Gabriel Knight 2 is a point-and-click game. Though instead of having various cursors as in its predecessor, "The Beast Within" basically has only one cursor. When the player moves the mouse over an item or person that can be activated, the pointer changes from a regular arrow to a dagger. When an inventory item is selected, the pointer will look like that inventory item. Also when moving the cursor to the edge of the screen or passage ways, the cursor will change into an exit sign, allowing the player to move to another location.
Main menu
The main menu bar at the bottom of the screen looks like this:
The background image changes from chapter to chapter. Above is Grace's menu bar. Grace uses a notebook to write down her findings. Hence the notebook in the bottom right. Gabriel uses a tape recorder, so in his menu bar, there will be the icon of a tape instead.
When the player clicks on the face of the werewolf on the left side of the menu bar, the following options appear:
In this menu, the player can save or restore a game, continue playing, view the game credits, change the movie size, exit the game, change the music volume or detail level.
Inventory menu
When the player clicks on the top right icon, the inventory menu appears:
Notice that the icons on the right have changed. The arrow icon is to change the pointer to an arrow. This is to unselect a selected inventory item and works also by right-clicking the mouse. The magnifying glass icon is to examine the selected inventory item in detail. This will for example be used to read letters or books. The exit icon is to return to the regular menu bar. Note that when an inventory item is selected, it will appear and stay in the box on the left of the icons. For example, currently the letter to Ludwig II is selected in Grace's inventory.
Movie menu
When the player clicks on the movie icon, the movie menu appears:
Here the player can watch a whole range of movies again, upto the point where he is in the game, so he can't watch movies which he did not encounter during gameplay yet. The available movies are highlighted.
Grace's notebook
When the player plays as Grace, and clicks on the notebook icon, her notes appear:
By clicking on the tabs of her notebook, the player can easily review information on various subjects.
Gabriel's tape recorder
When the player plays as Gabriel, and clicks on the tape recorder icon, all his tapes appear:
To play a tape, simply select one, click "LOAD A" and "PLAY A". For example if we play Kommissar Leber's tape, the following screen will appear:
So, the player can within each tape immediately select the topic of interest.
On one occasion, the player will have to splice a tape. In that case, insert a recorded tape in deck A, insert an empty tape in deck B, and click the "SPLICE" button. In case we splice Klingman's tape, the following screen will appear:
In this screen, we can select individual words from the recorded tape, insert them in the textbox on the bottom, and record the newly created sentence on the blank tape.
