Roberta Williams

United States · Born 1953 · Sierra On-Line · Game Designer, Writer

Co-founder of Sierra On-Line and designer of Mystery House, the first graphical adventure, and the King's Quest series that defined the genre on the PC.

Roberta Williams was born Roberta Lynn Heuer in Los Angeles on 16 February 1953 and married Ken Williams in 1972. In 1980 she designed, wrote and illustrated Mystery House, which Ken programmed for the Apple II; it is credited as the first graphical adventure game and was the first release of On-Line Systems, the company the couple founded, later renamed Sierra On-Line after it moved to Coarsegold, California. When IBM wanted a showcase game for its PCjr, the result was King's Quest (1984), which became a bestseller and grew into the series Williams designed for the next fourteen years, with King's Quest VI (1992) co-designed with Jane Jensen. She also made the children's game Mixed-Up Mother Goose (1987), the murder mystery Laura Bow: The Colonel's Bequest (1989) and the full-motion-video horror game Phantasmagoria (1995), which sold more than a million copies. Sierra was sold to CUC International in 1996, and Williams left the company in 1999 after King's Quest: Mask of Eternity. She returned in 2023 with Colossal Cave, a 3D remake, made with Ken, of the text adventure that had inspired her first game.