Overview

In the 1990s, the Personal Computer (or PC) was on the rise in homes, and with it came new genres of play. Yet most of the games in these new genres featured fantasylands or humorous science fiction landscapes with low stakes and little to suggest the potential of the PC as a serious space for art and play. Jane Jensen’s work and landmark Gabriel Knight series brought a new darkness and personality to PC gaming, offering a first powerful glimpse of what games could be as they came of age. As an author and designer, Jensen brought her approach as a designer-writer hybrid to the forefront of game design, with an approach to developing environments through detailed research to make game settings come to life, an attention to mature dilemmas and complex character development, and an audience-driven vision for genres reaching beyond the typical market approaches of the gaming industry. With a brand new interview with Jensen herself, Anastasia Salter provides the first ever look Jensen’s impact and role in advancing interactive narrative and writing in the game design process.

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9781501327452

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Reviews

The first decades of digital history went by too fast, leaving many of us with false impressions, like the canard that computer games arose in an all-male engineering culture, a blithe assertion that overlooks the genius of people like Judy Malloy, Brenda Laurel, and Jane Jensen. Happily, genius has reach: transformative work leaves lasting marks on the girls and boys who grow up with it, and when we are lucky, those children turn into scholars like Anastasia Salter, whose capacity to remember and understand digital origins is rare indeed. This book is essential both to understanding the roots and condition of interactive narrative, and to recognizing the women who shaped it. Stuart Moulthrop, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA The project provides a well-written and fascinating exploration of an oft-overlooked genre of video games. Anastasia Salter provides an in-depth and colorful account of Jane Jensen's larger project and how it has helped to engender diversity in the video game industry. It is an excellent addition to an already strong series. Shira Chess, Assistant Professor of Entertainment & Media Studies, The University of Georgia, USA Game theorists, media studies experts, and women's studies scholars will find much to admire in Anastasia Salter's new book, Jane Jensen: Gabriel Knight, Adventure Games, Hidden Objects, whether it's Jensen's ground-breaking contribution to video game design or her pioneering work as a woman in a field with little gender diversity. Salter's book unfolds in a compelling, easy tone and keeps her audience's interest throughout her account of Jensen's twenty-five year career in the game industry. Dene Grigar, Professor and Director, Creative Media & Digital Culture Program, USA

The first decades of digital history went by too fast, leaving many of us with false impressions, like the canard that computer games arose in an all-male engineering culture, a blithe assertion that overlooks the genius of people like Judy Malloy, Brenda Laurel, and Jane Jensen. Happily, genius has reach: transformative work leaves lasting marks on the girls and boys who grow up with it, and when we are lucky, those children turn into scholars like Anastasia Salter, whose capacity to remember and understand digital origins is rare indeed. This book is essential both to understanding the roots and condition of interactive narrative, and to recognizing the women who shaped it. Stuart Moulthrop, Professor, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, USA

Author Information

Anastasia Salter is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media at the University of Central Florida, USA. She is the author of What is Your Quest? From Adventure Games to Interactive Book (2014) and co-author of Flash: Building the Interactive Web (2014). She is an editor of the Electronic Literature Collection Vol. 3.

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