Jane Jensen

Jane Jensen (b. 28 January 1963 in Palmerton, Pennsylvania) is the game designer of the popular and critically-acclaimed "Gabriel Knight" adventure games and author of the novels "Judgement Day" and "Dante's Equation".

Jane Jensen was born Jane Elizabeth Smith, the youngest of seven children. She received a BA in Computer Science from Anderson University in Indiana and worked as a systems programmer for Hewlett-Packard. Her love of both computers and creative writing eventually led her to the computer gaming industry and Sierra Online where she worked as a writer on ' and '. After co-designing ' with veteran game designer Roberta Williams, Jensen designed her first solo game: ', which was released in 1993. The dark, supernatural mystery was a departure for Sierra but the game was enthusiastically received, with the strength of Jensen's writing, along with the game's horror and gothic sensibilities coming in for particular praise from the gaming press [ [http://www.janejensen.com/presstext.html#gk1 Gabriel Knight 1 reviews] from JaneJensen.com.] and earning the title Computer Gaming World's "Adventure Game of the Year" title. [http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,2199/ Jane Jensen developer bio] at MobyGames]

Jensen followed up "Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers" with two sequels: ' in 1995 and ' in 1999. Somewhat unusually for an adventure game series, each Gabriel Knight title was produced in an entirely different format to the others. Whereas the original was a traditional 2D animated game, the sequels were realised through full motion video and a custom built 3D engine, respectively. Despite further acclaim for Jensen's design in both cases ("The Beast Within" was Computer Gaming World's "Game of the Year"), the large expenses associated with making the sequels, coupled with the declining marketability of adventure games (especially within Sierra) meant that a fourth in the series was not commissioned. [ [http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13978 Jane Jensen interview] from Gamesutra.]

In 1996, Jensen published a novelization of the first Gabriel Knight game. A second Gabriel Knight novelization followed in 1998. In 1999, Jensen published her first non-adapted novel, "Millennium Rising" (later retitled "Judgment Day"). Her fourth book, "Dante's Equation" was published in 2003. "Dante's Equation" was nominated for the Philip K. Dick Award.

Jensen has most recently been involved in designing casual online games at Oberon Media, notably some mystery/puzzle games called "Inspector Parker" (2003) and "BeTrapped!" (2004), a game that intended to mix traditional adventure elements into the milieu of the casual game.

Jane Jensen lives in Seattle with her second husband, composer Robert Holmes, who composed the music for the Gabriel Knight series.

She also used to date Kirill Glushko of the band Bullets over Broadway

Future titles

Jensen's next project, a mystery adventure game called "Gray Matter", is due to be published worldwide by dtp entertainment in 2009. On April 2, 2008 the game, originally intended to be developed by German software house Tonuzaba, switched to another developer, French company Wizarbox: as a result, the tentative release was changed and shifted to 2009.

Notes

External links

* [http://www.janejensen.com/ Jane Jensen's official website]
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* [http://www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/179/ Jane Jensen interview on adventure games at Adventure Classic Gaming, June 2003]
* [http://www.aventuraycia.com/entrevista.php?entrev=Jane%20Jensen&idioma=english&pag=1 Jane Jensen interview on adventure games at Aventura y CÍA, March 2002]
* [http://www.gamespot.com/news/6164900.html?part=rss&tag=gs_all_games&subj=6164900 Jane Jensen interview with Gamespot UK]
* [http://la-aventura.net/entrevistas/entrevista-jane-eng Jane Jensen interview at La Aventura es la Aventura, December 2007]
* [http://www.adventuregamers.com/article/id,883 Jane Jensen interview with AdventureGamers]