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Once upon a time, a long long time ago in the early '80s, when Apple IIc's still roamed the computer industry, there ruled in the kingdom of Sierra Online a king, Ken Williams, and a queen, Roberta Williams. The people of the early computers were happy and peaceful, but the King and the Queen were sad because there were few 3-D animated adventure games. In fact, some would say there weren't any. And so Roberta began creating worlds of her own. |
C'est moi ! |
Her first project, Mystery House, was a whodunit game in black and white outline graphics. Ken programmed the game, while Roberta wrote the text and designed the art. Playing the game required simple commands such as "Go North," "Get Note," and "Search Body." Yet this game's combination of text and graphics revolutionized the industry. Within 10 months of its release in 1980, Mystery House sold 15,000 copies and grossed $167,000 -- a whole lotta money back then. Thus began Roberta's legendary career as a computer game designer.
Roberta Williams, as a pioneering interactive storyteller, has written, designed and sold more home computer games than any other person in the industry. Bill Gates ain't the only celebrity in this town, ya know. "I don't put a lot of thought about my place in the history of computer games. I do what I do because I enjoy it. In high school, I wanted to be an archaeologist or study ancient history. Sometimes you just stumble into things. You think you're going one way, then suddenly boom! -- you find yourself."
There's no basement in the Alamo! |
As prosperous as it was, the boom in the interactive gaming industry had to adjust to technological innovations. The first of Roberta's fairy-tales, The Wizard and the Princess, was the first game to use color graphics. More elaborate games, such as Mission: Asteroid and Time Zone followed this arrival. Jim Henson's movie, "The Dark Crystal," is also immortalized in a few floppy disks. |
Even with all these successes, it wasn't until 1984, when Sierra released King's Quest I: Quest for the Crown, that the real romance began. One reviewer noted that King's Quest was "the closest thing yet to interacting with an animated cartoon." Never before could one have such control over a character and have numerous options during play. Set in the fantasy kingdom of Daventry, King's Quest I and all the sequels (count 'em: eight) formed a soap operatic addiction with gamers, from kids to adults. There were dragons to fight, princesses and princes to rescue, and puzzles to solve. Experimental, rebellious, and challenging, the series includes female protagonists, actual paintings for backgrounds, real time play, icon-based control, real voices, et cetera.
But was there anything Roberta couldn't do with the kingdom of Daventry?
Certainly. In 1995, Sierra sparked controversy with the release of Roberta's masterpiece: the interactive movie Phantasmagoria. This time, real people acted in video scenes cast against an elaborate and haunting background. The mature content, which includes sex scenes and graphic violence, may have scared off major retailers and family-oriented gamers, but Phantasmagoria opened a new genre to a bloodthirsty audience.
| "I've always tended to be a little more rebellious, the one to say, 'Well, you wanna make a bet?'... I can't be a designer without being a marketing person too, wondering where the industry's going, where it could go, areas that aren't being packed," she says. "I looked around and saw there were no horror games. Horror was a big niche, a big hole that needed to be filled. It was an opportunity and I wanted to see if I could do it. To do horror, you have to be able to scare people, and not just with computer graphics. You need to see real humans reacting." |
Get your own... anthology |
Williams predicts the next empty holes in the computer game industry are multiplayer adventure games in virtual 3-D worlds. As for the current arcade game hype, she comments: "This is the third major arcade cycle I've seen since 1980. If a game machine comes along that is really popular, it drives the arcade game industry. It seeds itself and grows and turns into this big cycle of feeding frenzy. It lasts about two years... Any type of feeding frenzy gets repetitive and loses its appeal, and it goes away. Suddenly the arcade game business is dead. That's when new games for women (and men) can come back in."
Although she is one of the few females in the industry, Williams has been around long enough to escape prejudice. Yet she is often seen as the representative of the female side. "Many people ask me, 'Why don't more women play computer games?' I've noticed that little girls like computers as much as little boys, but when they get in high school, they show interest elsewhere. One reason why is because their lives, especially as they get married and have kids, get very busy... The second reason is that men and boys in general seem to like things that have buttons and dials and knobs. The third reason is that most games are written with the flair towards males. Women just aren't there to influence things... A couple of years ago it seemed that there were games of an introspective nature [for women], but in the last year and a half it's gone backwards to being more male-oriented."
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Williams plans to incorporate both sides of the gaming spectrum -- manual fighting and puzzle solving -- in the upcoming King's Quest: The Mask of Eternity. Realms are created in 3-Space, a software tool used in flight simulators. Excitedly, she explains: "In games like Phantasmagoria and Myst, you are still regulated to angles from a designer. Masks of Eternity is a true 3D world... You can go anywhere, look at the ground and behind the trees and around the characters. The minimum machine you'd want is the P166." The game has a plot reminiscent of Milton's Paradise Lost rather than a typical romance novel touch. In the game, a magical storm turns everyone into stone, except for one young man who must partake in a quest for a "Holy Grail"-like mask. "The mask is a mysterious fleeting thing; there is a rumor as to whether it exists or not. This mask holds a tenuous line against all the evil in the world. One of the guardians has fallen from grace and destroys the mask. Chaos reigns." |
Masks of Eternity won't be available until December, but until then, you can experience the Sierra fairy tale in the Roberta Williams Anthology, which is a four CD collection of every game crafted by the diva herself.
And so the Queen reigns on, making sure her subjects veg in front of the computer screen happily ever after.
The End.
TV and Multimedia Editor Jen Estaris recently got her hair highlighted. And she wears interesting outfits. And she's in Wharton. Go figure.
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