AG Community Game Playthrough #2: Gabriel Knight 1: Sins of the Fathers
 

Sorry I'm late in posting this, folks... I wanted to wait until I felt like I would have the chance to install and play myself, but it doesn't seem to be happening yet. Since the game is essentially broken up into its own sections anyway, I'll get the ball rolling and catch up later. :)

Anyhoo. If you like, you can check out the first AG playthrough thread to get a feel for how things go. The thread "rules" are as follows:

Step 1: Install your copy of Gabriel Knight 1: Sins of the Fathers

The CD version with voices is preferred, if you own it. There is a fansite with an installer and patches for the game, if you want to try using it.

Step 2: Play through the game until the current stopping point.

Since I got the feeling that the stopping points in BaSS ended up being too short, we'll experiment.

Play through Day 1 and Day 2, saving and stopping right after you regain control from the Day 3 starting cutscene.

This stopping point will go for a week, until February 13th.

Side note: Since Gabe is an Aquarian, his birthday is likely during this month anyway. :)

Step 3: Post!

Just a reminder that sticking to just our current stopping point is encouraged, and any information that you still want to post that happens after that point in the game should be placed in spoiler tags.

In the words of Pink (the singer that is, not the AG poster), let's get this party started!

Peace & Luv, Liz

I've played fairly recently, so I don't think I'll replay it just yet. I'll wait for the next play-through.

I'll try to get into this one. Won't be able to play until the end of the week so try not to use all the good stuff up before then. :P

I thought two days seemed like a lot but I didn't join in the BASS thread so I'll bow to the experience from there.

Some of the days are short. I think there are 12 altogether.

Something to keep in mind with this game is that certain things can be done in different days. So a person could play through Day 1 and Day 2 and post about what they did, and still spoil something for a person who's also played the first 2 days. Just something to consider, if you're concerned about spoilers. (Not that spoiler tags will really help, in this case, because people won't know whether it's safe to read them or not...)

10 days, actually, although technically there are 11

Spoiler:

(the extra day is due to travel time when Gabriel flies from New Orleans to Germany, then to Africa and back home).

Oh man, I just recently played this game too, otherwise I'd play along as well.

I'd play, but my copy is at home where I ain't :frown:.

I'm in, just need to finish up Faust first. I'm embarassed to admit that I've never played completely through GK1 even though GK2 is in my top ten games of all time.

I really want to take part in the playthrough, so I'll try to keep up --- not sure I'll manage to, though. :frown:

Oh, and I still recommend playing the DOS version (under DOSBox) rather than the Windows version. The former is slightly prettier.

I just remembered that if I did play this I'd be playing the wonderful semi-French version. English speech and French screen text, that is, which is actually quite fun :).

Does this mean you actually have to listen to the narrator (if you don't speak French, that is)? I pity you. :frown:

I quite like the narrator... :frown:

Yes, I do have to listen to her, as my French isn't nearly good enough to actually understand the conversations and whatnot. The coversation options and menu text I can manage perfectly well, but plot exposition is something else altogether...

OK, I promise I'll try not turning her off at once when I start replaying the game.

I doubt I'll manage to resist until the end, though. ;)

Heh, same here, though with GK3 and #1...

Well, I did almost finish it, but maybe the end was too scary :D Well, I've been waiting for this, so I have a good excuse to play it through. Though this is badly right on my test week...

I was so excited when GK1 was chosen as the next playthrough because I had never finished it before. I got stuck on Day 5 - killed, actually! It's funny because I bought the game when it originally came out (CD version) and I got the Sierra Hint Book for the game as well. I must have been a more dedicated gamer then because I could have easily gotten past my death scene by reading the hint. Not a problem for me now, since I loaded the game using the "fansite installer" (recommeded highly) and played through the whole game last week!

Day 1 takes a loooong time to get through. It's not heavy in the puzzle area, but a lot of conversation and story exposition happens here. It may seem longer than it really is because you have so much dialogue to hear/read. But what great dialogue! It's hard to think of a game in which the writing and acting and unfolding of the dialogue tree is handled any better.

For instance, when you talk to Willy in the Dixieland Drug Store you don't just have someone reading lines, you actually get the feeling that this is a real person and that they're hiding something from you. Also, the interface you go to when you ask questions goes a long way in helping out the outdated graphics of the regular game. I remember when the game came out there was a big deal about the lip-syncing of the "face time" characters and it really helps.

Another thing I really like about this game is the little tinkling bell sound you get when you find the right piece of information during dialogues or when you pick up certain objects. It's very unobtrusive and in a game with a lot of information it really makes you feel like you're making progress, however small.

How is the dos version prettier than the windows version?

See here. It's not that much of a difference, but it does matter to me.

Somehow I feel the need to confess as well.... I also have never completely played GK1, but have played 2 and 3 and they are definitely within my top five of faves!

I finished Faust so was able to start GK1.

Definitely interesting to play this one after having played 2 and 3 multiple times. Kinda neat experience as a prequel. Obviously so well done you really dont notice the game is now, what, 12-13 years old?

As Gomatic mentioned, I like how they handled dialogue. They must have thought it would be nice to get detailed faces on the characters to help bring the story alive (which it does) since they couldn't get that in standard gameplay. Only dialogue gripe is how it's structured. My nitpick is it would have been nicer to have it flow more like real conversation, if possible, instead of things like "Just tell me anything!" to get background information.

I'm still on Day One and will post more impressions later.

I like Gabriel's seductive way of asking Grace - "Just tell me anything at all" in that southern drawl. :9

Or a Tim Curry attempt at it :P.

Completed Day 1.. I can see as fov said that you don't have to do everything to move forward as I probably did almost the minimum required to do.

I can see why one of the additions in GK2 was the visual clue that things were still required to be completed at certain locations. There are many locations open right now and I can see a time when I'm visiting each frantically trying to figure out what to do next.

Finished Day 2.. definitely a tougher game than it's sequels, in my opinion. I miss a few things here and there because of the lack of hot spots.

Question for those that have played the game, regarding the clock in Gran's attic:

Spoiler:

I gave in and found the solution to it.. but where is the clue on what you're supposed to do? Does it come later? I was afraid I had missed something and gave in to the solution but I don't recall ever receiving a hint for that, unless it comes later and I did it prematurely.
thanks!

There's a poem by Heinz Ritter (= Harrison Knight) somewhere (in the book shop, I think) which mentions three dragons. And, more generally, the theme of the three dragons / snakes runs in Gabriel's family (cf. also his father's painting, the sketch book, etc.) (and it's not the last time you'll run into it).

And I promise I'll get around to joining the playthrough (because you must be getting bored here all by yourself ;)); just give me a couple more days. :)

I finished day 1 as well and it made me want to go to the French Quarter again. It's a fabulous place!

I really got stuck and had to restart from an earlier point when Gabriel had to:

Spoiler:

Get the VooDoo Murder file photocopied. If you talk to Officer Franks, I don't think you can give the file back to her to go inside again and chat with Mosely. I restarted before the whole business of asking her for the file so I could avoid that.

It's a wonderful game and I love the banter between Gabriel and Grace and I love the narrator! (Sorry Kurufinwe :P)

Funny thing I only just installed GK 1 again 3 hours ago to test something with DOSBOX. And now I peek into the forum and discover this thread! The coincidence is almost spooky... :crazy: Must be the call of the wild AGers. :D

Me too, me too and I won't be sorry for it, never! :7

Erm, as I said, I only wanted to test something with the configuration but I got so drawn in again that I had to play on. :) But I doubt that I will have the patience to participate in the playthrough as I play the GK's almost by heart now. :P

Well great, now I can't get it to work properly. There's some weird problem with save games: there are none (from the last time I played) and whenever I try to save, when I click the save-button in the menu it crashes...

What version are you using (CD/floppy, Windows/DOS under DOSBox/DOS with VDMS)?

And I just started replaying it yesterday. I didn't go far, though (just bookshop + grandmother). I love it. Apart from the interface, which has far too many icons (and cycling through them by right-clicking is rather painful). And the narrator, of course. :D (well, I haven't turned her off, but I usually just read her lines and click --- she's unbearably slow). I'll try and catch up if I can. :)

Heh, I agree Kurufinwe, the right-clicking through the icons is rather annoying.

I'm up to Day 4 now. I really enjoy the game. Very-well paced story and I'm excited about where it's going. I have some predictions that I'm fairly certain will pay out to be true, but we'll see.

I've had to peek at a walkthrough a few times when I thought I had exhausted every single possibly conversation, "show item to this guy", etc.. nearly every time it's a hot spot I missed.

im also going to join the playthrough. i never finished the game before, so now is the chance.

im still on day 1, having been everywhere and spoken to everyone. first impressions are there are really a lot of interections, and lots of dialogue, and i'm not sure what i have to do. and at the its not quite clear exactly what i have to do. i guess im investigating the voodoo murders.

oh, and i had no idea what to do with the clock. were there any clues along the way?

I kinda agree with Mordalles that the setup could be a bit better. Guess that's what you get with the fancy FMV or rendered intros.

I do like how the puzzle hints aren't forcefed to you.. like if Gabriel comes across a puzzle, he doesn't say something to himself that is a massive giveaway hint. A lot of recent games do this. Course that makes the game a lot more of a challenge :)

Tell us more, tell us more! :) Really, it's interesting to make fun of listen to people's hypotheses about the plot. (Use spoiler tags, though.)

I have the CD version and I'm using the patch by Hendroz.

The savegames in GK are named GKSG.xxx (where xxx = 000, 001, 002, etc.), used together with GKSG.CAT (which contains the list of the savegames, the names you've given them, etc.). Maybe one of those files is corrupt for some reason. First, make sure that they're not read-only (right-click, Properties). If that's not the case, you could try removing them (by putting them in another folder) and see if you can access the save panel again. That won't allow you to use your old savegames, but at least you'll be able to make new ones. If that still doesn't work, you'll probably have to re-install.

My predictions:

Spoiler:

It seems to me that Malia Gedde is the real Voodoo queen or whatever... the story of Laveau implied she was just a figurehead for the real powerplayer. Malia has some sort of voodoo thing going on with Gabe. Now that I've received Wolfgang's journal with the "shockingly" similar plotline in his family's past, I'd now put a hefty wager on it. I imagine the game's remaining major plot points will mirror those in the journal's last page.

Probably missing a lot of details :)

I'm on Day 5 now and stuck on some nasty puzzles :)

I've finished Day 3. I really love this game. Jane Jensen is especially good at making interesting and believable characters: Gabe, Grace, Malia, even Madame Cazaunoux has a real depth. But Malia's definitely the best, of course. Although, every time I hear Leilani Jones, I'm reminded of her playing the voodoo lady (!) in MI. And Tim Curry's doing a much better job than in GK3, where he really overdoes it. (And Mark Hamill can't act, but that's hardly a surprise.)

The plot is moving much faster than I remembered, which is actually nice. The game would probably have been a bit better by toning down the gratuitous puzzles (like the whole drawing/lucky dog sequence), but it still works rather well.

Well, there doesn't seem to be a community schedule anymore, so I'll just go on as I feel. :)

It sounds like you haven't read the graphic novel that came with the game. You really ought to. See here if you've got one of those versions that don't have it. And, regarding your predictions... Well, you'll see. ;)

And is Day 5 St John's Eve? That day was hard. But I thought that was day 6... I can't remember.

Ahh.. I had the original graphic novel when I bought the floppy version "back in the day" but didn't have it any longer.. good read and yea, essentially covers the eventual end game story.

Obviously a lot deeper than I theorized and expected, which is great.

I'm up to Day 7 now.. I had to:

Spoiler:

...cheat a bit on the "what Gabe writes on the tomb" puzzle. I didn't put two and two together.. now I see I could have listened to the lecture, since that is where fwet kash was explained and then remembered there was a little coffin in the museum shop.

im into day 3, and the game is really starting to interest me. it is starting to suck me in with its story. and i really love all the animations they put in the game. there are animations for every single little thing.