A Game Designer Designs the Future

Roberta Williams talks about King's Quest VI, the evoking role of tin game designer, and rh< future ot "interactive fiction".

Roberta Williams is exploring new frontiers for interactive fiction. And she's taking an industry with her.

"I don't want to be the only designer on King's Quest forever, " said Roberta Williams, sitting in her husband's office, looking out the window on a sunny spring afternoon in the Sierra foothills. "And I think people will be looking for new King's Quests for a long time. "

These are the sort of words that could cause a lot of alarm among the millions (literally) of people who have entered the world of King's Quest; who have trekked, not only through the enchanted corridors of Daventry, but through the wit and magic of Roberta Williams' imagination.

But Roberta has big and bold new plans for Daventry, for Sierra, and for a whole new style of interactive adventuring.

And, like probably nobody else in the world-not even her husband Ken-Roberta has a vision of how far this industry can go. And she plans to take it there.

How the adventure began...

The story has been told many times, but it frequently bears repeating:

In 1980, Ken Williams scraped together every penny he could find and bought an early Apple II computer. His idea was to create a FORTRAN compiler for Apple

"King's Quest VI is

harder and easier than

King's Quest V"

Computers. Partly to placate Roberta (who wasn't too excited about the all the money Ken was spending on the project), and partly

to get her interested in computers, Ken brought home a text adventure game. While Ken toiled away writing "serious software", Roberta puzzled her way through the game, finishing it with a sense of exhilaration and a heavy dose of computer adventure addiction.

Disappointed with the text adventure games available at the time, Roberta sat down and mapped out her own adventure. Two or three weeks later she presented Ken with a stack of papers containing the script, maps, and puzzles for her idea. Ken was unimpressed, claiming that computers were serious machines, built to tackle serious problems. Ken only got inter- ested in the project when Roberta said she wanted to include pictures in the game. He then created the tools to produce game art, programmed the logic for the game, and devised a way to cram 70 pictures on a single

\N1ERACTI0N Magazine

disk while Roberta did the art and wrote the text to the game.

The result was Mystery House, the world's first graphic adventure game. It was the beginning of Roberta's career as a game designer. It was the beginning of Sierra On-Line. And it was the beginning of an industry.

"Designing a game was much different then," said Roberta. "The role of the designer has changed so much. In those days, a designer was a writer, director, producer, and editor. We were 'hands on' to the end. We managed the project from the concept through Quality Assurance."

Redesigning the designer

Now, she points out, the designer develops the overall game concept. Staff writers pen dialogue and narration. Art designers create a look that illustrators will carry throughout the game. Musicians score soundtracks. Designing a game has become a more specialized endeavor, but the basic principles of designing, according to Roberta, have remained the same.

"I hate to call them games," she said. "I think of them more as interactive stories. Every story has to be well-written and engaging, but it's up to the designer to add the interactivity-the roundness of exploration and the challenge of the puzzles."

Designing a game got radically different in 1990 when Sierra changed over from a text-input interface to an icon-based (parserless) means of controlling the gameplay.

"I think we as designers are still learning just how much more we can do with a game using the new interface," said Roberta, "Getting away from designing around typed commands is allowing us to create deeper stories, more intricate puzzles, and characters that can become more fully developed as the game progresses. It's really freed us up to build the kind of interactive fiction that's emotionally involving and challenging at the same time."

After King's Quest V, Roberta said she spent a full year looking at

all the perceived benefits and shortcomings in the new interface system. For fans of the icon interface, she wanted to retain the ease of play. For the critics, she wanted to find a way to make games more challenging. The result was complex and intriguing.

"King's Quest VI is harder and easier than King's Quest V," she said. "You can get through it on a minimal level. You'll miss half the story, but you'll finish."

More advanced gamers will find lots of things to do, lots of red herrings, lots of clues pointing in

"Every story has to be

well-written and engaging, but it's up to the designer to add the

interactivity-the

roundness of exploration

and the challenge of

the puzzles. "

different directions, and a more complex story filled with better- defined characters.

So much to do, so little time

While the role of the designer has become more specialized, the scope of each game has become much larger. King's Quest V took 10 months to create. King's Quest VI will take 14. Each leap in technology means more work for the designer and less time to work on new projects.

In spite of this, Roberta is currently overseeing an ambitious slate of new projects. Two new

adventures and a cinematic project that defies the conventional description of "computer game" are on their way, each bearing the signature of Roberta's unique style of storytelling. The schedule and scope of these projects is so

ambitiou3 that Roberta ha3 hand picked teams of specialists to help build these ground-breaking games. The first of these is Laura Bow in the Dagger of Amon Ra, the sequel to her best-selling The Colonel's Bequest. Roberta forged the framework of the mystery, working as Creative Consultant for the second Laura Bow Mystery. Writing and puzzle designs were handled by Bruce Balfour.

"It was my job to make sure the feel of The Colonel's Bequest and The Dagger of Anion Ra remained consistent," said Roberta. "I wanted to make sure Laura Bow was the same person who would respond to things in the same way. I was heavily involved in the beginning, working on characters, art style, and the look and feel of the game. Then Bruce took over."

Roberta has found the experience rewarding. While she's able to creatively form the second chapter of Laura Bow's adventures, she's been freed from the huge time commitment that would have come from managing every single detail of the project. And she's been delighted with the fresh ideas Bruce has brought to the game.

All this new-found time hasn't gone to waste. Much of it has gone into making the new King's Quest an absolute epic.

Finding new keys to the kingdom

"I originally wanted to be the Creative Consultant on King's Quest V7," she said. "I wound up being much more deeply involved than I planned."

As hard as it is for a lot of people to imagine a King's Quest game that wasn't designed by Roberta, it almost happened. And it may actually come to pass in the not- too-distant future.

When Roberta wrote King

Summer 1992

Graham's first adventure back in 1984, she could hardly have foreseen the devout following the series would create. Since then, millions of people have followed the adventures of the first family of Daventry, making it arguably the most popular computer game series in history.

"The King's Quest series is a chronicle of old-fashion values and heroism and truth," she said. "People find they can win by using their heads, and through good acts, hard work and honesty. They find that intelligence and kindness will win out where violence will not."

This philosophy has proved a welcome and witty relief to players put off by the endless glut of hack-and-slash fantasies that spring up on the game shelves. But after five installments in the King's Quest series, Roberta was getting restless.

"I felt I was getting stale, that I'd used most of my good ideas on King's Quest already," she sighed. "And I wanted to do other things I was excited about. I really felt I was being underutilized doing only King's Quest."

Roberta felt the time was right to let King's Quest stand on its own. She thought the series was ready to go on the shelves without her name above the title.

"It's such an established series with such a strong look and feel," she said. "I find it hard to believe that other strong people can't carry through with it."

Deciding to move herself out of the designer's role, however, turned out to be a lot easier than actually doing it. King's Quest, it seems, is in Roberta's blood.

"I found I couldn't tear myself away from King's Quest" she said. "And I felt I owed it to the people who'd been following the series. So I shared the design duties with Jane Jensen [who co-designed EcoQuest) and the directing duties with Bill Skirvin [a long-time Sierra art designer and director |."

She and Jane hammered out a design and story, then Jane took

over the actual writing of dialogue and narration. Working with co- director Bill Skirvin, she es- tablished a look for the game. Then Bill took over the task of staging live video-captures, costuming the actors, directing the action, and overseeing the art.

"I've found it a very enjoyable ex- perience," she said. "I was ready, for the most part, to let it go. So I'm relieved that these people are there, that they're talented, and that they care as much as I do about King's Quest. They're listening to me and working very closely with me."

Liberated from the day-to-day of directing King's Quest, Roberta has found herself able to have an

i wanted to do otner

things I was excited

about. I really felt I wa«

being underutilized doing only King's Quest.

impact on many of Sierra's new projects, sharing her knowledge and expertise on multiple projects.

A Scary future for Sierra

Part of the reason Roberta is freeing herself up is her passion for a new project called Scary Tales. It's a horror story, and a tale that she thinks many will view as a real departure from the sort of thing people have come to expect from Sierra and Roberta Williams.

"I'm interested in this project. I'm really interested in this project," she laughs. "It's the one that gets my blood boiling. I've spent a lot of time

&

studying horror, reading horror, watching horror. Serious horror. Not just haunted houses and ghosts."

The entire project will be created by capturing live actors, costumed and made up as the characters in the story. Sets may be created and locations photographer! Mnsir and sound effects will be heavily used to establish mood and create suspense. Backgrounds and characters will not be painted in. In short, it will be an actual interactive movie.

"From a cinematic point of view -the camera angles and move- ments-and because of the realism in the characters and the use of live actors, the scripting has to be more advanced."

Scary Tales will be released as a high-resolution 640x400 game. And, if Roberta has her way, it may become Sierra's first CD-only game.

"I think I have Ken convinced on that," she laughs. "We'll see."

Designing the future

Where is the computer game industry going? More than one expert would tell you it's going wherever Roberta Williams decides to take it.

According to Roberta, games will become more movie-like. New careers will include story editors, cinematographers, and sound effects specialists. The role of the designer will undoubtedly continue to evolve. But the principles of good adventure game design will remain the same.

Mystery House, as primitive as it may seem by today's technological standards, contained all the elements of good interactive fiction; all the components Roberta main- tains a designer must bring to each new game. The story was compelling and well-written, the characters were interesting, the puzzles were tough (but logical), and the climax was satisfying.

"The things that are enticing about Mystery House are the things that we as designers can never lose," she says. "And never change.