Roberta Quest – Game Informer

This function initially appeared in the Ninja Gaiden 4 problem of Sport Informer journal on August 26, 2025. It has been introduced in entrance of the paywall on your studying pleasure! To get earlier entry to articles like this, head right here to subscribe.

Introduction

I knew it was going to be okay when Roberta Williams mentioned she shared my artistic love of theme parks. The Zoom modified from an image of my face to an image of an fool smiling like he simply received whacked within the head with a bag of sweet. This was a part of what I might legitimately describe as among the finest moments of my life. There’s an outdated Saturday Evening Dwell sketch with Chris Farley utterly crashing out as he talks to Paul McCartney, and I’ll be actual: Roberta Williams is roughly my Paul McCartney.

Let me again up.

They are saying by no means meet your heroes, proper? Ostensibly as a result of assembly your heroes takes them off that wonderful pedestal while you study they’re solely human. Or, you realize, full jerks. As somebody who’s spent over a decade writing comedy for each tv (Thriller Science Theater 3000, The Tonight Present Starring Jimmy Fallon) and video video games (Child Icarus: Rebellion), I can guarantee you the latter isn’t all the time the case, however it’s undoubtedly generally the case. I’ve completely met somebody I spent years worshipping as a child and left the dialog pondering, “Oh God, their solely reminiscence of me will probably be hate.” As Troy mentioned in Group, you possibly can’t disappoint an image. And buddy, I didn’t wish to disappoint the individual in that metaphorical image.

All the time Meet Your Heroes

All the time Meet Your Heroes

I lately wrote a ebook referred to as Good Sport, No Rematch. It’s a love letter to video video games, the primary artwork kind I ever understood and the one which’s been a large throughline in my life. The ebook spans every little thing from me placing collectively a cardboard Mario outfit to impress a first-grade crush (I failed) to getting shot within the junk at an official Nintendo of America worker paintball match (I harm). I’m not saying that to plug the ebook right here – Sure I’m; you should buy it on-line and in shops, obtainable in hardcover, digital, and audio, learn by me – I’m saying that as a result of within the ebook I dedicate a complete chapter to at least one particular artist, whom you possibly can already guess. Once I was a bit of child – we’re speaking single digits – I knew the names of two and solely two online game designers: Shigeru Miyamoto and Roberta Williams. Add in possibly Sid Meier and Will Wright, who I discovered about quickly after, and also you’d have my childhood Mount Rushmore. However of all of them, it was Roberta Williams who was on the very best aforementioned pedestal.

Roberta Williams and her husband Ken Williams had been the brains behind Sierra On-line, a sport studio whose title card music continues to be caught in my head over three a long time later. Whereas it wasn’t her first sport, Roberta Williams might be finest identified for King’s Quest. For individuals who had been born after 1995, King’s Quest was a sequence of early journey video games by which you performed King Graham and later members of his household as they went on adventures in and across the fictional fantasy kingdom of Daventry. The sport was so profitable that it spawned a complete line of Quest video games, similar to Area Quest and Police Quest. A number of the journey DNA in video games in the present day began in Roberta Williams’ head.

For years, King’s Quest was one of many best-selling pc sport franchises of all time. It was additionally an ongoing technological marvel, pushing the bounds of then-stunning improvements like soundcards and CD-ROM drives. And have in mind it is a time frame when every new pc was leagues forward of the final when it comes to processing energy, reminiscence, and, hell, the quantity of colours you may have on display screen. King’s Quest V’s voice performing shut my head down once I was six. The CGI opening of King’s Quest VI would possibly as properly have been a function movie for the way it dazzled me. It seems to be like a uneven tech demo now, however in 1992? Toy Story was nonetheless three years away, child!

Mike Drucker’s childhood sport design doc for his personal King’s Quest sequel

Right here’s how a lot I liked King’s Quest: Once I was ten, I wrote up a full pitch doc for what would then have been King’s Quest VIII. The story was a bit of skinny, however at the very least my concepts for the sport itself had been much more nonexistent as a result of I used to be a toddler. It was written in a number of typefaces in what was possibly a dimension 16 font. I despatched it to Sierra On-line and by no means heard again as a result of… why would I? It most likely went within the crank pile the place they saved any letters asking if Princess Rosella was single.

That’s all to say that when Sport Informer requested me if I needed to talk with Roberta Williams and write about our conversations, I used to be terrified. I’m not a journalist, so this was alleged to be a extra private, informal dialog quite than a straight-up interview. I hadn’t been this nervous to fulfill a celeb since I met Bizarre Al, and whereas he was tremendous good, I didn’t wish to push my luck with two idols. If Roberta Williams hated me, I most likely would’ve given up and none of you’d’ve heard from me once more and this text would’ve been written within the third individual by another person and concerned the phrases “mysterious tragedy.”

The Roberta Williams Timeline

You’re Roberta Williams

You’re Roberta Williams

However that’s not what occurred. What occurred was I received to speak to Roberta Williams 3 times over the course of some weeks about every little thing from her inspirations to her first new sport in over twenty years, the elegant remake of Colossal Cave. Our conversations totaled nearly 4 hours, which is way extra time than I anticipated, and I’m grateful for each minute. Roberta Williams isn’t simply good. She’s sharp and humorous and good and funky in a method that I can solely describe as an entire reduction. The truth that I’m not a reporter with tasks permits me to be extraordinarily biased and emotional right here.

Firstly of our name, she politely mentioned she preferred The Tonight Present, which I’d labored on, and particularly the sketch “tight pants,” which I had not. Coincidentally, Jimmy Fallon is definitely an enormous fan of King’s Quest, one thing I discovered by analysis and 100% used to my benefit once I interviewed for the job again within the day. When the present transitioned from Late Evening to The Tonight Present, they made a now-defunct app filled with mini video games. I, after all, wrote the script for a brief point-and-click journey parody of King’s Quest.

Roberta takes all this data in politely. “Properly, I’m a fan of his as properly,” she says. One thing that strikes me about her is each a delight in her good work and a slight discomfort within the variety of folks in my technology who wish to vigorously shake her hand and say, “Thanks on your service,” like she was a firefighter throughout a pure catastrophe. I actually did strive my finest to tamp it right down to a minimal. It actually was laborious to not simply repeat, “You’re Roberta Williams.”

She continued, “Properly, I admire that. I admire that a complete lot. You understand, I get that from many individuals round your age, and I do not know your age, however I am assuming round your age.” She was completely right within the assumption about my age.

Assembly Mom Goose

Roberta Williams on the duvet of 1987’s Blended-up Mom Goose

Assembly Mom Goose

Early in our first dialog, I talked about her affect on my technology’s artistic life and training. I’m being critical once I say King’s Quest actually helped educate me to learn. I requested her how she felt about so many individuals having that very same expertise.

“I simply type of considered it as a sport, you realize?” she mentioned. “I am simply doing a sport, however on the time, you do not actually understand the way it may be affecting folks, or particularly children. You simply do not actually take into consideration that. You simply suppose, you realize, that is enjoyable. I needed to be entertaining. I needed to promote properly. I needed to, you realize, go on the market and folks admire it. As a result of I used to be in my 20s, early 30s, and you do not suppose like that, ‘like, oh, it is gonna educate children to learn and it is gonna educate them one other language,’ possibly, in the event that they’re from one other nation or they’re studying learn how to remedy puzzles. I imply, you type of do, however not in an enormous method. However now I actually, actually perceive it, as a result of I have been advised so many occasions, and I’ve come to the purpose the place I nearly really feel like I am a mother or a instructor to a number of children on the market.”

I level out to her that she posed because the title character on the duvet of her kids’s sport, Blended-Up Mom Goose, and, for lots of us, she actually is Mom Goose. She laughed and agreed after which knowledgeable me of one thing I truly didn’t know: Simply how modern that particular sport truly was. Sure, it was for little children, however it was additionally Sierra On-line’s first CD-ROM sport and featured a personality creator, an excessive rarity for the time.

“I [thought] little children are going to wish to have it type of look or really feel like them, like themselves. You can select should you needed to be a boy or lady, and even pores and skin coloration. You can change your hair coloration. And I imply, you may do rather a lot, however you may make it’s just about the way you would possibly see it. See your self proper as a bit of child, and that was distinctive.”

She added, “You understand, Ken and I had been speaking about possibly redoing Blended-Up Mom Goose.” They’re contemplating bringing it again – or a non secular successor – for a brand new technology. The non secular successor half is as a result of, through the years, with Sierra On-line being offered and repackaged, Roberta and Ken misplaced the rights to video games like King’s Quest or her unique hit, Thriller Home. On the planet of IPs, company buyouts and mergers and spin-offs could make it extraordinarily murky precisely who owns the rights to one thing. And, to a perfectionist like Roberta who has the receipts to again it up, having to work underneath another person on a franchise she created wasn’t occurring.

“There’s no method that I may do, like, a Laura Bow [mystery game]. I may most likely go to Microsoft and say, ‘Properly, you realize, I will associate with you and do [King’s Quest],’ however I do not wish to try this. And they might most likely be thrilled, however I simply do not wish to try this.”

Fantasy Adventures

Screenshot from Roberta Williams’ 2023 remake of Colossal Cave

Fantasy Adventures

Since we had been speaking about childhood, I discussed that the King’s Quest video games all the time jogged my memory of going to Disney World as a child, with its varied fantasy themes and areas. I grew up in Florida and my aunt was a baker at one of many resorts, so we generally received free tickets and went a number of occasions a 12 months. To me, Prince Alexander traversing the Land of the Inexperienced Isles in King’s Quest VI felt the identical as shifting from the completely different zones of the Magic Kingdom.

Roberta lit up at this. “I liked Disneyland once I was a child. I grew up in Southern California, so we went there rather a lot, and it wasn’t as costly as now, so my mother and father may type of afford it, however I simply liked it. And one of many issues I liked was the completely different lands, like Adventureland and Tomorrowland, as a result of all of them had been completely different. However they had been all performed in a fantasy method, an nearly cartoony method. And all of these had been clearly for teenagers, organized for teenagers to simply use their creativeness to be in these worlds. And so they all appear to come back collectively, you realize? I really like Disneyland, as a result of I simply felt like I used to be on this fantasy, magical world of storytelling throughout me.”

God, I really like this individual. Are you able to see why I really like this individual?

“So I can inform you, Disneyland actually affected me rather a lot, together with fairy story books and books on myths. I all the time preferred the Greek myths and legends. Issues like Dracula or King Arthur. I used to love to dream and marvel, ‘Did they actually exist?’ And sadly, I did not have the web to look all of it up, proper? And so it simply stayed in my creativeness, as a result of I could not lookup something that mentioned they weren’t actual. So so far as I used to be involved, they had been.”

Maybe it’s a cliche to see your self in an artist you respect to an unhealthy diploma, however I noticed a number of myself in that assertion. The creativeness of childhood, the place should you closed your eyes good and turned your head just a bit, you may make something actual. And make no mistake, I felt the identical method about King Graham and Daventry that she felt about Greek myths. So far as I used to be involved, they existed someplace, and we had been simply getting a glimpse of their story.

Adventures In Textual content

Adventures In Textual content

However maybe the most important inspiration for Roberta Williams was Colossal Cave, a textual content journey from the early days of computing. It’s the sport she lately remade and one which I like to recommend enjoying in digital actuality as a result of, lord almighty, it nails that theme park vibe.

“Colossal Cave is what received me into the enterprise. And on the time I used to be simply, you realize, 24 years outdated and we simply had our second youngster. I truly [had] some jobs, one in a junior school and one for the county of Los Angeles as an IBM 360 pc operator, which, because it seems, is a very easy job. Computer systems are usually not that arduous, and so I’ve performed these sorts of issues, however it had nothing to do with creativeness. And so I used to be attempting to determine what I needed to do with my life. I did not wish to program, despite the fact that Ken and I had been making good cash with programming.”

It was then, by the then-small pc group, she discovered Journey by William Crowther, a programmer and cave diving fanatic who based mostly the sport on his spelunking at Mammoth Collapse Kentucky, however with, you realize…extra magic and dwarves and whatnot. This sport bounced round, received added to, ripped off, copied, ported, re-ported, and was later renamed Colossal Cave Journey. Taking part in this sport on the household’s Apple II is what lastly gave Roberta an outlet for her creativeness.

“I advised Ken, ‘I am gonna write a sport,’ and he was like, ‘Okay, yeah, little lady, like, go forward. I am engaged on an enormous boy enterprise.’ And so I did. I began out with the thought, large items of white development paper the place I may simply doodle and draw circles and put in concepts and arrows and look going this manner and that method, and I simply began doing that with the thought of an Agatha Christie-type story combined with the sport Clue, and that grew to become Thriller Home.”

Thriller Home (1980)

Thriller Home was a success and the primary graphical journey sport besides. And even with that success, King’s Quest itself nearly didn’t occur. Whereas the sport was nonetheless in growth, enterprise capitalists received concerned and compelled the corporate to refocus its growth sources to cartridge-based consoles… proper as that aspect of the trade was collapsing. If you wish to examine Roberta Williams deliberately and hilariously blowing up the assembly to promote their firm, take a look at Ken Williams’ ebook, Not All Fairy Tales Have Pleased Endings.

“I felt very assured that King’s Quest was going to be large. I did. And I do not wish to come throughout as if I believed it was a Miss Smarty Pants, too-big-for-my-britches type of factor. However I did really feel like this was going to be an enormous deal, and there was no method I used to be going to provide that over.” The sport was immediately a success. Their studio, which needed to lay off 100 staff as a result of enterprise downturn, was all of a sudden in a position to rent again practically everybody and extra.

No, You Cling Up

No, You Cling Up

Our conversations circled round and again. I discussed my elementary faculty pitch doc possibly 3 times, most likely to our mutual embarrassment. I requested if she was concerned within the King’s Quest novels (she wasn’t and didn’t love the adjustments to the lore). I requested how she felt about being one of many first large gaming celebrities (advertising offered her on the thought of placing her identify on the field, however she anxious it wasn’t truthful to the remainder of the group). I requested her concerning the brutal murders in Phantasmagoria (she wrote who would die, however the artwork director Andy Hoyos would constantly shock her with artistic methods how they died).

I’m somebody who hates being on the telephone, and I requested extra hour-long calls the place I received to say, “That’s superior,” and, “That’s so cool,” on repeat just like the tape in Ferris Bueller’s bed room, which is an era-appropriate reference. To me, she is Walt Disney and Steven Spielberg mixed, and I needed to take pleasure in each minute. And fortuitously, Roberta didn’t thoughts that forest of purple flags. She loves that individuals nonetheless love and imitate her video games, a few of which had been launched earlier than her followers had been even born. She says it nonetheless provides her a “lump in my throat.”

On the finish of 1 name, she mentioned, “I take pleasure in it. And I wish to preserve folks enjoying our video games, even when they’re outdated. There’s a bit of little bit of a legacy, you realize, so I feel it’s enjoyable to do.” I mentioned it was wonderful to fulfill her, and I used to be honored to speak to her and, sadly, I believed I had sufficient for the piece. But when I wanted to speak extra, I meekly mentioned I would ask for an additional name.

“Yeah, we most likely will probably be speaking once more,” she chuckled earlier than hanging up. “I am betting most likely. Alright, properly, goodbye.”

Mike Drucker is a tv author and producer, identified for Thriller Science Theater 3000, Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and The Tonight Present Starring Jimmy Fallon. He additionally labored for Nintendo as a localization author on video games like Zelda: Skyward Sword and Child Icarus: Rebellion. His ebook, Good Sport, No Rematch, is offered now.