What can you tell me about voodoo?If your answer is, ‘well not a lot really, no more than the idea that it can be used to curse people and even hurt them, like that kid in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, the one who uses that voodoo Doll thing to torture poor old Indy. Or the cursed frozen yogurt that Homer gets in The Simpsons, the one with the harmful potassium benzoate.’

Why not combine references?

No exaggeration.

READ HISTORY BOOK

So glad time isn't cyclical right now... although I'm certainly concerned that fashion is.

So much nostalgia in one image.

A KING’S STORY: THE GRAHAM CHRONICLES

Awesome cover art too.

The moody Gabriel Knight cover art.

OPEN DOOR TO ADVENTURE

Ken and Roberta Williams. Boss in every sense of the word.

“ Where Gabriel Knight would set itself apart from other games coming not only from Sierra at the time, but other studios as well, was in the focus placed on story and character development.

"You know what's distracting? How much you look like Spike from Buffy."

HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA

History Lesson: that thing he's holding is called a 'newspaper'.

Each location is richly detailed and evocative.

If that’s your answer, then chances are you haven’t played the first Gabriel Knight adventure game from Sierra. Or maybe you have and have simply forgotten about the part where you sit through a university lecture, the one with slides, teaching you all about the origins of this African religion.Released in 1993, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers , was one of the first major computer games to be described and marketed as a strictly mature and adults-only affair.More importantly, it marked a shift in adventure game development in certain quarters, one that would see more fleshed out stories, character development, and an almost novelistic approach to design. Above all, it proved that a pulpy and violent mystery novel with supernatural undertones was a perfect fit for the genre.Like the character in her game, Jane Jensen was a failed novelist when she sent her resume to Sierra. Well, failure is probably too strong a word, after all she had graduated with a degree in Computer Science and was working as an engineer at HP - i.e. Hewlett Packard, i.e. the poor man’s IBM, in the late ‘80s.Let’s just say that up to this point certain publishing fat cats at certain fat cat publishing houses had rejected her manuscripts. And probably on the grounds that they weren’t tell-all biographies about Milli Vanilli.And like many people during this time her first taste of adventure gaming came from playing a King’s Quest game, namely King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella . She immediately fell in love with both the genre and the games coming from Sierra, so much so that she sent them her resume along with samples of her writing in the form of a short story.At this time adventure games were the premiere forms of interactive storytelling so a budding writer with a technical background was able to see not only their appeal, but potential as well.As games were growing more complex, so too were graphics and animation becoming more sophisticated, and this naturally opened the door for more detailed storytelling. With that in mind Sierra was hiring people for a new team dubbed the ‘writers block’, which would focus primarily on fleshing out game dialogue, backstories, and even stuff for the game manuals packed alongside a stack of floppy disks.A creative environment, especially the one at Sierra, was exactly what Jane was looking for and taking the job was a no brainer, even in the face of a considerable pay cut. As it turns out, writing a few lines for Sonny Bonds in Police Quest III pays less than writing complex networking routines for HP.But it was after doing exactly that, as well as writing for some other games like EcoQuest, that Jane Jensen got the chance to co-design and co-write a new adventure game from Sierra. A new entry in the very series that drew her to the company in the first place.By the early ‘90s the King’s Quest series had already entered the world of VGA graphics and voice acting, as seen in King’s Quest V. When development began on the inevitable sequel, Roberta Williams, the creative force behind each entry in the series so far, decided to take on a more complementary role.Sharing the workload on this new King’s Quest was a conscious decision made on Roberta’s part, as at this point in her career she naturally wanted more time to spend with her family. Working alongside Jane Jensen, King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow would become the most narratively rich entry in the series.For Jane this was an experience that allowed her to familiarise herself with not only writing dialogue for a game or in shaping its story but also in the design of its puzzles, interface, and working with new technology.As expected, King’s Quest VI was also very much another technological leap for Sierra: for the animation they filmed actors and used the technique of rotoscoping to trace each animation frame before putting it into the game.The introduction sequence itself also included some very primitive computer generated (CG) animation, that although now looks very dated, was one of the earliest appearances in such a high profile release.Even with these advances King’s Quest VI was still released at a time when games hit stores on floppy disk first, with enhanced CD-ROM editions shortly after.The industry wide shift to include more multimedia aspects like animation, voice, and recorded music had already begun, however, so the next project that Jane would work on would focus more on the enhanced CD-ROM edition first and the floppy disk version second. It would also take all the technological advances first seen in King’s Quest VI, to the next level.And by ‘next level’, I of course mean 11 x 3.5” floppy disks. Which is what Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers was released on, alongside the CD-ROM version, in 1993.As the head of Sierra, Ken Williams was the sort of boss that most people assume would exist in a development studio but rarely does. The sort of boss that let his designers create games as they saw fit, and if they sold well, allowed them to work on the next one.This was, in one way or another, what happened with the first Gabriel Knight adventure, a game that would provide a much more complex and mature narrative experience than something like Police Quest , Sierra’s only other real-world crime-based adventure series.Where Gabriel Knight would set itself apart from other games coming not only from Sierra at the time, but other studios as well, was in the focus placed on story and character development. Taken as pure numbers and data, this translates to thousands of lines of dialogue in the form of voice and text, well above any other Sierra game released to date.Voice acting was still a relatively new thing for games in 1993, as going back even just a few years to 1990, King’s Quest V was one of the first fully voiced games to see a release on CD-ROM. But that was a game where the voices were supplied mostly by Sierra employees, with the end results not really being able to stand any sort of test of time. It was the very definition of amateur hour.With Gabriel Knight featuring a layered story with not only large volumes of dialogue but also mature themes, Jane and the producers at Sierra knew that it needed to be believable. With that in mind they needed professionals, so they looked to the one place where actors seemingly grow on trees, and the streets, much like an adolescent’s timely homework, are paved with gold stars.Famously, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is known for featuring the voice talents of Tim Curry in the title role and Mark Hamill in a supporting role, both sporting thick southern accents. As thick as the swampy, humid, and cultural atmosphere that permeates the entire game.Set in New Orleans, with a story based around strange killings that look like voodoo rituals, the voice work in the game is both exceptional and at the same time cartoonish and over the top. It’s a balance that works, a credit to both the writing and the voice actors, which helps sell the historical and realistic aspects of the game in addition to the supernatural.With the premise of voodoo murders and rituals one would expect a game from the early ‘90s to be anything but respectful to the culture and history of this relatively obscure belief system. In execution Gabriel Knight is something of a revelation, featuring well-researched information and history carefully woven into the story.Covering the religious aspects of Voodoo, in particular the brand practised in New Orleans that happens to feature a hefty dose of Catholicism, it also features a treasure trove of information on the city’s history and what makes it such a fascinating place.Even when Gabriel Knight does sometimes cross the line from fiction to purely factual exposition, you can tell that it does so because the creators are genuinely fascinated with the subject. This was a narrative born from impeccable research, and it's certainly one of the most impressive aspects of Jane Jensen’s achievement with the title.