Many people, including myself, have speculated on what could the elusive Detective Mosely's first name be. After searching Sins of the Fathers and The Beast Within thoroughly, and not finding it anywhere, I asked Jane. She didn't know either. But a few days later, she did remember, and she told me. For this month's contest, email me the with the correct first name of Detective Mosely (and no, it's not "Detective!"). Here's a hint, it's 8 letters long. Send your guesses to Gabriel.Knight@sierra.com before March 31st, and I will randomly pick a winner from the people who had the correct answer.

Answers to a few things I've noticed on the boards:

1. Gabe's "other" in GK2 is the Madonna. She's trying to help Ludwig's soul leave purgatory by cleansing it of the werewolf curse. Ludwig was loyal to the Madonna during his life and his heart being in the shrine at Altötting gave his spirit power through her. As Mrs. Smith pointed out, one's "other" can change and the Madonna is only Gabe's "other" through this case although...as I found out when writing GK3, she may have had more than Ludwig's good in mind when she helped Gabe out. :-) I personally hadn't ever considered Malia being Gabe's other, but it was an interesting deduction!

2. Von Zell the werewolf was red. We did color the wolf red in the video clips where you see von Zell, but it looks as though some people's monitors were dark enough that that was hard to discern. Yes, von Zell was reddish-brown as a werewolf and von Glower was black. And, yes, von Glower was the main source of the bodies in the pit, using that lair for many centuries whenever he visited or was living in Germany. Von Zell has only been a werewolf since "last year" according to Preiss' account of his mood shift.

FYI, there're some great stories from England about the discovery of such cave lairs with bodies (in real life) and even a story about a boy finding a very odd looking 'wolf's skull' in one and the skull haunting the boy and his family until they took it back to the lair! These stories were the source of the lair in GK2 because they really creeped me out. If these lairs have been really been found, as the stories seem to say, and these aren't just 'urban legends' then what could explain them? Serial killers?

Or wild animals of some kinds? Werewolves?

Yes, I know you'll want to know the names of the books that had these stories. I'll look it up at home and have Adam post the titles on the web.

- Jane

I took a minute last week and interviewed one of the GK artists, Daryl Affleck.

Q: What is your official job on the GK3 team?

Daryl: "Animator."

Q: What kind of background do you have to get where you are now?

Daryl: "I studied art at Central Washington University and earned a B.A. as a metalsmith creating small, organic, mechanical, kinetic, found-at-an-UFO-crashsite wearable art. During that time I experimented with various two-dimensional watercolor/drawing/mixed media techniques. I learned, and taught myself, to look far beyond convention and to be playful, but also staying close to the craftsmanship of various media."

"Uncertain about my future as an artist, (most artists undersell themselves, or forget to keep playing/creating when they get out of school or when their creativity becomes a job.....I'd seen it lots and I knew I was no different) I decided I had better learn some sorta trade. I attended the Art Institute of Seattle and studied Computer Animation/Modeling. I was unsure what I was getting into, not knowing anything about computer stuff. But I found that was more important, in CA&M, to understand how to create a visual experience, than it was to understand that RAM is not a goat on your desktop."

"I spent the bulk of my time getting to know Softimage and 3D Studio Max. I thinned out my last quarter into two quarters with less classes and spent every waking hour going through tutorials and experimenting with tutorial concepts. I thought back to the experimental mode I was in while at CWU while I was creating animations for my demo reel, and tried to invert common elements I had seen in other demo tapes. Cuttting to still shots, not fly throughs. Subtle movement, not intense action. Soft, organic shapes, not hard-edged robots. The ear, not Tyson. Anyway, it was the tape that got me the job."

Q: What programs should you know to be an animator?

Daryl: "3d Studio Max or Softimage, Photoshop, Jane Fonda workout. There's a bunch of them, but having the programs won't save you. It's the experience. Getting yourself to the point where your mind is in a purely creative mode, and not distracted thinking 'Ok.....now...where is that button I have to push.'"

"I believe the aproach not be 'I have these programs, now I am strong and smart' but rather say to the programs 'I am your slave. Teach me to be worthy' (never out loud). These are incredible tools and it is important to make them an extension of your hand, not your ego. 'Nuff said."

Q: What is the best part about working on GK3?

Daryl: "Jeez...there's lots. I'm surrounded by creative people. The people on the team have such varied backgrounds and each one adds a different perspective to things. I love seeing all the stuff come together. Um...Free pop. But I guess the best part is that I love what I do. I never thought I'd get a job doing something I liked. Now I'm just waiting for a safe to fall on my head."

Q: What is the worst part?

Daryl: "The itching, the burning."

Q: So, I've heard rumors that you are the guy who puts all of the secret messages in the AVIs, what's with that?

Daryl: "If you take frame 33 of the Wilkes animation into Photoshop, apply a twist filter, posterize it, seperate each value into a layer and rotate the 3rd value layer 90 degrees the answer will be revealed. I can't believe no one got that."

Q: If you had to make up a palindrome quickly, what would it be?

Daryl: "Madam, I'm Adam. (ok...I got that from a book. The response being "Eve".)"

Q: What is your average day like? Are you busy all day long?

Daryl: "Read animation list. Read script. Get character. Make him do the thing. Tell the game how the verticies are being thrown around. See how it looks. Sip coffee. Sip water. Sip free pop. Eat an orange.
Change animation if needed.
Repeat.
Add nutmeg for extra 'zing'.
I am busy all day long."

Q: How did you learn to make such life-like movements? Or is it just a series of trials and errors until it looks right?

Daryl: "I tape the mouse to my chest and dance around. No...um.....yeah...trials and errors. Jumping in and making bold movements, then fixing them. Much of it comes from communicating with the other animators on the team and looking at each other's animations and saying 'Howdyadodat?' They're good guys."

Thanks for the great answers Daryl!

5 goatees (including the recently voted against webmaster's)
1 beard
7 people with long hair
5 really short hair cuts
1 redhead
1 purplehead
20 earrings (total)
20 males
2 females