Gray Matter

Gray Matter is a point-and-click adventure game from French development studio Wizarbox , released in 2010 for PC and Xbox 360 . The game was designed by the American Jane Jensen , a writer and game designer who is best known in the games area for the adventure series Gabriel Knight from the 1990s.

action

Gray Matter is set in the area around what is now Oxford . The neurobiologist Dr. David Styles lost his wife in an accident a few years before the action of the game and has since lived in seclusion in his mansion called Dread Hill House , where he is haunted by the ghost of his late wife. But then he unexpectedly meets the American student and street artist Samantha "Sam" Everett. She has traveled to Europe in recent years to get to know foreign cultures and to deepen her knowledge of magic, her great passion.

To continue her studies, she travels to Oxford and, at the start of the game, remains lying on her motorcycle near Styles' mansion. It is raining heavily and so she looks for shelter in Dread Hill House . The neurobiologist is expecting a new student assistant, and Everett poses as one to him. The job suits the student well, as she is currently in financial difficulties. Her first task is to find volunteers for an experiment at Oxford University .

During the game, the player alternates between the two main characters (Sam Everett and David Styles). The story is a genre mix of mystery thriller, science thriller and love story. As in Gabriel Knight, Jane Jensen mixed scientific and historical facts with fiction, so that the player wonders what is real and what is not.

Game principle and technology

Gray Matter is a so-called 2.5D adventure. For polygons composite, three-dimensional figures act against pre-rendered , sometimes partially animated , but otherwise static scenes. In terms of controls, Gray Matter is a point-and-click adventure : the player controls the character through the game world with the mouse. With the mouse buttons he can initiate actions that allow the game character to interact with his environment. He can examine and pick up objects, apply them to the environment or other objects and communicate with NPCs . Dialogues are controlled by a single choice selection of topics given by the game.

Production notes

The music for the game comes from Jensen's husband Robert Holmes.

In German-speaking countries, Gray Matter was released on November 12, 2010. The English-language version was only released on February 22, 2011. In April, a version of the game was released on the Steam distribution platform that runs on current Windows versions. A “Special Edition” has also been released for Windows computers. In addition to the game, it contains the soundtrack on a separate CD , playing cards and five postcards in the game design as well as a double-sided poster and is packed in a large steel book .

reception

From 27 aggregated ratings, Gray Matter achieved a score of 72 on Metacritic . The Adventure Treff praised the "highly interesting and later increasingly exciting, lively" story, the character drawing and the "authentic" setting, but criticized the sometimes undemanding tasks in the game.

Web links

Gray Matter at MobyGames (English)

Individual evidence

↑ Heiko Klinge in a test for GameStar
↑ Adventure-Treff.de: Gray Matter. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .
^ ^A ^b Metacritic.com: Gray Matter. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .

[1] Heiko Klinge in a test for GameStar

[2] Adventure-Treff.de: Gray Matter. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .

[MC-3] A ^b Metacritic.com: Gray Matter. Retrieved May 31, 2017 .