Who or What is Pinkerton Road?

Pinkerton Road is the new game studio started by game veterans Jane Jensen and Robert Holmes. Our focus is 3rd person adventure games for PC and tablet with rich stories, gorgeous art and seamlessly fun play. The studio will use a new model, "Community Supported Gaming" (CSG) to fund and develop their games.

Jane is known for games with complex, dark plotlines ala Dan Brown. She created the Gabriel Knight adventure game series at Sierra On-Line and the recent Gray Matter. And in the past eight years, she designed and directed leading casual games including Women’s Murder Club, Dying for Daylight and Deadtime Stories at Oberon Media/I-Play Studio. Now she's returning to her roots and founding an adventure game studio. Robert, Jane's husband, produced GK1 and has written music for many of Jane’s games. His endlessly hip band, The Scarlet Furies, did the toe-tapping themes in Gray Matter and Dying for Daylight.

The Pinkerton Road studio is located on a remote outpost of gamedom -- Jane and Robert's farm in Lancaster County, PA.

OK. What is CSG?

CSG = Community Supported Gaming. We stole the idea from CSAs – Community Supported Agriculture -- where customers subscribe to a small organic farm for a season and get a basket of just-picked produce each week. This supports the small farmer while the customers get the freshest food available and a direct relationship with the person growing their food.

Our CSG will work in a similar way. Sign up as a Pinkerton Road CSG member, and you'll get all of the awesome games we produce for one year*. The CSG model will help our studio survive financially so that we can make the kinds of games that YOU and WE want to play (not what some big publisher’s marketing department has decided will be the next big hit).

But, let’s be honest, this brilliant idea goes beyond that! We want our customers to feel like part of our studio family (as many did in the Sierra On-Line days). As a CSG member, you’ll get regular video updates on what we’re doing, peeks at the newest art, glimpses of our games in development and the inside scoop what it's like to operate a game studio. It’s like you’ll have a virtual desk right next to ours. Just don't hog the stapler!

This model will also be ridiculously useful to us, as developers. We'll have a customer base to get feedback from through A/B testing and early beta tests. If we have a slot for one more game next year, how would you like to decide if it’s Concept A, B or C? As a CSG member, you will. If fact, May 1 those who have signed up will vote on one of the 3 concepts below as our very first Pinkerton Road adventure game! Update: Voting for the games has been bumped up to April 14-15

* Note: If we do any work-for-hire for another company we will not be able to offer that free to our CSG members since we won’t own the rights. But rest assured that we will keep our season full of original studio content! After all, that's the point!

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Game concept A: Gray Matter 2

Story: Renegade Oxford Neurobiologist Dr. David Styles and his assistant, American street magician, Samantha Everett, continue on David's quest to research powers of the mind. In this game, they visit the home of a dead student who had the power to unleash a fiery force when her emotions were charged. What is the nature of her genetic lineage? Was her devastating gift a fluke? Or do the xenophobic residents of her small island home harbor secrets they’d rather the world not know?

Art Style & Mechanic: Like Gray Matter, this game will have a pre-rendered 3D art style (aka "2.5 D"). It will be a 3rd person adventure game with a point-and-click mechanic like Gray Matter and an improved magic interface -- and more time playing Dr. Styles!

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Game concept B: Moebius

Story: Malachi Rector is an antiquities dealer who hunts down artifacts all over the world. After losing everything in a fire, he's hired by a Manhattan millionaire to investigate a series of events and document them in his meticulous way. But Rector soon realizes that the events hold a bizarre significance, as does his own existence. This is a metaphysical thriller ala Dante’s Equation and Gabriel Knight.

Art Style & Mechanic: 2D, graphic novel look and feel (like an updated GK1). It will be a 3rd person adventure game with a point-and-click mechanic and lots of sophisticated puzzles.

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Game concept C: Anglophile Adventure

Story: Evangeline learns that her beloved Little Nidd Farm is in desperate financial straits following her father’s death. She finds a threatening letter from the local Viscountess among her father’s papers and decides to apply for a governess position at the great estate. She’s determined to get to the heart of the ominous-sounding secret mentioned in the letter. She disguises herself as a dowdy frump in order to keep the Viscountess’s notorious rake of a son at bay. Sex, scandal, ghosts and lies abound in this historical mystery/romance set in the Cotswolds in Regency England.

Art Style & Mechanic: High resolution, high detail 2D (resolution set for ipad3) in a realistic cartoony style. Point and click adventure with classic adventure puzzles appropriate to the historical period.

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SparkTR said:

Isn't Jane working on Cognition?

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Bebpo said:

Helping out. Like Obsidian's involvement in wasteland 2 but probably a smaller role than even that. This would be her own game, written by her, designed by her.

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GhaleonQ said:

Do we know this? I assumed otherwise when I saw it on Adventure Treff.

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LastWindow said:

Adventure game about Weezer, I'm sure.

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mescalineeyes said:

Sure hope she doesn't make any games after that then. On simply can not go and top Pinkerton amirite?

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=GabrielKnight= said:

A banner appeared on adventuregamers.com, leading to this youtube channel:http://www.youtube.com/user/PinkertonRoad?ob=0&feature=results_main

One video is from the opening of Gray Matter, the other is from the ending of Gabriel Knight 3

then there's this countdown site: http://pinkertonroad.com/

And Jane recently opened a facebook page too: http://www.facebook.com/janejensenhomes

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MMaRsu said:

Give me a new gabriel knight pls!!

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MrBud360 said:

I was thinking, maybe she is working with Telltale Games on the new King Quest......

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MrBud360 said:

I was thinking, maybe she is working with Telltale Games on the new King Quest......

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sloppyjoe_gamer said:

Anyone else immediately think of her when they read the thread title?

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Spectacular Dr Dawg said:

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is one of the best adventure games ever so I'm really looking forward to this.

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Bebpo said:

Helping out. Like Obsidian's involvement in wasteland 2 but probably a smaller role than even that. This would be her own game, written by her, designed by her.

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sloppyjoe_gamer said:

Anyone else immediately think of her when they read the thread title?

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Ignis Fatuus said:

She's never been advertized as anything more than a "consultant" on Cognition.

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Family Fry said:

Well apparently it's leaked.

Jane is founding a new studio and will be asking for $300k to kickstart 3 projects, kickstarter backers will get to vote which one comes first.

Grey Matter 2

Mobius
"A man investigates a series of events around the world for a mysterious benefactor and learns a secret that changes his entire world view."

Anglophile Adventure
"Visit Regency England for a little sex, lies and scandal."

The $300k will fund ALL 3 projects.

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Spectacular Dr Dawg said:

Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers is one of the best adventure games ever so I'm really looking forward to this.

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Family Fry said:

Well apparently it's leaked.

Jane is founding a new studio and will be asking for $300k to kickstart 3 projects, kickstarter backers will get to vote which one comes first.

Grey Matter 2

Mobius
"A man investigates a series of events around the world for a mysterious benefactor and learns a secret that changes his entire world view."

Anglophile Adventure
"Visit Regency England for a little sex, lies and scandal."

The $300k will fund ALL 3 projects.

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Family Fry said:

Well apparently it's leaked.

Jane is founding a new studio and will be asking for $300k to kickstart 3 projects, kickstarter backers will get to vote which one comes first.

Grey Matter 2

Mobius
"A man investigates a series of events around the world for a mysterious benefactor and learns a secret that changes his entire world view."

Anglophile Adventure
"Visit Regency England for a little sex, lies and scandal."

The $300k will fund ALL 3 projects.

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Kickstarter said:

Can you really make a great adventure game for $300K?

A 3rd person adventure game like the one we're planning would normally cost at least twice that. But we are putting in some funding as well, and the team is taking less up front in exchange for rev share. So this project already has committed believers behind it. The last piece we need is you!

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So what’s included in the Pinkerton Road 2012-2013 CSG season?

This first CSG season will run from the present through end of June 2013. How many games will we do in that period? That depends on what we raise during funding.

If we meet our Kickstarter goal the season will include:
* Lola and Lucy’s Big Adventure (a kid’s e-book/game written by Jane that we’ve funded ourselves as a bootstrap studio project. It’s nearly finished and will be released Summer 2012.)
* An all new original adventure game by Jane in the vein of Gabriel Knight and Gray Matter (no pun intended) on PC download, due approximately Mar 2013.

If we raise $600K or more the season will ALSO include:
* A second Jane Jensen adventure game on PC download, due approximately June 2013. We have a white board full of concepts that have been crawling around in Jane’s brain for years. Or it might be another of the 3 concepts below -- if it gets enough of your votes.

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Saty said:

Do they really have a big\good enough studio to potentially release two adventure games in the span of the 3 months and having each being a meaty and worthy game?

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MrBud360 said:

Pleged with 110$. I will vote for Moebius!!! If it's like Gabriel as she said, i'm in!!!!Go Jane Go Jane!!!

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