Jane Jensen

Developer BIO

Jane Jensen (born Jane Elizabeth Smith, January 28th, 1963 in Palmerton, Pennsylvania) is a North American game designer and author. She is best known for her work on the Gabriel Knight series.

Jensen's technical background began with a degree in Computer Science from Anderson University in Indiana. Later, she became an engineer for Hewlett-Packard, and was employed there for six years. Her career in interactive entertainment began at Sierra On-Line, Inc. in 1991. She worked as a writer on Police Quest III and EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus in the same year. In 1992, she co-designed King's Quest VI with Roberta Williams.

Jensen's first major project was Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (1993), followed by two sequels, all of which she designed and wrote. Jensen notably studied various aspects of occult sciences and mythology in order to add credibility and detail to the storylines of these games. She traveled to Germany in order to research local folklore, which was later incorporated into The Beast Within (1995). She acknowledges Stephen King and Anne Rice as her primary influences in writing.

In August 2006, at the Leipzig Game Convention, Jane Jensen announced her new game, Gray Matter, one in a planned series of games. Four years in the making, the game was eventually released in November 2010.

Jensen also wrote two novel adaptations of Gabriel Knight and two independent novels, Judgment Day (1999) and Dante's Equation (2003).

Jane Jensen currently owns a farm in Pennsylvania, where she lives with her husband Robert Holmes, who composed the music for Gabriel Knight games. On April 5, 2012 the couple announced the establishment of the development studio Pinkerton Road.

Websites

• 2007 interview -- on GameSpot, about her past work and Gray Matter (29th January 2007)
• Jane's blog -- development blog on the Gray Matter website
• Interview with Jane Jensen (December 2007) -- on La Aventura es la Aventura
• 1999 Interview with Jane -- on AdventureClassicGaming
• 2003 Interview -- Another AdventureClassicGaming.com interview
• Escapist Interview (Sep. 25, 2007) -- Paul Rice talks with Jane about her past, present and future.
• Jane Jensen's Website -- Her website which mentions what she is currently doing, some of the games she worked on, and the books she has written.

Games Credited

• Cognition: An Erica Reed Thriller - Episode 1: The Hangman (2012), Reverb Publishing
• Gray Matter (2010), dtp entertainment AG
• Agatha Christie: Dead Man's Folly (2009), I-Play
• Women's Murder Club: Twice in a Blue Moon (2009), I-Play
• Dr. Lynch: Grave Secrets (2008), I-Play
• Women's Murder Club: Death in Scarlet (2008), I-Play
• Agatha Christie: Death on the Nile (2007), Oberon Games, Inc.
• Agatha Christie: Peril at End House (2007), I-Play
• Women's Murder Club: A Darker Shade Of Grey (2007), Elephant Entertainment, LLC, Oberon Media, Inc.
• Galapago (2006), Oberon Games, Inc.
• King's Quest Collection (2006), Sierra Entertainment, Inc.
• Scrubbles (2006), Oberon Media, Inc.
• Saints & Sinners Bingo (2005), Oberon Media, Inc.
• BeTrapped! (2004), Oberon Games, Inc.
• Inspector Parker (2003), Oberon Games, Inc.
• Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (1999), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• King's Quest: Collection Series (1997), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery (1995), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• King's Quest (Collector's Edition) (1994), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• Space Quest (Collector's Edition) (1994), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (1993), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• Pepper's Adventures in Time (1993), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• The Dagger of Amon Ra (1992), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow (1992), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• EcoQuest: The Search for Cetus (1991), Sierra On-Line, Inc.
• Police Quest 3: The Kindred (1991), Sierra On-Line, Inc.