You Go Girl!

If you're an adventure game player then you probably know who Jane Jensen is.

If you don’t know who she is, then read on.

Jane Jensen was the designer of the Gabriel Knight series of adventure games published by Sierra. Featuring the voice talent of Tim Curry, she also adapted the first two games into a series of novels.

After adventure games dried up in the late nineties (replaced by RTS, FPS and RPG games on the PC) she focused on her writing. But she resurfaced in October 2003 as a gaming force by co-founding Oberon Media and releasing Inspector Parker. Oberon Media is a Seattle based company focused on casual gaming and seems to be doing a great job reaching their target audience. Just recently Jane released a brand new Inspector Parker game called Inspector Parker in Betrapped!

Why am I telling you all this? Well, it seems that Jane has rediscovered the magic of adventure games, and, more importantly, found a new market for them. Inspector Parker in Betrapped! features all the cool stuff I loved about adventure games - puzzle solving, story, characters, inventory and dialogue.

Her games are a welcome addition to the usual Bejewelled and Tetris clones, and she’s crafted a good, fun game delivered in a downloadable package for $19.95 that you can try before you buy. The game is inspired by Cluedo (known as Clue in the US and invented by brit Anthony Pratt) with a nod to the US games company Parker Brothers in the title.

So, if you think that all casual games are either Mahjong or Solitaire variants, or simple puzzle games, then do yourself a favor and check out Jane’s games. We need more people like her to make more games for people like us.

You can find out more about Jane at her website: http://www.janejensen.com/ and at Oberon Media’s web site: http://www.oberon-media.com/

Have fun!

John