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KickStarter Jane Jensen's Pinkerton Road Studio & Moebius Closed Down

SCO

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This woman shall receive my golden shower
 

Jaesun

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Backing this. Seems people are being a bit... cautious on backing this. But we shall see. Hoping for the best.
 
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Are these people really this stupid? I mean really. How many more overlapping projects can people possibly take? Someone needs to say a STOP to this madness. Fucking goddamn stupid fucking bandwagon-whoring morons. One at a time, dammit! It's already stretching it at two.
 

Stabwound

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Does Jane Jensen have enough "star power" to fund a $300,000 kickstarter like this? It's not even going toward a game, just helping her launch a new business. If this was "Kickstarter for Gabriel Knight 4" I would be throwing money at my monitor in a heartbeat, only because I have faith that she can still produce an excellent GK-style story.

I'm not at all interested in what she's proposing with this, though.

If we meet our Kickstarter goal the season will include:
* Lola and Lucy’s Big Adventure (a kid’s e-book/game written by Jane that we’ve funded ourselves as a bootstrap studio project. It’s nearly finished and will be released Summer 2012.)

Oh.. oh boy.

Can you really make a great adventure game for $300K?

A 3rd person adventure game like the one we're planning would normally cost at least twice that. But we are putting in some funding as well, and the team is taking less up front in exchange for rev share. So this project already has committed believers behind it. The last piece we need is you!
A 3rd person adventure? Great.

Not to mention Gray Matter was delayed for what seemed like eternity. How is she going to put out a good game in a year or less when GM took like 8 years?
 

Jaesun

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I'll assume you didn't watch the video.

The one project Moebeus was mentioned as being a GK like adventure game with history, historic places etc...

Maybe if she succeeds at this THEN possibly she could try to go acquire the GK trademark from Activision.

I'm backing her on this hope as well as the Moebeus one.
 

Stabwound

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Interview time: http://www.gamespot.com/news/gabriel-knight-designer-launches-pinkerton-road-6369623

The Moebius concept is totally new. It's been something that I've wanted to produce, and of the three, it's the most Gabriel Knight-like. It plays a lot with history, like the way [Gabriel Knight 3] did with the bloodline of Christ. It has a lot of bending of history, and it's set in modern times. It has a lot of exotic real life locations. There's a big mystery going on and I think it has a really interesting concept hook. I don't want to talk about why yet, but you can see it has a more graphic novel style to it.

:yeah:

It's too bad that the game she works on is going to community vote, but I have faith they'll pick this one and not Gray Matter 2 or the other game.
 

Jaesun

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The mere mention of Gray Matter 2 is probably the hindrance of this whole project on Kickstarter.
 

Ringhausen

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Not to mention Gray Matter was delayed for what seemed like eternity. How is she going to put out a good game in a year or less when GM took like 8 years?
The whole reason she's starting the company is to get control over the production.


GS: What are your thoughts concerning Gray Matter 1?

JJ: It was a different kind of process for me. I had the script for that game. And basically it was developed by a German publisher, and the development team was originally Czech, and then it moved to Paris. And I was working full time at Oberon at the time, so I had a limited amount of time to really spend on that project. And towards the end, they kind of ran out of time and money and were just trying to get the game out. I'm very proud of that game; I think it's a good game, but part of the impetus behind this new studio is I want to make sure I have control over the production. And that I can make sure the games have the quality that I really want to see them have. So the story is not sort of marred by production flaws. I didn't have as much oversight on the project as I would have liked to have had.

What makes this one iffy is that JJ has been talking a lot about these hidden item and mobile phone games merging with adventure games. And they're promising to release 3 games in a short span. What exactly are we getting?

All the people demanding yet another sequel make me sad. Though Moebius and Anglophile Adventure are terrible names.
 

Chuck Norris

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Man, what I wouldn't do to see GK4. I would give away half of my fortune. But anyway, although this is no GK4, it's the first kickstarter that got my money and that means a lot. Since I really don't believe in investing in a project that nothing is revealed about it and could turn into a massive shit. But i would do anything to see GK4 and I think the success of this project opens a way for that.
 

Crooked Bee

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Anglophile Adventure shouldn't have even been there, nor should've been GM 2 imho. She should've just said "Help me make a spiritual successor to Gabriel Knight" and provide some (better) concept art, and more people would support it, the way I see it at least.

Thanks for linking the interview, Stabwound and Outlander.
 

Alex_Steel

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Are these people really this stupid? I mean really. How many more overlapping projects can people possibly take? Someone needs to say a STOP to this madness. Fucking goddamn stupid fucking bandwagon-whoring morons. One at a time, dammit! It's already stretching it at two.
I want to fund a lot of these projects but I can only afford one.
I believe(and secretly hope) some of them will fail to reach their goal. This will teach them a lesson.
 

Andyman Messiah

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Man, what I wouldn't do to see GK4.
I'm very much on the fence when it comes to GK4. I love Gabe and I'd love see him, Grace and Mosley again but I also thought GK3's ending was really good even though it did leave the series pretty much wide-open for another sequel.

Whatevs. Jensen is cool. I'll be keeping an eye on this.
 
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I want to fund a lot of these projects but I can only afford one.
I believe(and secretly hope) some of them will fail to reach their goal. This will teach them a lesson.

Nah, the more likely outcome is some of the better known ones will go just over the goal and some will fail just below the goal and nobody will learn anything when they could soar if given some space between them.
 

Alex_Steel

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Nah, the more likely outcome is some of the better known ones will go just over the goal and some will fail just below the goal and nobody will learn anything when they could soar if given some space between them.
I guess you are right. Humans have a hard time learning from their mistakes. They will probably blame the video they made/kickstarter model/media coverage/players not knowing what they want/some-other-stupid-thing.

At least I hope the 'Dead State' fellows took the advice and will make some delays with their "masterplan".
 

Jaesun

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A few more clarifications:


"Game Concept A: Gray Matter 2"

Story: Renegade Oxford Neurobiologist Dr. David Styles and his assistant, American street magician, Samantha Everett, continue on David's quest to research powers of the mind. In this game, they visit the home of a dead student who had the power to unleash a fiery force when her emotions were charged. What is the nature of her genetic lineage? Was her devastating gift a fluke? Or do the xenophobic residents of her small island home harbor secrets they’d rather the world not know?

Art Style & Mechanic: Like Gray Matter, this game will have a pre-rendered 3D art style (aka "2.5 D"). It will be a 3rd person adventure game with a point-and-click mechanic like Gray Matter and an improved magic interface -- and more time playing Dr. Styles!

"Game Concept B: Moebius"

Story: Malachi Rector is an antiquities dealer who hunts down artifacts all over the world. After losing everything in a fire, he's hired by a Manhattan millionaire to investigate a series of events and document them in his meticulous way. But Rector soon realizes that the events hold a bizarre significance, as does his own existence. This is a metaphysical thriller ala Dante’s Equation and Gabriel Knight.

Art Style & Mechanic: 2D, graphic novel look and feel (like an updated GK1). It will be a 3rd person adventure game with a point-and-click mechanic and lots of sophisticated puzzles.

And finally:

What kinds of adventure games will they be? Hard? Casual?

Our plan is to have a "casual" and a "true adventure" option at the start of the game. This will allow us to provide an easier path through for those who are not hard-core players -- while allowing our 'true adventure' path to be uncompromised (and by uncompromised we mean classic Sierra-style puzzles). We're looking forward to beta-testing with our CSG members and tuning the game.

I'm still going to back this......
 

Stabwound

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Was Grey Matter so well-received that a sequel is warranted? I didn't do more than watch 5 minutes of an LP but I didn't like the style.

Moebius sounds more like a GK game. Do want.

The casual/true adventure mode is pretty :decline: sounding, but it makes me think back to the difficulty selector of Monkey Island 2. I don't think many people would say that MI2 was decline. Then again, Jane Jensen has been mostly doing casual games since GK3, so yeah.
 

Jaesun

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Was Grey Matter so well-received that a sequel is warranted? I didn't do more than watch 5 minutes of an LP but I didn't like the style.

In general, the Adventure Game Community Hivemind™ is generally split. Some love it, some hate it.


Moebius sounds more like a GK game. Do want.

Agreed.

The casual/true adventure mode is pretty :decline: sounding, but it makes me think back to the difficulty selector of Monkey Island 2. I don't think many people would say that MI2 was decline. Then again, Jane Jensen has been mostly doing casual games since GK3, so yeah.

The point people keep missing is that the lukewarm reception to GK3 (by then Marketing was more than likely stepping in and making demands of it) as well as all the other games Jane worked on were where she did NOT have a full hands on development capacity (like in Gray Matter) AND it was Publisher Funded. Which is the root of all evil in the shit games we get now.

She now has a chance to bypass the fucking shit Publisher model and fully develop a game written and developed by her. No shit Marketing or Publisher bullshit will be present. THAT is something I will bet on and fund. Period.
 
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Was Grey Matter so well-received that a sequel is warranted? I didn't do more than watch 5 minutes of an LP but I didn't like the style.

GM was shit. Started out interesting but even the initial premise relied on obsolete pseudoscience. Then you met the extra characters who were all stereotypic shit. Game quickly turned into a shitty summer B movie for teenagers. It lowered my opinion of JJ a lot but I guess one should cut her some slack because the game has been in development in various forms for such a long time, under different publishers.
 

Sceptic

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Backing this. Seems people are being a bit... cautious on backing this. But we shall see. Hoping for the best.
20% in 2 days seems pretty good to me ;)

I'm scouring for more information on whether the "packaged DVD versions" are just a regular DVD box or something more intricate, like Wasteland 2's. If it's got enough goodies I'm probably going for this. I also can't figure out if they're making 2 or 3 games given all the funding - some pages say 2, others 3.

In general, the Adventure Game Community Hivemind™ is generally split. Some love it, some hate it.
I don't understand why, to be honest. It was a good game, in terms of puzzles it was miles better than just about anything else I can think of released in the past 2 or 3 years, and about on par with what would've been considered a "good adventure game" back in the early 90s. Not great, but good. Certainly worth the, what, $20? it retailed for.
 

Jaesun

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In general, the Adventure Game Community Hivemind™ is generally split. Some love it, some hate it.
I don't understand why, to be honest. It was a good game, in terms of puzzles it was miles better than just about anything else I can think of released in the past 2 or 3 years, and about on par with what would've been considered a "good adventure game" back in the early 90s. Not great, but good. Certainly worth the, what, $20? it retailed for.

I think it is more of a... HOLY FUCKING SHIT!!! HOLY FUCKING SHIT!! Jane jenson is working on Gray Matter!!! HOLY FUCKING SHIT.

And then the game get's released. The expectations were too high (and most people don't understand how games are made as well). As explained in the Gamespot interview she did work on it, but was in NO full development capacity on the game. And not to mention the development/publisher hell it went through. That's pretty much my guess.

I have yet to play it as I just want a fucking STEAM version FFS.

Still, JJ doing some adventure games where she is is FULL control? This is a good thing, and I'm willing to back her money on this. Period.
 

Aeschylus

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Was Grey Matter so well-received that a sequel is warranted? I didn't do more than watch 5 minutes of an LP but I didn't like the style.

In general, the Adventure Game Community Hivemind™ is generally split. Some love it, some hate it.
There is a certain small, but very vocal segment of the adventure game community that *really hates* Jane Jensen. Well, maybe that's not quite fair. They really hate The Silver Lining, and fairly or not Jensen is linked to that due to it being set in the KQ6 areas, and crediting her as inspiration. I've never played Gray Matter, but I do know that I love Gabriel Knight 1 & 2 and King's Quest 6, so I will give some money to this project once I have a bit more to dole out.
 

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