We dealt with every problem imaginable, from running out of money, to shipping with bugs, to excess returns, to missing quarterly financial results as a public company, litigation, union organizing, products that were terrible, designers who wouldn’t work, coders who lost code. Each of her games tried to push the state of art in technology in some way.ĭuring this time as a game developer and publisher, what hurdles from programming to selling the games in stores did you have? Some of the pioneering had to do with the use of simulated 3-d in games, the use of music and sound, mouse control, animation, point and click user interface, use of live actors, etc. She tried to pioneer something new with every game. My wife’s games (Roberta Williams) were always the most innovative. What adventure game titles produced by Sierra On-Line game did you consider to be most innovative and why? Bill Gates personally tried to buy the technology from us as did AT&T. Years before anyone had heard of the internet we had multiplayer games going including flight simulators, childrens games, and more. What achievements were you most proud of Sierra Online? Somewhere I have a letter from Steve Wozniak saying how surprised he was to see color and graphics on the Apple II playing Mystery House.ĭid you really hand packed by hand hundreds of copies of Mystery house in plastic clutch-bag fot the shipping? Which included Mystery House, This was the first graphic adventure game ever created for the PC Is this true? But, that’s about it from the Sierra days. Al Lowe who did the Leisure-Suit Larry games I still keep in touch with. My brother John was with us at the beginning, as was Jay Sullivan, an engineer from my past. I don’t remember the names of most of our earliest employees and haven’t kept in touch. Which employees were some of the first who joined the company and are you still in touch? I dropped my idea of doing compilers (although, we did release the first assembler for the 6502 computer, named LISA) The game was an instant hit and we continued making games. She did the design and art and I did the coding. I wanted to start a company to build compilers for personal computers when my wife talked me into programming an adventure game. When did you realise you wanted to get into game industry, and how did it happen? I liked our Leisure-Suit Larry and Space Quest games because they would make me laugh, but overall I’ve never played games. What was your favourite game you was involved and worst and why? I had worked programming mainframe IBM computers professionally. Was this the computer that you first programmed on? My first computer was a TRS-80 from Radio Shack that had virtually no memory and only a cassette drive. Which was your first computer, was it your favorite computer and why? It had a text based game called Star Wars on it and I was super-impressed. The first computer I ever saw was around 1971 and was actually just a teletype that was connected to a larger computer during some sort of school field trip to a college (UCLA). What was your first experience with a computer? I lived in a tough neighborhood and spent my days dreaming about someday getting rich. What did you want to do when you were at school for a career, and what was your first job? Hi-Res Adventure #2: The Wizard and the Princess (1980) (Lead Programming) Hi-Res Adventure #1: Mystery House (1980) (Written by) Hi-Res Adventure #3: Cranston Manor (1981) (By) Hi-Res Adventure #6: The Dark Crystal (1983) (Program development ) King’s Quest II: Romancing the Throne (1985) (Game Logic) Space Quest: Chapter I – The Sarien Encounter (1986) (Programming) The Black Cauldron (1986) (Programming by) Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel (1987) (Programming) Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards (1987) (Game Coding by) Supercross 2000 (1999) (Core Programming)
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