It was really just a series of fortunate events. I first started talking to Activision about doing something with them around the time of our Pinkerton Road Kickstarter in 2012. There were some managers there who wanted to see the old Sierra franchises brought back (those same people were behind the new Sierra brand I expect). The idea of doing a 20th anniversary edition of GK1 came up. (We were all shocked to realize it had been 20 years.) The chance to be able to redo the game that established me as a designer as one of our first Pinkerton Road titles was too good to pass up.
In light of a remastered Leisure Suit Larry, the return of Tex Murphy, and another Broken Sword game, has Kickstarter and the incredible rise of self-funded indie titles changed the landscape for adventure games?
Yes, but it’s not a panacea and it’s much harder, and takes a lot more money, then you remotely anticipate to make a game and do all the business end too. So I think there will be some fallout and probably projects will ask for more money in the future and less will come up for funding. That’s just my guess based on our own experience.
Indie games seem to be sold in a similar manner as products on the Home Shopping Network: games considered niche aren't picked up by a publisher but instead are sold directly to interested gamers. Why did it take so long for this change to happen?
Well, first crowd-sourcing had to become a widely-known thing, and then the first brave souls had to put games on it! Everything these days is becoming more accessible – it’s not hard to self-publish books or music and have it on the same distribution platforms as the big players. So I see it as part of that same trend.At Gamescom, Activision announced the return of the Sierra label and announced a King's Quest reboot but there was no mention of Gabriel Knight. Why not? It seems they reached out to you after the successful funding of Moebius. Including a mention of Gabriel Knight would have allayed some fears that the Sierra label won't be anything other than window dressing.
I have spoken to the people behind the new Sierra brand, in fact just before Gamescom. They are very supportive of the GK HD game. Bob Loya has mentioned it in several interviews. Our deal with them to make GK1 was done well before their internal Sierra brand initiative, so it was already in motion in a certain way. Pinkerton Road is publishing it, so therefore we’re not technically under the new Sierra brand. But, as I said, they’re supportive of the game, and we hope to work together on future titles soon under that Sierra logo.
I could be mistaken but a hot button topic in recent days is women designers in the game industry. This doesn't make sense to me because back in 1993 I was 16 and didn't even give the subject a thought even though games helmed by Roberta Williams dominated my early experience with adventure games. And then I played Gabriel Knight, which you helmed. Why does it seem that women in the field of game design is a lighting rod topic now?
I really don’t know. Like you, my first games were Sierra titles and at least half of their big designers were women. So I didn’t see my gender as a barrier when I started doing game design. and I really have never personally had any difficulties with it. That may be because I’ve always been in adventure games or casual games. So it’s hard to me to speak to the experiences of other female designers. I do know that women gamers are a very significant portion of the market now and I think, as an industry, we have a long way to go in providing content that particularly addresses that audience.
There have been a number of good titles I think of as having mature stories like Heavy Rain and The Walking Dead. But there aren’t too many I suppose. It is challenging to have a deeper story in a game and still make it interactive enough and not boring to people who just want to click-click-click. You really have to engage them on a story level and that’s never easy.
What has been the most challenging part of bringing Sins of the Fathers back?
Honestly, just trying to secure the license and all of that paperwork ‘stuff’. As for the game itself, there was initially that fear that you’d never be able to make the fans happy and worry about every little detail or change, but at the end of the day you have to let that go and just do what you think is right for the game.
If you ever got a run at Gabriel Knight 3 remaster, would you replace the cat fur moustache puzzle?
Perhaps. But I think we’d need a toggle switch so people could still have the opportunity to experience the joy of the original!
Learn even more about the Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers 20th Anniversary Edition right here.
- Aaron Simmer
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