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

[Name]

Wow the metacritic score for this is now 50%-60% for both "critics" and users?

What's wrong with people?

Jane Jensen is a very witty writer. Not to say she's unappreciated or underrated at all, but 50%-60%... what's wrong with people? It's should be 70%.

 

[Keshik]

Not as cool as current adventure games I guess, or maybe the graphics not being super great as well. Definitely is a 70% type game.

 

[m_s0]

Not as cool as current adventure games I guess, or maybe the graphics not being super great as well. Definitely is a 70% type game.

I'm playing it right now. I'm at chapter two and so far it seems like a 40% game to me. And even that's probably generous since I really like Jane Jensen.

Visuals and animations aside (tiny budget, so it's understandable. Well, the animations not so much, but I can live with them). The writing is mostly sub-par, the puzzles are absolute garbage and everything in general feels very slapped together in terms of design, narrative and pacing. Just about the only thing Moebius does really well is conveying that the protagonist is a tool. And a really fucking boring one at that.

If this game is indicative of the quality we can expect from Pinkerton, I don't want them anywhere near GK4 if it ever does happen. Phoenix Online are bad enough on their own, but now I doubt Jane could pull it off regardless of whom she's working with. And that's just fucking depressing.

 

[Luckra]

I just finished Moebius and I have to agree with m_s0 on the most part. It feels like a critically unpolished game (my god the walking animations are broken as hell) with no conclusion whatsoever (the last chapter is a joke).
There is this Jane Jensen touch with the heavy historical background and conspiracy theories but the game just feels like a Part 1 with nothing being resolved. It's a shame because I really like the cast. Event the Robert Holmes soundtrack feels subpar compared to what he delivered before.

 

[Name]

I wish Jane Jensen can drop supernatural especially sci-fi psychic elements from her stories.
Alternative histories and conspiracy theories are good enough for a game.
I understand Gabriel Knight and Cognition need them because the premises center around these elements.
But they are really the low points in other stories like Moebius and Gray Matter.

And I just learned that Jane Jensen has been written a lot of gay romance fiction under pen name "Eli Easton" since 2013.
No wonder in Moebius the vibe is so strong it's explicit.

 

[Jaesun]

So I just finished this. By the way people were talking about this I was expecting some EPIC Homoerotic Fantasy only rivaled by Anne Rice's Vampire books, and well, sadly this game wasn't... Though the first time Malachi and David met my GAYDAR exploded...

I liked the whole idea/setting for this, the Moebius thing. I LOVE conspiracy crap, and I also loved all the history stuff she wove into this as well.

The game was.............................OK. I have certainly played far worse adventure games. I know she didn't get much to fund this, so I wasn't expecting much more than an interesting story.

I'm hoping she will do another game in this series, and can possibly get enough funds to do the game she would really like to do.

 

[DeepOcean]

Talking about something she might do... anyone has any idea of what Jane Jensen is doing after the Gabriel Knight remake?

 

[Jaesun]

Don't know, but I'll bet it will be something again with Phoenix Online.

Really wish she could work with some of the people doing the 2D adventure games....

 

[Name]

Don't know, but I'll bet it will be something again with Phoenix Online.

Really wish she could work with some of the people doing the 2D adventure games....

Wonder if she would "scoop down" to people like Wadjet Eye. An international collaboration with Daedalic Entertainment is even better.

 

[Jaesun]

As much as I really like Daedalic's games, I'd LOVE to see her work with say the Quest for Infamy or Mages Initiation or even the Heroine Quest people. THAT would be awesome, and a rather.... back to her roots in a way.

THOSE people absolutely love those kind of older 2D games, and it really shows in their work. <3

 

[Explorerbc]

You can get Moebius for 2.5$ in the next 16 hours from groupees

You get the discounted price if you pre-order without knowing the games but their rep already confirmed in reddit that it's gonna be in it. After that it will probably be 4 or 5$ since I doubt it will be in the 1$ tier.

 

[Barbarian]

Talking about something she might do... anyone has any idea of what Jane Jensen is doing after the Gabriel Knight remake?

The official word on the backer section of their forum is that she and Robert are "taking a break" for a year or two. I read it as meaning that sales and reviews for the gk1 remake and moebius were poor and that right now they will be taking another hiatus. They always said they didn't like using kickstarter and now other sources of funding must be more difficult to get, after all.

A shame really, even with all flaws both were enjoyable and I was looking forward to a GK4 announcement.

 

[m_s0]

A shame really, even with all flaws both were enjoyable and I was looking forward to a GK4 announcement.

It pains me to do so, but I have to disagree. Moebius is not a good game - very poor given Jane's past efforts, actually - and all that GK remake managed to do was to prove those people have no business going anywhere near a GK4. Jane included, unfortunately.

 

[Barbarian]

Oh boy, I wish I could wholeheartedly disagree with you, but I do have my doubts. Fact is GK1 remake was a huge mistake... they failed to recreate the charm of the original and they should have seem it coming, specially being that the original was a very expensive and well-produced game back in the day. On the other hand, I do think Jensen still has it. Gray Matter wasn't done long ago and it was infinitely better than Moebius. Cognition was a good game as well... not great by any means, but good, which shows that the guys she has been working with can do domething decent.

One thing I suspect is that she is kind of mentally broken down and that is being reflected on her recent games. Gray Matter was finished in 2010 and is the most solid of her recent games by far.... and you see she mentioned in that blog of hers that she has been writing gay porn fiction since 2012 "to deal with depression" under the fake name of "Eli Easton". I looked it up back then and it is some disturbing stuff, kind of like twighight fanfics and 50 shades of grey, but with dudes pushing each others shit.

Hey, not to say that her old games didn't have gay shit shoved in which implies she has some kind of fetish for that kind of stuff(weird for a chick, but whatever). Thing is the way that stuff was done in Moebius was DISTURBING to the point were some people were calling it an outright "gay adventure game". The game had design flaws as well, but all the gay subtext is one sure way to keep many straight people from enjoying it.

Think about it, several years worth of frustration with game development and being depressed enough that she turns to writing amateur gay male porn fiction. Then she makes it on kickstarter and develops two games which don't sell well and are bashed by critics and fans alike. No wonder she will go on another hiatus.

Still... I would rather see a bad GK4 than no GK4 at all. I hate cliffhangers and I hate unfinished stories. Plus there is a chance it could be good. i would be happy if it had the same leve of quaity gray matter had.

 

[Curious_Tongue]

One thing I suspect is that she is kind of mentally broken down and that is being reflected on her recent games. Gray Matter was finished in 2010 and is the most solid of her recent games by far.... and you see she mentioned in that blog of hers that she has been writing gay porn fiction since 2012 "to deal with depression" under the fake name of "Eli Easton". I looked it up back then and it is some disturbing stuff, kind of like twighight fanfics and 50 shades of grey, but with dudes pushing each others shit.

Jaesun, what's her stuff like?

Anyway, we better keep an eye on the mental health of MCA before he ends up doing the same thing.

 

[OndrejSc]

Stay tuned for Gay Matter.

 

[m_s0]

Still... I would rather see a bad GK4 than no GK4 at all. I hate cliffhangers and I hate unfinished stories. Plus there is a chance it could be good. i would be happy if it had the same leve of quaity gray matter had.

I wouldn't. Especially since the ending to GK3 actually works as an ending for me. It's much better to leave the series at that than it is to follow it up with garbage just for the sake of following it up with something, I think.

Not to mention I doubt the hiatus is totally self-imposed. If she had the green light for a GK4 she probably would've gone for it.
Perhaps the fact that she does not own Gabriel Knight is a good thing.

 

[Jaesun]

Joined: Jun 7, 2015

 

[Crooked Bee]

weird for a chick, but whatever

Not weird, really. There's an entire female-oriented genre focused on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi

 

[Redlands]

Not weird, really. There's an entire female-oriented genre focused on that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaoi

Not only that, but if straight guys like to see lesbian porn, I don't see how the same situation with genders reversed is out of step with that.

 

[Barbarian]

Maybe I'm just old-fashioned, but I do find it somewhat disturbing for a married woman in her 50s to publicly announce to writing male gay porn as a way of dealing with depression.

I wouldn't. Especially since the ending to GK3 actually works as an ending for me. It's much better to leave the series at that than it is to follow it up with garbage just for the sake of following it up with something, I think.

Not to mention I doubt the hiatus is totally self-imposed. If she had the green light for a GK4 she probably would've gone for it.
Perhaps the fact that she does not own Gabriel Knight is a good thing.

Remove nostalgia from the equation and you will see that GK3 was mostly pretty bad. There were some moments of brilliance, such as the serpent map puzzle, but other than that things were mostly meh and paled in comparison to the first game and to a large extent the second.

You think an hypothetical GK4 could have possibly been much worse? GK3 was in development hell for years, had no artistic direction whatsoever and a terrible engine and graphics. Its strenghts were the customary quality of Jane Jensen's research and design, with many occasional setbacks and stumbles(the cat mustache puzzle being the most memorable). Not to mention the whole "holy grail, holy bloodline" got old and clichéd really fucking fast. The ending of GK3 is extremely cringeworthy, worst than even the gay romance in Moebius. The whole action sequence with the demon, and the holy corpse and etc? ugh.

 

[Redlands]

Jaesun, what's her stuff like?

I had a look at one of the stories written on the Eli Easton website. I don't feel compelled to read any more; it was rather disappointing. The story was bland, the characters hardly fleshed out, the erotic scenes seemed pretty boring as well. Also:

God. Mick felt all squirmy inside, like his subconscious was waging some epic Game of Thrones battle between the white faction, which wanted to be noble and refuse the gift, and the black battalion, which was lusting after the extra time like it was the Holy Grail.

 

[Redlands]

I finally got around to playing Moebius. It's not a classic adventure game, but it's decent and I like Jane Jensen's games and this one is similar, so I liked it too. It probably could have been improved if Jane didn't consistently work with POS or POOP or whatever they call themselves on all of these things: the animations and the faces are expressive enough so that it's hard to extrapolate using your own imagination, but not expressive enough to not appear stupid or comical. I wish the investigative puzzles had been laid out differently; they weren't difficult, but all the interesting info was squirreled away.

It also made for a better gay romance than what she's written as Eli Easton; some scenes were AMAZINGLY gay. Rape probabilities decreasing indeed!

 

[likaq]

It probably could have been improved if Jane

had bigger budget.

 

[Jaesun]

Yeah the budget she had for this was pretty sad. It's a shame she didn't get a bit more.