COLLECTED WORKS ROBERTA WILLIAMS

A legendary pioneer of the adventure genre reflects on a career that spans fairy stories, nursery rhymes and horror

- EDWIN EVANS-THIRLWELL

During these times of crushing layoffs and waves of questionable new technologies such as AI art generation and crypto, it can be liberating to talk to developers who remember the game industry before it was, strictly speaking, an industry at all. Roberta Williams’ roots as a designer and writer predate the Internet and the home format computing boom; indeed, she was playing computer games before they ran on a screen. Her first inspiration was Will Crowther’s widely influential text- and paper-based Colossal Cave Adventure, released in 1976, which Williams accessed remotely using a teletype machine obtained by her husband Ken during some programming work for a children’s hospital.

The experience sparked a lifelong love affair with what would become the adventure genre, encompassing the King’s Quest series, partnerships with Disney and Jim Henson, and the founding of Sierra On-Line, a former giant in publishing whose portfolio once ranged from Leisure Suit Larry and Gabriel Knight to Space Quest and the first Half-Life. It hasn’t been all sunshine and roses, however: the Williamses and Sierra parted ways in acrimonious circumstances following the latter’s purchase by CUC International in the late ’90s. (CUC would go on to be convicted of financial fraud; Sierra lives on in the hands of Activision.) It was the start of a lengthy sabbatical for Williams, during which she travelled widely with her husband, published a novel, and worked as a consultant on a handful of games, including a Facebook title, Odd Manor, and a cancelled King’s Quest sequel from Telltale Games.