Jane Jensen hails from that generation of game designers who wrapped story together with the storage, animation and video advances of the mid-1990s, amassing a significant following through publisher Sierra Online.
Her best-known work is the Gabriel Knight series of point-and-click adventures that melded real-world detective fiction with quasi-supernatural phenomena like voodoo, the Knights Templar and freemasonry. Now she's back with a new adventure called Moebius, funded by Kickstarter fans of her work, as well as "casual gamers who are looking for deeper stories".
The game features central character Malachi Rector, an antiques specialist and sleuth with a photographic memory. He's sent to Venice to investigate the murder of a young woman, and is soon embroiled in a conspiracy with mysterious connections to some of the great women of history.
Puzzles include dialog trees, inventory management, memory games and logical deduction. The first two chapters of the game have been completed, and set out to Kickstarter members. Jensen said that the full game, due for release on Windows and Mac in December, will likely be between 15 and 20 hours in length. It is being published by her own company Pinkerton Road Studio.
"People come to these games because they love the story," Jensen said. "But we've been working with Kickstarter members who have given us their feedback on the puzzles, and we've learned a lot from them."
