The site update has been sent to the proper authorities. They said that they should be able to get it up sometime Friday. This includes a new progress report from Steven the producer. Also we are releasing a new character (the taxi driver) with screenshots showing some of the free-moving camera (different in-game shots of the taxi driver). It's not exactly easy to show a free-moving camera with still shots, but I think you'll be able to get the idea.

adb
01/27/99

Hi all.

I have finally updated my web site, after many long months of work and university. As part of that update, I have added Phil Colvin's Detective Mosely story to my fan fiction section. I would be very happy to include any Mosely fiction the rest of you may write. So if you have a piece of writing in this vein of which you're particularly proud, I can give it a permanent home online.

Also, I am looking to get in touch with Brian Hicks, or anyone else who correctly guessed Detective Mosely's name in the Sierra competition in regard to that in the middle of last year. For the life of me, I can't figure out how anyone would be able to come up with that information. Please, fill me in if you can.

Email contact would be preferred in addition to or in place of a reply here on the message board.

Thanks very much.

~Kenn Stollery-Jones

Mosely: http://www.ozemail.com.au/~gstones/mosely/

When the release date was first announced, our team made an honest estimate, based on what we thought it would take to put the game together. We have gone through team changes, adding new people to the team, which has affected our release date - but we’ll have a lot better product at the end because of them. Our schedule to finish the game puts the game on store shelves this summer. (And believe me, no one is as excited about getting this game released as we are).

With our new website, we will make an effort to returning to making new updates, with new information about the game, each month. The next update will be made next week, with a progress report by Steven covering some of the issues people have brought up here.

Adam Bormann
Production/Design Assistant
Gabriel Knight
01/20/99

Our graphic systems are completely different than Blizzard's or FFVII. FFVII was pre-rendered, and 3d characters on pre-rendered backgrounds. Blizzard's CG clips are all pre-rendered (like Bug's Life or Toy Story). KQ: MoE and our system types are closer to the way Quake and Tomb Raider draw the scene as you look at it, which is why it depends on your computer's speed and hardware. We're basically using the idea behind the way Quake does graphics to do a completely different type of game. And since the speed of moving around, and "level-size", isn't as important as it is in a Quake-type game, we're able to make much better looking scenes and characters.

The reason we do this is so that you can move the camera around as you are looking at a room, or watching a sequence. It's not like a movie, where you can only see one view of what's happening, or one corner of a room. You can see everything, from far-away, or close-up. However YOU feel like playing, not how we "think" you should be playing. It's gives you as a player freedom that you've never had in a game of this type.

But yes, I agree, I think our graphics are better than anything I've ever seen, especially for a game that isn't pre-rendered.

Adam (1/13/99)

...[René Auberjonois] actually does 2 voices. He does the voices of the Taxi Driver, and Monsieur Bigout. They are sort of minor characters, but he does them well.

-A (1/12/99)

Here's the one juicy tibdit of GK news that will let you leave your computer for the weekend and go do something useful:

1) for Christmas, and New Years, Jane Jensen returned to Munich this year. So she's back in the stomping grounds of Baron Von Glower.

2) I keep checking on the progress of the new GK3 website, and it's almost ready. I mean, it's basically ready, but there is no one here to give it the green light to be posted because everyone's home for the holidays (including the people working on it). So it probably won't be even looked at for posting until at the earliest January 4th. There is a new progress report, a new character, new never-before seen screenshots of the game, including screenshots of the interface.

3) Our environment artists are going through the intense process of refining each scene to its finished state. So far, they have completely reworked Rennes-Le-Chateau and the various rooms in the hotel. As we got to work this morning, Aubrey (the Lead Environment Artist) was just leaving...he had been here working all night!

4) In the next issue of the Schattenjager Diaries, we will probably start a contest that will let a few select fans contribute to the game. This is all still being worked out, so it may not happen.

5) Our newest engine programmer, Peter (who was one of the original programmers on Monolith's "Blood") has sped up the game considerably, and is working on getting it even faster. This is going to affect mostly people with lower-end machines (meaning probably a P-166) without 3D cards.

6) I started putting together the end of the game yesterday, which looks like it will be the most exciting and challenging of the series. Jane has really outdone herself with this one! Not challenging in the same sense of the pixel hunting that we all had to go through trying to kill Von Glower, but challenging in the sense that it's going to take all of your mental energies and quick-thinking. (because I'm putting together the end doesn't mean we're very close to being done, but it does mean that we have have most of the logic and ability to get through the game in place.)

7) Our lead program architect has reprogrammed all of the characters' faces, giving them more definition, and more intelligence. They look much better, they look alive, and we have much more control of their facial expressions. It gives the characters an "intensity" that I've NEVER seen in a real-time 3D character.

Well, that's enough for today...I should get back to the hunt... (hey, considering the popularity of the 3D deer-hunting games, maybe we should do a 3D "vampire-hunting" simulation, where you play Von Helsing, and creep around dusty castles with a crossbow...hmmm...ya know, that's not such a bad idea...nah)

-Adam (12/31/98)