Roberta Williams

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Roberta Williams
OccupationGame designer
SpouseKen Williams

Roberta Heuer Williams (born February 16, 1953) is a well-known computer game designer and arguably the most influential female gamer of her time.

In the eighties and nineties, Roberta and her husband, Ken Williams, were leading figures in the development of graphical adventure games. They founded the company On-Line Systems, which later became Sierra On-Line. Their contributions to gaming were partially chronicled in the book Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution.

Roberta Williams was instrumental in writing and designing several games, including the entire King's Quest series, Mixed-Up Mother Goose, and The Colonel's Bequest. Though Sierra was sold in 1996, Williams' production credits date until 1999.

Roberta posed for the cover of the game Softporn Adventure by Chuck Benton, published by On-line Systems. She also posed much later with her children as Mother Goose for the cover photograph of Mixed-Up Mother Goose. She appeared as herself in the end sequence of Leisure Suit Larry 3.

Roberta and Ken married on November 4, 1972; she was 19, he just turned 18. They have two children, D.J. (b. 1973) and Chris (b. 1979). At present, the Williams family is living in a house they built in Mexico.

Since her retirement in 1998, she has stayed away from the public eye and rarely gives interviews to talk about her past with Sierra On-Line. However, in a 2006 interview [1], she admitted that her favorite game she created was Phantasmagoria and not King's Quest, "If I could only pick one game, I would pick Phantasmagoria, as I enjoyed working on it immensely and it was so very challenging (and I love to be challenged!). However, in my heart, I will always love the King’s Quest series and, especially, King’s Quest I, since it was the game that really 'made' Sierra On-Line."

In a 2006 interview [1], Williams said that designing computer games is in the past for her now and that she intends to write a historical novel.

Works

File:Softporn Adventure (video game).jpg
The cover of Softporn Adventure. Williams appears inside the hot tub on the right.
File:MixedUpMotherGoose cover 1987.jpg
The cover of Mixed-Up Mother Goose with Roberta Williams (seated) and her children.

References

  1. ^ a b Adventure Classic Gaming (2006). "Roberta Williams Interview". {{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameters: |1=, |2=, |3=, |4=, |5=, |6=, |7=, |8=, |9=, and |10= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

External links

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