrit Sans Cor’, but you still felt like you had to ask them.

“Nowadays people don't necessarily have the patience for that, but I didn't want to cut all of that dialogue so we did a compromise by highlighting in yellow the topics that were critical for you to ask. So that a modern player, if they didn't want to sit through all of that dialogue, they could just get the core stuff, but it’s still in there if the fans want to hear it.”

The game was set in the present at its time of release in 1993, and the new version keeps to the same time period. “We put a lot of effort into making it 90s. All of the computers that you see in the game are the big old CRT monitors,” Jensen recalls. “If we had reset it in 2014, it definitely would have changed a lot of the puzzles. I didn't want to take it that far from the original. I prefer that it have that vintage feel to it.”

Players who remember the old game will find a few surprises to keep them on their toes. Jensen elaborates on the new puzzles: “We added in about eight full-screen puzzles... I call it 'more-ish'. The path we took was to keep the original gameplay but then add a few things on top of it to refresh it and to give the people that know it really well something new to experience and a new challenge.”

[...] According to Jensen, “Right now we only have a deal with Activision to do this first game. If we were able to do another Gabriel Knight product, my preference would be to go right to Gabriel Knight 4. It would be fun to do something completely new. It would be really hard to do [a remake of] GK 2 because I'm so used to that being the live actors, I think it would be challenging to reproduce that.”​

 

[Curious_Tongue]

You can preorder the remake here: http://af.gog.com/game/gabriel_knight_sins_of_the_fathers_20th_anniversary_edition?as=1649904300

ftfy

 

[taxalot]

This looks absolutely terrible.

If they really want to remake the game so bad, they should just scan higher res of the painting backdrops and just redraw the sprites. That'd be enough.

 

[Blackthorne]

They don't have the original paintings; all that shit got thrown out in the garbage years ago.... a lot of Sierra shit was lost that way, it's actually kind of a shame. THAT would have been totally awesome - the high res scans of the original backgrounds.

Bt

 

[Ninja Destroyer]

“Nowadays people don't necessarily have the patience for that, but I didn't want to cut all of that dialogue so we did a compromise by highlighting in yellow the topics that were critical for you to ask. So that a modern player, if they didn't want to sit through all of that dialogue, they could just get the core stuff, but it’s still in there if the fans want to hear it.”

It's really sad, considering that GK wasn't so dialogue heavy anyway. I understand that Jensen wants to give a carrot to new generation, but streamlining such fundamental thing is worrying. I hope GK 4 will comes to life though, no more remakes please. Especially like that one.

 

[Keshik]

Well, glad everything wasn't cut and we still have the option - though I thought critical stuff was highlighted already in the original, but possibly shoddy memory.

 

[Redlands]

Well, glad everything wasn't cut and we still have the option - though I thought critical stuff was highlighted already in the original, but possibly shoddy memory.

I think it was unheard dialogue options that were highlighted in the original.

 

[tuluse]

They don't have the original paintings; all that shit got thrown out in the garbage years ago.... a lot of Sierra shit was lost that way, it's actually kind of a shame. THAT would have been totally awesome - the high res scans of the original backgrounds.

Bt

High res scans and the original audio with no popping and crackling would be great.

But this is just meh

 

[Boleskine]

Well, glad everything wasn't cut and we still have the option - though I thought critical stuff was highlighted already in the original, but possibly shoddy memory.

It was, sort of. For each conversation Gabriel had a list of common topics that he could ask everyone (in blue) and topics specific to the person he was talking to (in a color matching that character's subtitles, like yellow or green). However, sometime a common topic triggered points or a critical conversation with certain characters, and not every topic unique to a character was necessary to progress.

It sounds like the remake will just tell you what the important topics for advancing the plot are, regardless of whether they are general (e.g. "voodoo murders") or specific to that character.

 

[belated]

Much happier playing The Beast Within right now than waiting for a remake of the first.

 

[Jaesun]

So... a *possible* Gabriel Knight 4 may depend on sales of this remake...... and which would be a Gabriel Knight 4 published by Activision......... (ACTION! Console KUNG-FU GRIP™ Gabriel Knight!).

This is kind of a lose/lose situation.

 

[Boleskine]

In the unlikely case GK4 did happen, I think Activision would just license the game to Jensen and Pinkerton Road rather than publish it (same situation as with GK1 remake).

Then again, since Activision is publishing a new KQ game under their new Sierra thing, maybe they'd be more interested to do sequels to other classic Sierra franchises.

 

[Abelian]

You can preorder the remake here: http://af.gog.com/game/gabriel_knight_sins_of_the_fathers_20th_anniversary_edition?as=1649904300

ftfy

Fixed

 

[Jaesun]

Activision involved in this at all is cause for concern (even if it is just a licence to use the IP). See Shadowrun Returns when an IP holder suddenly starts making certain demands unexpectedly.... (though that turned out OK for the most part).

Fargo however is a brilliant Businessman and his permission to use the Wasteland IP, without any hitches so far from EA is interesting..... though that was before the whole Kickstarter craze. (EA probably laughed when he approached them and got permission to use the IP).

Jane working with Activision just worries me. Though maybe she wants to... I dunno. I don't know how that would work out for a GK4, as much as I would LOVE to play a new GK4. As long as it was not dumbed down console garbage.

 

[Sceptic]

Jane has been notoriously terrible with publisher deals over the past decade or so. There is certainly room to worry after the disaster that was the Grey Matter publishing deal.

In any case I openly laugh at anyone who still believes that "buy the remake.... or else" line. LSL1 remake-of-remake should've been all the eye-opener anyone needs.

 

[Infinitron]

Jane has been notoriously terrible with publisher deals over the past decade or so. There is certainly room to worry after the disaster that was the Grey Matter publishing deal.

In any case I openly laugh at anyone who still believes that "buy the remake.... or else" line. LSL1 remake-of-remake should've been all the eye-opener anyone needs.

Can you tell me more about this Grey Matter publishing business? I'm not familiar with the details.

 

[Drakron]

Just check wikipedia.

 

[DalekFlay]

According to Jensen, “Right now we only have a deal with Activision to do this first game. If we were able to do another Gabriel Knight product, my preference would be to go right to Gabriel Knight 4. It would be fun to do something completely new. It would be really hard to do [a remake of] GK 2 because I'm so used to that being the live actors, I think it would be challenging to reproduce that.”

"Doing any kind of remake that actually matters would be very difficult."

 

[Blackthorne]

I think with the revival of the Sierra IP, no matter the sales on this, a GK 4 game is imminent. It's STILL, after all these years, a popular franchise. I just hope that Sierra/Activision would provide Pinkerton Road with the proper budget for a game of this magnitude. I met Jane back at GDC, and I know that she's written GK4 (Or at least the basic story idea) already. (Non official, don't quote me on this...) So I really think they're ready to go with it if Sierra/Activision says go. And honestly, with the kind of secrecy that's been going on with this whole Sierra thing, I bet it's already a done deal. Seems like they like to have this stuff in the works for a while before they tell anyone publicly. These, however, are just my observations from my own experiences.

Bt

 

[Gragt]

In any case I openly laugh at anyone who still believes that "buy the remake.... or else" line. LSL1 remake-of-remake should've been all the eye-opener anyone needs.

And there are other exemples before that one. I'm thinking of Interplay's crappy Fallout action game and how some people believed back then that buying it would show that there was a market for Fallout 3, instead of, you know, a market for crappy action games.

 

[Drakron]

Its always a bad idea to "support" by buying every PoS they crapped out iso they can make a sequel ... only thing you end up doing is providing then reasons to keep making shitty derivative games.

I see no reason to buy GK1 remake since I dont think the old one aged badly, in some cases I can understand ... but in others it seems a cash-in, for example I dont see a reason to remake WC3 because of its lower quality FMV as they would just be replaced by 3d models.

 

[Bubbles]

Say what you want about this game being "necessary", but at least it looks very pretty:

Spoiler

 

[taxalot]

What ? No. This looks awful. Like The Sims 1 characters slapped on a Shovelware hidden object game.