Gabriel Knight

The Gabriel Knight characters and games were created by writer Jane Jensen, who also worked on King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow with veteran game designer Roberta Williams. The music in the series was composed by Robert Holmes, Jensen's husband.

All three games in the series focus on the adventures of Gabriel Knight, a financially struggling author and bookstore owner in New Orleans who discovers his true family name is Ritter and he is destined to follow the family legacy of being a Schattenjäger (German for "Shadow Hunter"). Grace Nakimura is a major supporting character in Sins of the Fathers, running the bookstore while doing research for Gabriel. The two are friends who often bicker. In the sequel games, Grace and Gabriel develop a closer relationship and act more as partners when investigating the supernatural. The second game teases their romantic feelings for each other, while the third game has them directly confront their feelings. The two sequel games make Grace a lead character alongside Gabriel and the player alternates between controlling each of them during different parts of the game.

Each game calls on the player to acquire information through investigation of surroundings and interrogation of non-player characters (NPCs). Players must also solve puzzles and complete tasks through the use of items they acquire, information they obtain, devices they activate, or provoking action in NPCs. The game's story generally proceeds linearly, with the player unable to continue into the next "day" or "chapter" or "time block" of the narrative until they have solved the required puzzles and obtained the proper information. Solving puzzles and gathering information results in the collection of points.

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned both included short graphic novels that contained back-story, much in the tradition of Infocom's "feelies". The Sins of the Fathers graphic novel follows the story of Günter Ritter, an ancestor of Gabriel Knight, who has left his ancestral home for the American continent in the 17th century. The Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned graphic novel acts as a prologue to the game, explaining how Gabriel began the case.

• Gabriel Knight is the central protagonist of the series, the orphaned son of Philip Knight and Margaret Templeton Knight, meant to be about 30 year old when the narrative starts (although his age is not consistent in the games). Gabriel is the proprietor of St. George's Rare Books in his hometown of New Orleans and a struggling horror fiction author. Charismatic, sardonic, and intuitive, he prefers to avoid responsibility, often distracted by interesting books and casual affairs with women. His two main friends are his assistant Grace Nakimura and his childhood friend Franklin Mosely, a police detective. Early in the first game, he realizes there is more to his family than he knows. Gabriel's nightmares and a desire to research a new book lead him to investigate recent "voodoo murders". During his investigation, he discovers he descends from the Ritter family and is the latest in a line of Schattenjägers ("Shadow Hunters"). Visiting his family castle Schloss Ritter in Rittersberg, Germany, he undergoes a spiritual trial to become a new Schattenjäger. He later inherits the Ritter Talisman. GK2 features a somewhat more somber Gabriel now living in his family castle over a year later and experiencing financial success since his new novel The Voodoo Murders (based on his experiences in the first game and starring fictional detective Blake Backlash) is a best-seller. By GK3, Gabriel has published another successful novel entitled The Brutal Beast, based on the events of the second game. Gabriel is a more mature and experienced character, now more focused on his duties as a Schattenjäger, with Grace as a full partner in his investigations. Despite his feelings, he still resists romantic commitment with Grace.
• Grace Nakimura is first introduced in Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers in 1993 as a non-player character, before becoming a player character in both sequel games. Introduced as a 26-year-old assistant, Grace is a researcher, aid, and moral compass for Gabriel in the first game. She becomes a full investigative partner in the two sequel games and is more strongly in the role of romantic interest. At the end of the third game, she decides to pursue her own path rather than remain Gabriel's helper. Grace has been included in multiple lists of top sidekicks[9] and female characters in video games.[10][11][12] GameSpot wrote that Grace was "more likable" than Knight and more "intelligent and resourceful".[9] In 2007, Tom's Games also noted that unlike traditional female characters in video games, Grace is designed with conservative dress, without "sexy outfits [and] out-sized proportions".[12] According to USgamer's Pete Davison in 2013, "Grace Nakimura remains one of the best, most realistic female characters in game history".[13]
• Gerde Hull (voiced by Mary Kay Bergman in the first game, and played by Andrea Martin in the second) is the caretaker of Gabriel's ancestral home, Schloss Ritter in Ritterberg, Germany. When Gabriel first meets Gerde in Sins of the Fathers, she is an anxious and enthusiastically optimistic young woman. She clearly has deep love and respect for Gabriel's great-uncle Wolfgang Ritter, grieving the man's death still during the events of The Beast Within. Gerde acts as a valuable research assistant. Grace considers her a possible rival as Gabriel's investigative partner and love interest but after a talk with Gerde the two become friends. Gerde does not appear in the third game but is mentioned.

The stories of Sins of the Fathers and The Beast Within were adapted into novels by Jane Jensen. The first is a straightforward adaptation of the events of the game, an approach which Jane Jensen decided, in retrospect, was not the most successful way of introducing Gabriel Knight to a literary audience. For the second novel she "threw the whole idea of the game away and started again from scratch".[14]

Both books are out of print as of 2010. As part of her 2012 Kickstarter campaign to fund a new adventure game, Jensen offered both Gabriel Knight novels as ebooks to backers who pledge $50 or more.[15]

In 1998, Sierra released the title Gabriel Knight Mysteries: Limited Edition, which contains:

• an 8-disc PC CD box of first two Gabriel Knight games and electronic manuals.
• a 419-page novelization of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (written by Jane Jensen and published by Roc in 1997).
• a full soundtrack of The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery.
• bundled with the original 1993 editions, a 33-page full-color graphic novel of an event that takes place almost 200 years before the opening of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (written by Jane Jensen, art direction by Nathan Gams and illustrated by Terese Nielsen).
• a 20-page full-color graphic novel of an event that takes place days before the opening of the then-upcoming Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (written by Jane Jensen and illustrated by Ron Spears).

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• Gabriel Knight series at MobyGames