There is really no underestimating how many hours of my childhood was spent playing computer games designed by the folks at Sierra On-Line. King’s Quest, Space Quest, Conquests of Camelot, The Colonel’s Bequest, The Black Cauldron... truly, they made up a massive part of my early years, and have had an indelible impact on my imagination. I vividly recall writing stories about these games at school, and places like Daventry and Tamir provided settings for most of my day-dreams and dress-up games (I had a red dress that was referred to as the “Rosella dress”).
They also piqued an early interest in Greek mythology and Arthurian legend, and I was writing King’s Quest fanfiction before I ever knew what fanfiction was! Sometimes I didn’t even play the games as intended, but simply made up my own stories within their virtual worlds. “Computer nights” were an event at my house, in which various family members would attempt to play together, and I well remember the thrill of moving ahead in the game after solving a puzzle... so perhaps we can also credit them for my enjoyment of riddles and problem-solving.
In short, these games were a formative part of my childhood, and I can draw a straight line between them and my interests as an adult, from the broad enjoyment of fantasy, to the more specific fascination I have with fairy-tale crossovers and the underlying interconnectedness of myths and legends (after all, King’s Quest is a series of games in which Greek gods, fairy tale creatures, characters from the Arabian Nights, and Count Dracula all rub shoulders).
Aside from my own fond childhood memories, these games – particularly King’s Quest – hold a place of honour in the history of computer gaming, having been vehicles for the period’s cutting-edge technology in visuals and sound. Sure, they all look incredibly primitive these days, but back in the eighties simple things like figures that could walk behind obstacles on the screen or follow simple commands such as “swim” or “talk to...” had never been experienced before.
(So it’s ironic that I have zero interest in gaming these days, but was right there on the ground-floor of some of the industry’s most innovative and important leaps forward).
Let’s start at the beginning, and in doing so introduce you to Roberta Williams, one of my idols and a pioneer in the gaming industry.
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| Roberta and her husband Ken |
Born in 1953 and raised in rural California, Robert Williams née Heuer was a lover of fairy tales and storytelling, though it wasn’t until she was a married woman and mother that the opportunity to weld these interests with her husband’s career in computer programming became apparent. Though both had a background in software design, it wasn’t until Ken Williams introduced his wife to the industry’s earliest text adventures that Roberta’s imagination took hold of her. In her own words:
“As I puzzled my way through those early text adventures, I had a sense of exhilaration and a heavy dose of computer adventure addiction. I was also deeply disappointed with the lack of graphics and plot. I read and daydreamed about a lot of fairy tale books and kid adventure novels while growing up... so I sat down at my kitchen table and mapped out my own adventure while watching the kids. Three weeks later I handed a script to Ken. He wasn’t impressed until he saw I wanted pictures in the game; then he created the tools to make the art and programmed the logic while I did the art, wrote the text, and QA-ed the game. That was the beginning of my career as a game designer, the beginning of Sierra On-Line, and the beginning of an industry.”
Now look, I’m going to choose my words carefully here. Although there were thousands of people working in the computing industry at this time, and it’s nearly impossible to pinpoint who exactly did what, when and where, it’s not an exaggeration to say that Roberta Williams essentially invented adventure gaming, if we define that term as a computer game that has a story, graphics, and an interactive setting. That’s what she brought to the table back in 1980 with Mystery House, so whatever bits and pieces you want to accredit to other designers and consultants (of which there were many) there’s really no minimizing her contribution to the history of gaming.
Mystery House was a murder-mystery inspired by the boardgame Clue and Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, in which the player has to solve a murder before they themselves are killed, which was followed by the more fantasy-based Wizard and the Princess (1980) that required the player to save a kidnapped princess (and would later be folded into King’s Quest continuity with the reappearance of the Land of Serenia in King’s Quest V, where this game is set).
Next came Mission Asteroid (also in 1980) and Time Zone (1982) the latter of which was the largest game on the market, released with an unprecedented six double-sided floppy disks (before this, most games only required one) and containing 1,500 areas (or screens) to explore. According to Wikipedia, it is also the first example of a modern game-development model in which programmers, artists, and designers were each tasked with different responsibilities in a team larger than a few people.
What began as a pet-project for Roberta Williams had become a series of worldwide bestsellers, leading Ken Williams to quit his job to focus on what was obviously the future of computer programming: GAMES, with his wife at the helm of a ship heading into uncharted waters.
Which brings us to what this post is really about: the King’s Quest series. Originally commissioned by IBM as a showpiece for their newest home computer, the first of the King’s Quest series was conceived as a blend of fairy tales that could be experienced as an interactive game. Although the IBM PCjr was a failure, the game became a bestseller when it was ported to other platforms, with cutting-edge technology such as sixteen colours and the ability for the player character to move in front of, behind, or over other objects on the screen.
Okay, it sounds ludicrous by today’s standards, but at the time it was ground-breaking, and set the standard for all the graphic adventure games that were to follow.
So now we get to it, my opportunity to talk about the King’s Quest series in its entirety, and in great detail. Huzzah! I’ve had some time off from work, and revisiting these games has been a highlight, not only for the nostalgia quotient, but in giving me added appreciation for what these games contributed to my childhood as well as the gaming industry in its entirety.
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