It’s hard to believe, but we are currently living in the year when Jane Jensen’s long-awaited adventure game Gray Matter is actually going to be released. For reference, some of the things that didn’t exist when we first covered this game in 2003: Facebook, Blu-Ray Movies, the Twilight books, Justin Bieber. What’s even more remarkable is that fan anticipation is just as strong now as it was when we first learned of the project seven years ago, if somewhat tinged by frustration and cynicism by now. After all this time, the question is whether any game can measure up to this level of hype and anticipation. I can’t answer that for sure, but I had the opportunity at this year’s E3 convention to see large chunks of the first few chapters of the game demoed by Jane herself (with assistance from dtp entertainment’s Claas Wolter), and it looks exactly as deep, mysterious, and complex as you’d want a Jane Jensen adventure to be.

The beginning of Gray Matter introduces a travelling street magician named Samantha. She's left America and is currently in Oxford, England, trying to find a magician’s hangout called the Daedalus Club when she’s waylaid by a bad storm. Sam overhears a girl looking for a neurobiologist named Dr. David Styles, as she’s supposed to be his new assistant. When the girl is scared off her search for some reason, Sam seizes the opportunity. Upon arriving at the fairly impressive (if just a little bit spooky) Dread Hill House, she decides to pose as the assistant to con her way in, get a room for the night and wait out the storm. By the time morning comes and she’s gotten a good look around the mansion, Sam decides it might be a good idea to stay a while to make some money and get some free room and board. Her first assignment, delivered via note, is to find six Oxford University students to volunteer for a psychological experiment, though exactly what they’ll be asked to do isn’t offered.



This is not as easy a task as it sounds. It turns out Dr. Styles has a bit of a reputation in town as an unfriendly hermit-type, and his house is rumored to be haunted, so it’ll take several puzzles and lots of conversations to convince a sufficient number of students to agree to it. It was here that I got the first look at what I think is one of the coolest gameplay mechanics in Gray Matter: the magic trick system. Sam has a book full of different magic tricks, and your first task is to find one appropriate for the situation. Then you need to use a screen display of Sam to decide where to hold what objects and when, creating a formula for sleight-of-hand. To get these sequences right, Jane explained that she sought out several books and tapes on magic, and practiced the tricks for her friends and family. In this early example, Sam needs to successfully pocket then replace a disturbingly voyeuristic video with a blank one in order to convince a pervert to be a volunteer (so yeah, this is a game for grown-ups!). I won’t spoil what happens when you’ve gathered all six, but let’s just say the experiment has some very unexpected and bizarre side effects.

Though Dr. Styles does seem a little out there, you’ll come to understand him better when you’re controlling him for a few of the game’s eight chapters. He’s been a bit antisocial ever since his wife died, and lately he’s been seeing visions of her around the house. While watching Jane play through a Styles chapter, I got an idea of just how complicated and intricate Gray Matter is going to be. There are pages and pages of things to read on his work in cognitive anomalies, the devices he’s constructing, and so on, and it all seems very well-written and researched. A lot of this information contains valuable clues you’ll need for the puzzles, and though Jane breezed through, I have a feeling most players (myself included) will want to keep a notepad handy, and I mean that in a good way. Not that Sam’s chapters are simplistic, as besides her normal tasks, she has a whole series of side quests involving Daedalus Club riddles and scavenger hunts. This game uses a points system (similar to the Sierra titles of old) to help motivate players to seek out these optional side puzzles, and includes a progress menu to show how far you’ve gotten in this or that task.



On the PC, Gray Matter will be a standard third-person point-and-click adventure, but I also asked about the plans for an Xbox 360 version. When playing on the 360, the left analog stick will control your character directly, holding down the left trigger will bring up a radial menu that allows you to cycle through the hotspots, while the buttons are used to interact with the inventory and environment. The right shoulder button produces the map which can, thankfully, be used for fast travel. I asked Jane about Achievements, but she said she wasn’t involved with that aspect. Claas stepped in and said that most of the Achievements will be tied to story progress, but there will also be a few awarded for optional things like the side quests.

Gray Matter is a great looking game, with genuinely attractive backgrounds. I really came to be interested in the town and the setting just from appreciating the graphic design. I’m an easy mark for anything to do with magicians, so maybe I’m biased, but things like the local magic shop and Sam’s book of tricks sucked me right in. The character models, particularly the facial portraits when they’re talking, aren’t quite as top-notch, at least not at this preview stage, but it’s a minor quibble in a mostly beautiful game. I couldn’t really hear the music too well over the noise of the Los Angeles Convention Center, but from what I heard of the voice acting, it sounded pretty effective. Of course, you can learn more about that from our day in the Gray Matter recording studio feature and our video interview with Jane herself if you missed them the first time around.

After so many years of working on this project, which included a few significant setbacks along the way, I asked Jane if she still felt the same level of enthusiasm for Gray Matter now as she did way back when. Clearly she does, as she said she already knows where she wants to take the series from here if the first one is successful, and is ready and willing to start designing another one straight away. If the full game is as compelling as the sequences I saw, then I don’t think that will be a problem. You’ll only have to wait a few more months to find out for yourself, as Gray Matter will actually be available for purchase (for realsies!) on PC and Xbox 360 this coming October.