Overview
Commonly referred to as the mother of the adventure game genre, Roberta Williams was a game designer and writer. In conjunction with her husband, Ken Williams, she wrote and designed Mystery House, often regarded as the very first graphical adventure game.
She and her husband went on to found Sierra, a company that would eventually become a major player and publisher in the PC gaming industry. They designed Wizard and the Princess, which launched the Hi-Res Adventures franchise, and then the critically acclaimed King's Quest series, as well as the edutainment title Mixed-Up Mother Goose.
Later in her career, she would experiment by taking the adventure game genre in a disturbing new direction by creating horror-themed games in the Phantasmagoria franchise.
Roberta Williams retired in 1999. She and Ken are not currently affiliated with Sierra Studios. They own a boat and enjoyed touring the globe on it. In 2011, Roberta Williams came out of retirement to work on a social network game Odd Manor.
Legacy
In the 2014 Game Awards, she was given the Industry Icon Award, along with her husband Ken Williams. The award was presented by Naughty Dog's Neil Druckmann, who cited them as a major influence on his career.
In 2014, The List named her as one of the top ten game designers of all time, for "making games a storytelling medium".
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