Quest for Glory: Sierra Ventures On
The magic behind Quest for Glory: creators Lori and Corey Cole, 1994
Quest for Glory is another successful and long-lived entry in the Quest line at Sierra, the hallmark of this one being an interesting amalgam of a graphic adventure and an RPG game. The game also allows players to choose from three character classes – Fighter, Thief or Magician – each requiring different play styles to succeed in the land of ‘Spielburg’. Developed by husband and wife team Corey and Lori Cole, the first game is initially released in 1989 under the name Hero’s Quest. Unfortunately, Sierra fails to copyright the title, and board game maker Milton Bradley manages to produce a game and copyright the title HeroQuest. Thus does Sierra have to change the name of the game and its sequel. Still, under the new name Quest for Glory: So You Want to Be a Hero, the first game sells over 100,000 copies after six months of release. When it undergoes the obligatory graphical and interface updating in 1992, digitized stop-motion plasticine figures are used to upgrade the monsters and some characters in the game. The original is followed by Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire in 1990, and Quest for Glory III: Wages of War in 1992 introduces a system to allow users to adjust their game experience by making the combat sequences either lean more towards the strategic, or the other way towards twitchy arcade play. Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness follows in 1993, and is touted as the final entry in the series…. until incessant fan clamouring prompts Sierra to promise Lori Cole all the resources needed to tell one more QFG story in style… and hence the release of Quest for Glory V: Dragon Fire in 1998.
Click button to play Quest for Glory: Shadows of Darkness on MS-DOS
More copyright woes come to Sierra when it is forced to change the name of the magazine it publishes to promote its wares, The Sierra News Magazine. This at the request of long-time environmental organization The Sierra Club, publishers of Sierra Magazine. Hence, the magazine is retitled InterAction, which also puts it more in line with founder Ken Williams’ desire to increase interactivity and immersion in his games.
Click button to play the groundbreaking Maniac Mansion, by Lucasfilm, on MS-DOS
Game changer: Maniac Mansion introduces the point and click interface, released in 1987 by Lucasfilm
Sierra retains its lock on the graphic adventure market until challenged by George Lucas’ Lucasfilm computer games division (later re-named LucasArts), with the 1987 release of their first in-house produced game, the graphic adventure Maniac Mansion. Along with their Monkey Island series and the Indiana Jones graphic adventures, LucasArts adventure games eschew the verb-noun text command parser for a slick point-and-click user interface.
Click button to don the fadora and whip to play Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, by Lucasfilm
Roberta Williams succeeds in revamping the Sierra Adventure Game Interface to add an icon-driven control scheme to later Sierra games, as well as encouraging game developers at the company to rethink their game design in the absence of the typing parser. Even with Lucasfilm breathing down their necks, by mid-1990 Sierra is responsible for 25% of computer game software sales in America, and the company continues to push its technology even further. Made by development teams numbering around two dozen people, games like Police Quest 3, Space Quest IV and Quest for Glory III utilize motion-capture techniques to digitize live actors into the games. Pulling from their pool of 400 employees means that the acting isn’t quite Oscar calibre, but it does lend some verisimilitude to how their digital avatars move in game. Shot against a blue screen in studio, Sierra’s proprietary Movie 256 program digitizes the footage of the actors at 16 frames aka cels at a time, amounting to five seconds of screen time. These fragments are then strung together, edited by Sierra artists and placed into the game on hand-drawn backgrounds. Ken Williams can also consider progress in his initial goal to build a company bigger than Activision: that company declares bankruptcy in 1991… although it will be subsequently resurrected.
The Laura Bow mysteries are more entries into the Sierra parthenon from Roberta Williams. The first in the series, released in 1989, is originally given the title Murder in the Southern Quarter, before following in the company tradition of putting Quest in the names of its adventure games with new title The Colonel’s Bequest. The plot is set in 1925 and concerns itself with the exploits of recent college graduate Laura Bow, who takes her name and appearance in the game from famed movie starlet Clara Bow, the original “It” girl. Invited to a New Orleans plantation to witness the reading of the will of Colonel Dijon, Bow must unravel the nature of a series of murders that start occurring there. This element of the game is, more or less, a retelling of the plot of Sierra’s first adventure game Mystery House, itself taking great inspiration from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, along with more than a little bit of the board game Clue.
Click button to play Roberta Williams’ The Colonel’s Bequest, on MS-DOS
A text parser game, The Colonel’s Bequest sees a revamp to a point & click interface a VGA graphical update in 1993. The original game is followed by Roberta Williams’ Laura Bow and the Dagger of Amon Ra in 1992, but despite the title Williams only serves as Creative Consultant. The script for the game, spanning over 600 pages, along with the various puzzles are written by Bruce Balfour, who co-directs the project with Bill Davis. For the CD version of the game, just recording all the dialog in that massive script takes several months. Production Designer Andy Hoyos sketches designs for the characters in the game, heavily influenced by famous illustrator J.C. Leyendecker. Even though she has stepped back from the project a bit, Roberta Williams ensures that the sequel retains its consistency with the first game, and that the portrayal of the eponymous Laura Bow stays true to the character.
Click button to play Roberta Williams’ Laura Bow and the Dagger of Amon Ra, on MS-DOS
Gabriel Knight
The mystery continues at Sierra with the Gabriel Knight game series, designed by Jane Jensen, getting her chance to go solo after her stint as co-director with Roberta Williams on King’s Quest VI, along with work on other Sierra properties. Her future in computer interactive storytelling seems pre-ordained: her father was a mathematician, and she has always had an interest in creative writing. Her future in particular in horror/suspense games seems equally assured, having fallen in love with the works of horror writer Stephen King after reading his first book, Carrie, when she was 12. Leaving her job as a Systems Programmer at Hewlett-Packard, Jensen makes a journey to Germany to write a mystery novel, There, she picks up a PC and copies of two Sierra games: Manhunter 2: San Francisco and, more pertinently, King’s Quest IV. With that, she has immediately fallen in love with the graphic adventure genre. In a mirror of Roberta Williams and her obsession with the genre after playing the original Adventure, Jensen obsessively consumes every Sierra adventure, and lobbies for and eventually lands a job making adventure games at the company best known for them.
Jensen describes the first game in the series, 1993’s Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, as a “psycho-thriller”, with shades of other works like the Anne Rice Vampire books,. Thrown into the gumbo are Alan Parker’s Angel Heart and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula. Done as a traditional animated Sierra graphic adventure game, Jensen’s tale has Gabriel Knight as an author and antique bookstore owner in the New Orleans French Quarter, who is researching a book about brutal voodoo murders in the city. Through the adventure he is drawn into world of dark rituals, and must come to terms with a curse laid down on his family 300 years before.
A star-studded affair, the CD version features actor Tim Curry’s voice as the lead character, joined by other celebries such as Mark Hamill (Luke Skywalker, Star Wars), Michael Dorn (Worf, Star Trek: The Next Generation), Leah Remini (Who’s the Boss, Cheers, and later King of Queens) and prolific actor Efrem Zimbalist Jr. Along with all this high-powered acting talent, the irregular box packaging for Sins of the Fathers hopes to also attract the attention of customers. A graphic novel serving as a prequel to the story in the game is also published by Sierra in 1993.
Click to play a demo of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, on MS-DOS
After winning Best of Show at the 1993 Summer CES for the original game, Jensen continues the series with The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery in 1995, the second Sierra adventure game to feature live actors married with composited CGI backgrounds, after Roberta Williams’ Phantasmagoria (see below). This magic is made available via Sierra’s high-tech production studio, with Jensen working from her 700-page script, a cast of 60 characters and over 1000 SVGA images. The two main characters who walk through these digital landscapes are Dean Erickson as lead Gabriel Knight, and Joanne Takahashi as his long suffering research assistant Grace Nakimura. Playing out over six CDs, The Beast Within tells the story of Gabriel Knight going up against an apparent werewolf in his first case as a full-fledged Schattenjager (Shadow Hunter), with Will Binder as the director of the project. It is Binder’s first full-fledged commercial “movie”, having made several short films and a feature-length project at UCLA film school.
Jensen subsequently releases novelizations of the first two Gabriel Knight games, starting in 1997. The Beast Within game itself is followed by Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned in 1999. A remake of the first game is released as Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers – 20th Anniversary Edition in 2014.
JUMP: Video playlist of Sierra adventure games
Jane Jensen, creator of the Gabriel Knight adventure game series, 1999
Sierra Online: The Sierra Network
Artwork representing the main GUI for The Sierra Network online community, 1993
When it comes to online communities, Sierra isn’t a neophyte; they had developed an extremely popular 24-hour Bulletin Board System (BBS) in 1988, boasting over 25,000 active users and fielding an average of 6,000 calls per week. The system allows users from the across the world to dial-in over phones lines with their modems and gives free access to participate in discussion forums dedicated to the company’s games and offering tech support, as well as download demos and DLC to Sierra games and other goodies. Back when he was telecommuting into mainframe computers from the comfort of his home in L.A., Ken Williams envisioned the idea of creating an online community to service house-bound seniors. His thoughts turn to his own grandmother, and he embarks on his own personal quest with the following mission statement:
His pet project at Sierra initially takes shape as The Constant Companion. It is to be an online service for seniors that would provide games like bridge and backgammon, accessible any time they like through phone lines via an easy to understand graphical user interface (GUI). After a 1000-user beta test of the system in the Los Angeles area in 1990, the modem dial-in service is officially launched statewide in California on June 1,1991, powered by a pair of hefty desktop computers serving a maximum of 75 players at a time as a part of The Sierra Network (TSN)… although users might be forgiven for thinking they are still beta testers, as the service suffers rampant unreliability in its early years. While the first 50 subscribers are indeed seniors, the visionary system quickly expands beyond the state, as well as the elderly population and parlour games. TSN goes national in October of 1991, and by December sports a subscriber base of about 2000 people.
Click to play non-networked version of RPG The Shadow of Yserbius from The Sierra Network, on MS-DOS
Turn-based RPG The Shadow of Yserbius resides in an area on the service dubbed MedievaLand. Yserbius is developed by Ybarra Productions, headed by Joe Ybarra, who at his former employer Electronic Arts had shepherded such vaunted games as M.U.L.E. and One-on-One. His online creation for Sierra meets with similar success: The Shadow of Yserbius eventually accounts for nearly half of all traffic on the service. Aerial dogfighting game Red Baron joins the online stable in early 1992.
If you want to get online to delve deep into Yserbius or fly high with Red Baron, access charges for TSN are initially on a per-hour basis, with an hourly fee on weekdays of $2.00 per hour between the hours of 6pm to 6am, or $7 an hour during daytime hours (6am to 6pm). Weekend rates run you 2 bucks per hour, starting from 6pm on Friday to 6am Monday. A minimum charge stands at $4.95 no matter how long you remain on the system. TSN moves to a flat pricing system in certain cities in 1992, charging $11.95 a month initially for 30 hours of usage, which is eventually upped to unlimited time. Premium features like Yserbius and Red Baron are extra, of course.
Click button to play non-networked version of Red Baron, on MS-DOS
Growing up Ken Williams had considered Walt Disney one of his heroes, and he takes his chance to follow in Disney’s footsteps with TSN, presenting Disney-like virtual theme parks on the system in November of 1992 with Leisure Suit Larry-themed adult LarryLand and more kid-friendly SierraLand. It’s promised that at the latter you can do things like play on an 18-hole mini-golf course, dump some virtual quarters into the game cabinets at Wilco’s Arcade, challenge players to a round of paintball, communicate visually with other members across an ‘electronic chalkboard’, among other activities. In LarryLand, adults can try their luck in the casino, catch some laffs at the local comedy club or soak with some “friends” in the hotel jacuzzi. This quickly expanding scope requires a move to bigger digs around town, with Sierra purchasing a local former steak house called The Old Barn and installing its online network headquarters into the renovated 100-year-old barn there. By April of 1993, there are 40,000 subscribers using TSN. Escalating costs for running the service, along with a desire to expand the geographical coverage of TSN and fund R&D projects to offer the service for 3DO and Genesis console modem users, spurs Williams to sell a 20 percent stake in the system to AT&T and growth equity firm General Atlantic Partners in June of 1993 for $5 million, along with developing relationships with other online partners. As a part of the deal, TSN is renamed to ImagiNation Network (INN). An agreement had already been forged in May of 1993 with the Prodigy online service, then the largest such system in the U.S., to offer access to INN to their customer base. In September Sierra also partners with the NTN Entertainment Network, allowing INN users to compete online in trivia games also played by physical users via NTN’s network of bar-based trivia consoles. Hasbro’s popular strategy game Stratego also lands on INN, along with an online version of Wilson Prostaff Golf, originally created by Novotrade and Konami. Playable by up to four golfers online, the game is titled 18-Hole 3D Golf on INN. A multiplayer version of Front Page Sports Football by Sierra’s own Dynamix label is also touted for the network.
Click button to play non-networked version of Wilson Prostaff Golf, on MS-DOS
Click button to play non-networked version of Front Page Sports Football, on MS-DOS
With Sierra reportedly losing about $1 million a month running INN, in 1994 AT&T exercises an option to purchase the entire network for $40 million, choosing to muscle out Sierra and develop their own games for the service. Under its stewardship, memberships in INN rise to 60,000 but AT&T eventually sells INN to America On-Line in August of 1996 for a price tag of $14.5 million in AOL stock. The online dial-in giant eventually rebrands the company as WorldPlay Entertainment, headquartered in Burlingame, CA with offices continuing in Oakhurst, as a separate gaming subsidiary of AOL and with Dean DeBiase as president. There they continue the visual on-line theme park metaphor of their Sierra Network roots by developing CyberPark… a 3-D community to be run on AOL allowing users to create an online avatar, communicate with other users and venture through a games and shopping mall area…all for an extra hourly charge over the AOL flat-rate access price, of course. After multiple delays and changes in ownership, AOL pulls the plug on CyberPark in early 1998, during a consolidation of its content creation divisions. This results in the WorldPlay Oakhurst department being closed, and staff at the Burlingame WorldPlay office seriously reduced and folded into the AOL Games division… itself sold by AOL to Electronic Arts in late 1999 to the tune of $81 million.
Sierra further plumbs the depths of online gaming with the evolutionary The Realm, a massively multiplayer online game before the term MMORPG was even coined. Launched in late-1996, The Realm allows players to create a character, gives them a house, some clothes and some coin, and sends them out into the wider online world to do what they will. It is one of the first online games to use instancing, where its turn-based battles take place in a separate “room” outside of the main game server. Characters can also embark on perhaps an even greater adventure, by getting married… facilitated by people like 22-year-old New Yorker and guild leader Michelle Brose, aka BlueRose. A self-described Realm Justice of the Peace, in 1997 it is estimated by Sierra’s InterAction magazine that BlueRose has officiated about half of the weddings held in The Realm.
1997 ad for Sierra On-Line MMORPG The Realm
HQ for Sierra On-Line, nestled in the forest near Oakhurst, California
Phantasmagoria and a Dark End for Sierra
By 1993, Sierra On-Line is seriously outgrowing its bucolic woodland setting of Oakhurst, California. The community just is plain unable to support the needs of the company, either in a talent pool to draw from, or even enough housing to accommodate employees. Thus, in August the Williams family and Sierra corporate moves to Bellevue, WA that year, with another benefit being the easing of the hardship of trying to attract high-quality talent to the wilds of Oakhurst… although game development and The Sierra Network sections remain in the Yosemite area. This includes a new digital production studio at Oakhurst, built by Bill Crow at the cost of nearly $1 million.
Roberta Williams is the first to utilize the new production facility in order to move away from her squeaky-clean fairy-tale image and stretch herself creatively. She does this as writer and producer of the extremely dark Phantasmagoria, a point-and-click CD-ROM gothic horror adventure game released on August 24, 1995 to great success. Williams had conceived of a horror adventure game back as far as mid-1991, when it had the tentative title Scary Tales. Spending six months preparing for the subject matter, Williams dives into the world of horror, both literary and cinematic, studying the genre closely along with the art director for the project, Andy Hoyos. She consumes the works of contemporary horror writer Stephen King, and is especially influenced by the gothic themes of Edgar Allan Poe.
Click to play the horrific Roberta Williams game Phantasmagoria, on MS-DOS
3-page ad for Phantasmagoria, Roberta Williams gone wild!
The director for Phantasmagoria is genre veteran Peter Maris (Terror Squad, Hangfire et al), and he and Roberta strike a balance during production between the needs of a filmmaker like Maris and those of a game designer like Williams. While a director like Maris has spent his career pointing a camera at action and recording it for the audience to watch passively, Williams must act as an advocate for the gamer, ensuring that any action they might want to pursue while playing is represented. After nearly three years of production time, over $4 million spent and several release delays, the resultant 1995 game is an FMV extravaganza with all the CD-powered bells and whistles, featuring digitized actors handling actual props, filmed over a span of 15 weeks.
Production sketches of some delightful torture equipment in Phantasmagoria, including a chair for feeding victims their own entrails, and a “Neck Snapping Machine”, 1994
Phantasmagoria is the first Sierra game to take this digitized live-action footage, captured with motion-controlled cameras, and sync it up with CGI backgrounds, created by Silicon Graphics workstations and composited using the Ultimatte system. With all the possible scenarios that players’ actions could reveal, the 7 CDs contained in the box hold as much video footage as eight full-length feature films. While it contains very graphic violent and adult scenes, Roberta’s game hasn’t completely abandoned her youth market: Phantasmagoria has a password-protected option to switch the game over from an “R-rated” version not recommended for anyone under 17 to a more sanitized “PG-13” option. Even so, Phantasmagoria is the first major game title to get slapped with the “Mature Only” rating from the ESRB, which only adds to its notoriety and, let’s face it, game sales. The original is followed by the less successful Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh in 1996, made without Williams’ involvement. In her stead is Lorelei Shannon, Williams’ previous collaborator on KQ VII, writing and designing, with Andy Hoyos serving as director.
Click to play horror game Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh on MS-DOS
There is an onslaught of acquisitions, sales, mergers and managerial changes at Sierra over the greater part of the 90’s, the ins and outs of which is worthy of its own, particularly complex and sometimes horrific adventure game. Game development house Dynamix, founded by Jeff Tunnell and Damon Slye in 1984, is picked up by Sierra in 1990.
In a mind-blowing March 11, 1991 announcement Sierra states it will be merging with powerhouse game, educational software and productivity program developer Broderbund… although this deal is eventually called off on March 27. A “disagreement regarding management structure” is the reason for the failed merger, according to Ken Williams. Flight-sim pioneer SubLogic and strategy game specialists Impressions ARE successfully purchased by Sierra in 1995, along with car racing game champions Papyrus. This particular acquisition gives Sierra exclusive access to David Kaemmer and his crack design team, makers of popular racers like the NASCAR Racing series (started in 1994) and Grand Prix Legends (1998).
Click button to play Papyrus racing game NASCAR Racing, on MS-DOS
Click button to play Caesar II, by Impressions/Sierra, on MS-DOS (Press Enter at prompt)
Ken and Roberta leave the company in 1996 after its sale to Comp-U-Card International (CUC), whose chairman, Walter Forbes, has sat on the Sierra board of directors for about six years. The new owner of Sierra is a subscription mail-order and online shopping company looking to expand into entertainment software. CUC pays $700 million for the games company, part of a $1.8 billion deal in stock for Sierra and another software company, Davidson & Associates, makers of incredibly popular educational software Math Blaster!. This purchase price is about 90% over the current trading value of Sierra. The purchase also puts Sierra under the same roof as another fairly successful games company: makers of WarCraft, Blizzard Entertainment. Berkeley Systems, of the You Don’t Know Jack trivia games among other things, is another sister company via the acquisition. Control of Sierra is then given over to Davidson Associates, which starts dismantling the company.
Click button to play Math Blaster Episode 1: In Search of Spot, Windows 3.1
A merger of CUC and hospitality industry company HFS creates Cendant Corporation in 1997. Shortly following this merger, a wide ranging accounting scandal within CUC sends stocks tumbling, wiping out the equity of many current and former Sierra employees, including Ken Williams himself. Cendant subsequently sells their entire software division for $1 billion to Havas, a French advertising and PR firm, in 1998.
Meanwhile, the Wiliamses have “retired” with a home in Seattle as well as Cabo San Lucas in Mexico, spending their days boating, eventually crossing the Atlantic in a 62-foot Nordhavn trawler yacht named Sans Souci, along with 17 other power boats in the Nordhavn Atlantic Rally in 2004. The couple eventually sell their Nordhavn 62 to Icelandic singer Bjork in 2004, and help Nordhavn design the $2.8 million, 68-foot, 3-level Nordhavn 68, taking delivery in 2007. To traverse to the current known history of Ken & Roberta’s boating ownership, they take possession of a new boat in 2021, a Grand Banks 60 cruiser yacht they christen Cygnus.
WorldStream and TalkSpot, two media streaming companies by Ken and Roberta Williams, 1998
Instigated by Ken Williams’ attempt to provide a solution to Roberta’s request of being able to listen to Seattle-area talk radio shows while the couple is at their house in Mexico, the Williamses continue plumbing the nascent World Wide Web by creating the company WorldStream Communications in 1998, based in Bellevue, Washington. This entity begets www.talkspot.com, a web site offering multiple streaming channels of content, recreating the talk-radio metaphor on the Information Superhighway. Ken Williams invests $3 million into the venture, along with $100,000 from Jarold Bowerman, former head of marketing and product development at Sierra. During the streamed shows, commentators’ voices are accompanied by live still-images of them in action and other material pertinent to the discussions. Viewers can jump into the conversation by posting comments live. TalkSpot attracts talent such as conservative radio host John Carlson, along with James Golden, former producer for the Rush Limbaugh radio show. Ken acts as CEO of WorldStream, with Bowerman as VP of operations and Roberta as a company directory. Ken Williams himself, using the Java programming language, creates around 15,000 lines of code to optimize compression of the streamed data of TalkSpot. Other funds helping form Williams’ vision come from Crosspoint Venture Partners and Polaris Venture Partners. Later coming out with a Studio-in-a-Box all-in-one broadcasting setup for would-be Internet talk show hosts for $7,500, WorldStream pivots to corporate videoconferencing services…. and then lets go of its 85 employees and shuts down in July of 2001 after failing to find funding to continue.
The end of the 90’s sees the market turn away from graphic adventures and fully embracing first-person shooters, and Sierra follows it by publishing products like Half-Life from Valve in 1998. There is less and less room for employees tied to the adventure game development system. Under the auspices of penny-pinching Sierra president Dave Grenewetzki, taking the reigns in mid-1998, on what is referred to as “Chainsaw Monday”, February 22 1999, 150 people are axed from the company as the Oakhurst facility is finally closed down after 20 years as the heart of Sierra. Space Quest co-creator Scott Murphy’s job isn’t affected by it though; he had already been laid off a month or so earlier.
Logo of the resurrected Sierra company, circa 2014
Havas is gobbled up by media conglomerate Vivendi Universal in 2000, who then merge their interactive software division with video game giant Activision in 2008. Activision, seen as a metric of success by Ken Williams at the beginnings of Sierra, shutters the company and puts an end to its adventurings. The brand is eventually revived in 2014, focusing on publishing indie products on Sony’s PSN, Valve’s Steam computer game distribution system, and Microsoft’s Xbox Live service… along with releasing the aforementioned re-imagined 2015 King’s Quest episodic adventure games. 
Ad for On-line’s ‘Softporn”, 1981
An ad for Sierra On-Line’s varied wares, 1983
Sources (Click to view)
Mystery House/Formation of On-Line Systems/Early Games
Hackers – Heroes of the Computer Revolution, by Steven Levy – www.stevenlevy.com/index.php/other-books/hackers
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Summer 1993: 6+. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 26 Mar. 2020. The year was 1979. I was programming an income tax program on a mainframe computer…; I borrowed a TRS-80 from work and Roberta and I started enjoying Scott’s work.; I wanted my own personal computer to start programming a FORTRAN compiler… our gift to each other for Christmas 1979 was an Apple II computer.
Busch, Kurt. “A Game Designer Designs the Future.” InterAction, 1992, pp. 40–42. 1992 image of Roberta Williams. 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 Computers.
Gear, Tommy. “Backtalk.” Softtalk Jan. 1984: 122-24. Softalk V4n05 Jan 1984. Internet Archive. Web. 25 Feb. 2016. Back in 1979, Ken Williams was developing a Fortran compiler for the Apple II and Roberta Williams was just discovering the original Adventure from Microsoft.;Sierra On-Line posted revenues of Approximately $10 million in 1982, making it one of the largest independent publishers of home computer software.
Sierra On-Line, Inc. Tenth Anniversary Sierra. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1989. Internet Archive. 24 Sept. 2016. Web. 21 Feb. 2022. In 1979 I [Roberta Williams] had worked as a programmer trainee, but it wasn’t really something I enjoyed. ;I wasn’t even sure I liked computers.
Wiswell, Phil. “Gamemakers: Hi Res Sierra.” Comp. Scottithgames. Electronic Fun with Computer & Games Mar. 1984: 30. Internet Archive. 28 May 2013. Web. 16 Aug. 2020. I played it and immediately got addicted to this type of activity because I’d always been a reader. But to me this was even better because you actually felt like you were part of the story, and that you had some control over what would happen to you. ;I believed that I couldn’t be the only person who would like this kind of game, so I thought I would help out by starting work on my own game!
Sierra On-Line. Sierra Catalog. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1991. Internet Archive. 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2022. My husband and I started Sierra on a rickety table, in the kitchen of our small family home. ;Our little business quickly outgrew the space available on our kitchen table, and the operations had to be moved into the den and spare bedroom. ; Soon we had no choice but to move our business to a large building above the local print shop. Before we knew it, we had occupied three other buildings in town and we continued to grow.
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View.” InterAction, 1992, p. 10. I remember back in 1980 I started telling people…I wanted to build a company bigger than Activision… Activision filed bankruptcy last year….
Williams, Ken. “A View From the Inside: The Interactive Film Industry Is a Virtual Reality.” InterAction, 1991, pp. 4–6.
…my wife and I began a little company making what we referred to as “interactive films”.
1981 image of Roberta and Ken Williams, as well as other information from Softalk, “Exec On-Line Systems” by Allan Tommervik, pgs. 4-6, Feb 1981. ” Roberta takes her foundation from literature. Mystery House was based on Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians (And Then There Were None) and the board game Clue; Wizard and the Princess was based on traditional fairy tales; and Mission: Asteroid was based on Lucifer’s Hamer by Larry Nevin and Jerry Pournelle.” Paddle Graphics and Tablet Graphics, On-line’s two graphic utilities, were devised for use in programming the mysteries in twenty-one hi-res colors.” “Both (Roberta and Ken Williams) desired a less urban environment in which to raise their two boys…” Retrieved from the Internet Archive, Softalk collection, Oct 26 2015.
Image of Roberta and Ken Williams together, as well as other information, from ROM, “Interview: Roberta Williams” by Peter Ellison, pgs. 8-9, Oct 1983. “…after that she [Roberta Williams] created the first computer adventure game with color, ‘The Wizard and the Princess'” ‘Time Zone’ has more than 1300 full-color computer-generated images compacted onto 12 disk sides.” “Q: …you came out with the massive program, ‘Time Zone’. What caused you to write such a huge game? A: It was because in those days I played a lot of adventure games and I was always disappointed when they ended.” “Q: How long did it take you to complete ‘Time Zone’? A: It took about six months.” Retrieved from the Internet Archive, ROM Magazine v1i8, Sep 27 2015.
Softalk, “Tradetalk”, pg. 5, Sep 1980. “On-Line Systems has relocated from the hectic environs of the Los Angeles suburb of Simi to the more contemplative surroundings of Coarsegold, California, just outside of Yosemite Park.” Retrieved from the Internet Archive, Softalk collection, Oct 25 2015.
Sierra On-Line, Inc. Tenth Anniversary Sierra. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1989. Internet Archive. 24 Sept. 2016. Web. 21 Feb. 2022. Image of Sierra On-Line’s first decade of products. Other info: In 1988, Sierra gave Mystery House over into the public domain…
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Winter 1994: 8+. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 13 Sept. 2020. …even then, there were signs that LA was heading for trouble. Gangs were starting to form and crime was on the rise. I really didn’t even feel safe driving back and forth to work. This was not a world Roberta or I wanted for our children. So we decided to move to a much smaller town.
Scott, Jason, comp. “Sierra On-Line After 15 Years: Then and Now.” InterAction Fall 1994: 45. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 12 Sept. 2020. The adventure game from Roberta Williams (first released in 1980), was shipped for the IBM PC as one of the first five applications…
Delson, J. (1983, December). A Young Girl’s Fantasy Turns to Fortune. Family Computing Magazine. Black and white image of Roberta Williams, head tilted to right, light-colored top, 1983. Photo by Janet Beller
DeWitt, R. (1983, November). Wizard and the Princess: Computer Fantasy Comes True. Antic. Image of Roberta Williams in front of an Apple II set-up, 1983
Page 1 – On a Quest
King’s Quest
Sierra On-Line. Sierra Catalog. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1991. Internet Archive. 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2022. Image of original Sierra On-Line HQ in Coarsegold, California.
Image of Roberta Williams in 1984 from Electronic Fun With Computers and Games, “Gamemakers: Hi Res Sierra”, interview by Phil Wiswell, pgs. 30-33, Mar 1984. Retrieved from the Internet Archive, EFWCG collection, Sep 10, 2015.
Catalog 1987. Coarsegold: Sierra On-Line, 1986. Internet Archive. 23 May 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/Sierra_Catalog_1987_1987_Sierra-On_Line>. Cover, image of Half-Dome, 1986
Revenge OFTheHubz, comp. “Interview with Sierra On-Line.” LOGiN Sept. 1983: 136-139. Internet Archive. 2 Oct. 2022. Web. 18 Jan. 2023. B&W images of the inside of Sierra On-Line offices.
Hunter, D. (n.d.). John Harris: Independently Atarian. Softline, 44–46. (Original work published 1982) Image of John Harris
Hoeksmas. (2018, November 26). Jawbreaker. Moby Games. Retrieved June 16, 2024, from https://www.mobygames.com/game/9296/jawbreaker/cover/group-194818/cover-523822/ Cover of original Jawbreaker computer game
Uschkoreit, D. (2007, October 16). Jawbreaker. Moby Games. Retrieved June 16, 2024, from https://www.mobygames.com/game/9296/jawbreaker/cover/group-34933/cover-95144/ Cover of revised Jawbreaker for the Atari 8-bit computers
“Trade Talk: Subtle Progress Shines Through Vaporware Fog at Summer CES.” Softtalk July 1984: 88-95. Softalk V4n11 Jul 1984. Internet Archive. Web. 01 Mar. 2016. Sierra, which has officially dropped On-Line from its name….
Ahoy!, “Can the 64 Crack the Peanut?” by Steve Springer, pgs. 39-41, 90, Jan 1984
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Summer 1993: 6+. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 26 Mar. 2020. We, on the other hand, received some very important visitors from Florida: IBM <https://archive.org/details/InterAction_Magazine_Vol._V_Number_3_Fall_1992_1992_Sierra_On-Line_US/page/n19>. The original King’s Quest I was 128K…
Compute!, “Inside King’s Quest” by Donald B.Trivette, pgs. 136-139, Feb 1985
GameMakerArchive. (2018, November 4). Extended Play: 1984: King’s Quest. Games TM: The Complete History of Videogames, the 80s, 22–23. Sir Graham (named after graham crackers, designer Robert Williams’ favourite snack)… ;…the original release of King’s Quest took a full year and a half to develop… ;One of the first games [King’s Quest V] to cost over $1 million to make…
Clarke, Theo. “On Line With Sierra.” Comp. Marktrade. Strategy Plus Oct. 1990: 23-27. 30 Dec. 2016. Web. 19 Aug. 2020.Fortunately this was the point at which Tandy chose to launch its Tandy 1000 computer. It was a massive success and, because it supported the PCjr graphics, it provided a new market for King’s Quest. It also mean that Tandy would sell Sierra games in their thousands of shops and the survival of Sierra was assured. ;Sierra has sold six million copies of the games in the King’s Quest series. ;King’s Quest I was written using a system called AGI (Adventure Game Interpreter). ;In 1988 Sierra started to develop products in SCI (Sierra Creative Interpreter) which has higher quality animation as one of its more obvious features. Beccause SCI is bigger than AGI it needs to be run on a larger or faster PC than was necessary for AGI. Because of this King’s Quest IV was released in both versions although only the SCI version is available from shops. This was to allow players of the first three games to play the fourth on their old computer. In the event, few people have taken up this option… ;Hero’s Quest I – So You Want to Be a Hero was successful beyond everyone’s expectations. It sold 75 000 copies in the first month and had passed the 100 000 mark within six months.
Williams, J. (1990, season-02). Sierra’s First Ten Years: A Relatively Long Article on the Short History of Sierra On-Line, Inc. Sierra News. Image of Roberta and Ken Williams in formal dress
Attributions for King’s Quest boxes: III – TRS-80 Color Computer Archive http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/coco/Documents/Manuals/Games/ ;IV – eBay https://www.ebay.ca/itm/Kings-Quest-IV-4-Perils-of-Rosella-Apple-II-Sierra-CIB-1989-Complete-in-Box-/401699055697 ;II, V, VI – Mobygames https://www.mobygames.com/game/kings-quest-vi-heir-today-gone-tomorrow/cover-art/gameCoverId,15893/
New York magazine, “Star Tech: Safe at Home?” by Phoebe Hoban, pgs. 16-20, April 29 1985
Sierra 10th Anniversary Catalog. Coarsegold: Sierra On-Line, 1990. Internet Archive. Jason Scott, comp. 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 17 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/vgmuseum_sierra_sierra-90catalog-alt3>. Over the last ten years, Roberta and I have received thousands of letters….This one was dated May 23, 1981: “..I had a well-publicized airplane crash in February….[etc.etc.] … Sincerely, Steve (Woz) Wozniak. ;For me, Steve was a hero of the first degree.
Compute!, “Readers Feedback: Fate of the PCjr” by the Editors of Compute!, pg.8, Aug1985
Williams, Roberta. King’s Quest V Hint Book. Ed. RetroGameChampion. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1995. 57-58. Internet Archive. Web. 22 Feb. 2022. Map of the Endless Desert from King’s Quest V
Sierra On-Line. Sierra Catalog. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1988. Internet Archive. 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2022. Image of Roberta Williams in 1988.
Scott, Jason. “Apple Manual: King’s Quest – Box Cover.” Internet Archive, 11 Dec. 2013, archive.org/details/kings_quest_-_box_cover. Box art for King’s Quest: Quest for the Crown
Scottithgames, comp. “Output-input.” Electronic Fun with Computers & Games Sept. 1983: 10. Internet Archive. 28 May 2013. Web. 18 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/Electronic_Fun_with_Computer_Games_Vol_01_No_11_1983-09_Fun_Games_Publishing_US/page/n9>. …all the Super Games originally slated for the Super Game Module will be translated into the digital data medium that is being used with Adam, the Coleco computer. The games will be released in time for Christmas and include…Ulysses and the Golden Fleece, Cranston Manor…
Shakar, Alex. “The Queen of King’s Quest II.” Comp. Jason Scott. Family Computing Dec. 1985: 75. Internet Archive. 30 Aug. 2011. Web. 15 May 2020. First, I had to map out the game world and draw sketches of each area…
“Roberta Williams on the New King Quest.” The Sierra Newsletter, 1988, pp. 15–21.
Reprint of a Questbusters article. Williams: The Perils of Rosella, for lack of anything better. It was sort of based on The Perils of Pauline.
Clarke, Theo. “On Line With Sierra.” Comp. Marktrade. Strategy Plus Oct. 1990: 23-27. 30 Dec. 2016. Web. 19 Aug. 2020. Sierra has sold six million copies of the games in the King’s Quest series.
The Making of King’s Quest 6. Perf. Roberta Williams, Jensen Et Al. YouTube. N.p., 26 Mar. 2011. Web. 28 Aug. 2020. A game like King’s Quest VI takes about a year and a half to produce, and has a budget of over a million dollars.
Williams, Kenneth A. “The Inside View.” Comp. Jason Scott. Winter 1993: 6+. InterAction. 31 May 2013. Web. 27 Aug. 2020. …the King’s Quest VI cartoon consumed over 40 megabytes…
An interview with Roberta Williams and Mark Seibert. (1997, June). Next Generation, 77–81. Image of Mark Seibert, image of Roberta Williams gesticulating in front of CRT computer, 1997
Williams, J. (1990, season-02). Sierra’s First Ten Years: A Relatively Long Article on the Short History of Sierra On-Line, Inc. Sierra News. Image of 10 years of Sierra products
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Summer 1993: 6+. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 26 Mar. 2020. A small Seattle-based educational software company named Bright Star had spent nearly a decade wrestling with lip synching…; …our adventure game script [for King’s Quest VI] consumed over 700 pages.;
DeBaun, Rich. “The Quest for King’s Quest VI.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Fall 1992: 20-26. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/InterAction_Magazine_Vol._V_Number_3_Fall_1992_1992_Sierra_On-Line_US/page/n19>. Roberta began work on King’s Quest VI in June, 1991. ;Several technical innovations also make the game more enjoyable. The use of “scaling,” for example, adds to the illusion of visual reality by changing the size of a character so the correct perspective is maintained as the character walks from foreground to background. “Pather” technology lets a character avoid objects and scenery in its path intelligently… ;You’ll also not a bit speed improvement in King’s Quest VI over other games thanks to extremely tight programming.
Busch, Kurt. “King’s Quest VI CD: A Multimedia Masterpiece.” InterAction, June 1983, p. 49, https://archive.org/details/InterAction_Magazine_Vol._VI_Number_1_1983-06_Sierra_On-Line_US/page/n47.
Busch, Kurt. “A Game Designer Designs the Future.” InterAction, 1992, pp. 40–42. 1992 King’s Quest V took 10 months to create.
“King’s Quest V Multimedia! Compact Discs in Daventry.” Sierra-Dynamix News Magazine, 1991, p. 40.
With the talents of over 50 voice actors, Daventry will seem as real as the world outside your door….
Smithe, Nancy. “The next Voice You Hear…” InterAction, 1992, pp. 46–47. Bill Davis, Vice President of Creative Development for Sierra, voiced the hermit on the beach in King’s Quest V, and Roberta Williams herself is the voice of Amanda in the Bake Shop.
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View: An Ongoing Issue: Icon Interfaces.” InterAction, 1992.
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Fall 1994: 6+. Interaction. 31 May 2013. Web. 9 Sept. 2020. King’s Quest VII has over one hundred megabytes of Disney-like animation….
Scott, Jason, comp. “A First Look: King’s Quest VII.” InterAction Fall 1994: 20-21. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 12 Sept. 2020. Images of storyboard panels for King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride. Other information: The motion picture styled score resounds with over 120 musical themes… ;The composer, Jay Usher…. ;Sierra On-Line contracted four professional animation houses… ;Roberta Williams and her co-designer Lorelei Shannon….
Page 2 – Greetings from Andromeda
The Space Quest Games
Sierra 10th Anniversary Catalog. Coarsegold: Sierra On-Line, 1990. Internet Archive. Jason Scott, comp. 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 17 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/vgmuseum_sierra_sierra-90catalog-alt3>. Image of Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy as The Two Guys From Andromeda
Sierra Catalog. Coarsegold: Sierra On-Line, 1991. Internet Archive. Jason Scott, 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 17 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/vgmuseum_sierra_sierra-91catalog>. Cartoon image of The Two Guys From Andromeda, 1991
“Sq1ver2front.jpg.” SpaceQuest.net. Ed. Brandon Blume and Troels Pleimert. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2019. <https://www.spacequest.net/misc/boxscans/sq1ver2front.jpg>. Cover of Space Quest I: The Sarien Encounter, 1987
Williams, John. “In Praise of One.” Sierra-Dynamix News Magazine, 1991, pp. 16-19.
…a programmer named Scott Murphy and this partner, artist Mark Crowe, went to Ken Williams with their own design for “Star Quest,” a silly, off-the-wall sci-fi parody. The name was later changed to Space Quest…
Grimsley, Nancy. “Space Quest III: The Men Who Created the Game” The Sierra Newsletter, 1989, pp. 3–25.
We just give him a video tape of the scene…
Edgemundo. “Atari ST 3D Boxes Pack.” EmuMovies. N.p., 10 Feb. 2020. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Game box image for the Amiga version of Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter
Edgemundo. “Microsoft MS-DOS 3D Boxes Pack (732).” EmuMovies. N.p., 17 May 2020. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Images of boxes for Space Quest games 2-6
Green, Kirk. “From Supertramp to Space Quest III: An Interview with Bob Siebenberg.” The Sierra Newsletter, 1989, pp. 3–8.
Image of Bob Siebenberg
Space Quest V: The Next Mutation Hintbook. (1993). Sierra. Images of production teams for Space Quest V: The Next Mutation
Space Quest V: The Next Mutation Hintbook. (1993). Sierra. Image of development sketches of W-D40 from Space Quest V: The Next Mutation
Antony30bc. “Space Quest Collection.” The Cover Project, www.thecoverproject.net/view.php?game_id=6164. Back and front box art for Space Quest Collection by Vivendi Universal, 2006
Jonathan, Dennis. “The New Sierra BBS.” Sierra Newsletter, 1988, p. 13. With the installation of Sierra’s new Bulletin Board System…
Page 2 – Shady Characters
The Leisure Suit Larry Games
Sierra On-Line, Inc. Tenth Anniversary Sierra. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1989. Internet Archive. 24 Sept. 2016. Web. 21 Feb. 2022. Image of Sierra hint book under a magnifying glass. Other info: I [Al Lowe, LLL creator] was a high school band teacher and a school district administrator for 16 years. I got involved with computer programming to help me with my work.
Softalk, “Tradetalk”, pg. 50, Nov 1981. “The ad, in case you missed it in Time and Softalk, shows a hot tub with three taken women in it, discreetly submerged in water. The models and Roberta Williams (co-author of the Mystery Adventures and On-Line president Ken Williams’s wife). Susan Davis, On-Line bookkeeper, and Diane Siegal, production manager.” Retrieved from the Internet Archive, Softalk collection, Oct 28 2015.
Williams, John. “In Praise of One.” Sierra-Dynamix News Magazine, 1991, pp. 16-19.
Some magazines refused to advertise the game [Leisure Suit Larry 1]. We received some pretty strong letters of protest, and for a while we were worried that we might never get a computer store south of the Mason-Dixon line to carry the game.
Bateman, Selby. “Al Lowe – The Dirty Old Man Behind Leisure Suit Larry.” Comp. Sketch The Cow. Game Players PC Entertainment Feb. 1992: 18+. Internet Archive. 18 Oct. 2018. Web. 16 Aug. 2020. He [Al Lowe] is also a talented and market-savvy computer entertainment developer whose four Larry games have already garnerred will over $13 million for Sierra On-Line. Almost three-quarters of a million copies of the four games have sold worldwide… ;…an embarassing little number called SoftPorn, that Lowe says sold some 25,000 copies at the start of the 1980s when there were only about 100,000 Apple II’s in existence. ;”When the game went out, it bombed,” says Lowe, with a chuckle. “It was the lowest first-month sale of any product in years. it took a period of six to eight months before it began to sell respectably. And it was all word of mouth.” ;Game size is another big change. Larry 1 hit the retail shelves complete on two 360K disks…. Larry 5 is shipping on eight high-density disks representing some 14-megabytes of data. ;Add to all of that a musical score created by Hollywood composer Craig Safan…
BLAZER. “Commodore Amiga 3D Boxes Pack.” EmuMovies. N.p., 15 Sept. 2018. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Images of first four Leisure Suit Larry game boxes, Amiga versions
Edgemundo. “Microsoft MS-DOS 3D Boxes Pack (732).” EmuMovies. N.p., 17 May 2020. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Images of Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work and Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail! boxes
Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape Up or Slip Out Hintbook. (1993). Sierra On-Line, Inc. Image of Leisure Suit Larry 6 crew
McKenna, B. (1989, August). Sierra’s Newest Games. Sierra News, Vol. 2 Num. 2. Image of Leisure Suit Larry 3 programmer Carlos Escobar and image of graphics team
Klopjero. “Klopjero’s ScummVM 3D Box REDUX.” EmuMovies. N.p., 24 Aug. 2018. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Image of Leisure Suit Larry: Shape Up or Slip Out! box art [EDITED]
Levingstone, Robin. “PC/Windows 3D Boxes (2868).” EmuMovies. N.p., 18 Feb. 2020. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Images of Leisure Suit Larry: Magna Cum Laude and Leisure Suit Larry: Box Office Bust boxes
“Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded Details – LaunchBox Games Database.” Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded Details – LaunchBox Games Database. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Image of Leisure Suit Larry: Reloaded cover art
Treese, Tyler. “Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry – Game.” Nintendo World Report. N.p., 21 June 2019. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Image of Leisure Suit Larry: Wet Dreams Don’t Dry cover art.
Magpie, Johnnie. “First Look – Leisure Suit Larry: Yank Hers Away.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Summer 1996: 68-69. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2020. To date, over 1,500,000 Leisure Suit Larry games have been sold… ;…most all-around likeable Larry game yet, new Leisure Suit Larry: Yank Hers Away!
McKenna, Marti. “Ladies and Lounge Lizards: Al Lowe.” Sierra News Magazine, Apr. 1990, pp. 8–9, 32–33. Image of Al Lowe leaning on chair, image of Al Lowe in filmstrip, image of Al Lowe outdoors.
Bridgemon, Pat. “Freddy Pharkas: Frontier Pharmacist.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Summer 1993: 20-21. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 15 May 2020. (Freddy Pharkas takes up almost 11 megs on your hard drive.) ;…the main street of town in an incredible scrolling background eight screens long (the largest ever in a Sierra game).
Leisure Suit Larry poster with REALLY ATROCIOUS Al Lowe pun from the pages of Sierra-Dynamix News Magazine, Summer 1991
Page 2 – A Cop’s Quest
The Police Quest Games
“Behind the Disk: Jim Walls – Police Quest Designer.” Sierra Newsletter, 1987, p. 4. While the design of Police Quest is Jim’s, he didn’t get much into the programming…
Williams, John. “In Praise of One.” Sierra-Dynamix News Magazine, 1991, pp. 16-19.
While Jim had the story for Police Quest under his gun belt months before he even started working at Sierra, he had absolutely zero experience in the development of computer games, so Al Lowe helped pull the project together to get this first game out the door.
Johnson, Sgt. Harry. “Product Spotlight: Police Quest – Review of a Patrol Simulation.” Law and Order, Oct. 1988. As reprinted in The Sierra Newsletter, Spring 1989, pgs. 5,8 It seems that other officers had observed him working on the simulation and had gotten caught up in the action. They demanded turns of their own.
Sierra On-Line. Sierra Catalog. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1991. Internet Archive. 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2022. B&W image of Jim Walls, in CHP uniform. Other info: Police Quest’s realism led to a feature in Law & Order Magazine, a national publication for police officers, which in turn led to the game being used as a training tool for rookie police officers.
BLAZER. “Commodore Amiga 3D Boxes Pack.” EmuMovies. N.p., 15 Sept. 2018. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Image of Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel game box, Amiga version
Edgemundo. “Microsoft MS-DOS 3D Boxes Pack (732).” EmuMovies. N.p., 17 May 2020. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Images of Police Quest 2, 3 and 1993 original remake game boxes, plus the two Daryl F. Gates SWAT games, MS-DOS game boxes
McKenna, Bridget. “Jim Walls Q & A.” Sierra-Dynamix News Magazine, 1991, pp. 10–12.
Images of Jim Walls in blue shirt
Shannon, Lorelei. “Lights! Camera! Interaction!.” InterAction, 1991, pp. 46–47. Image of Sierra motion-capture studio. Other information: …and a piece of proprietary software created by Sierra called Movie 256 turns the video feed into individual cels.
“The All New Police Quest I: Real Life Revisited.” InterAction, 1992, p. 21. Characters are video captured live actors. There is approximately three times as much text in the new Police Quest as there was in the original. Police Quest now sports a new, exciting stereo soundtrack. Every situation you’ll encounter has its own theme music.
Sierra On-Line, Inc. Procedure and Operations Manual, Lytton Police Academy. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1991. Internet Archive. 31 Mar. 2016. Web. 18 Feb. 2022. Rendered real-life image of Sonny Bonds and Marie Wilkans
Police Quest 3: Real-Life Action and Real Live Actors. (1991, season-02). Sierra-Dynamix News. Close-up image of Jan Hammer
Page 2 – Chief Controversy
The Police Quest Games rebranded with name of Daryl F. Gates
McKenna, B. (1989, August). Sierra’s Newest Games. Sierra News, Vol. 2 Num. 2. Images of Jim Walls, head and shoulders shot, image of Codename Iceman programming team, and image of Codenam Iceman graphics team
Copilevitz, Todd. “Computer Game about Cops Gets Realism from Gates.” The Orlando Sentinel 4 Nov. 1993: E-4. Newspapers.com. Web. 18 Feb. 2022. He [Daryl Gates] dismisses any suggestion that he made a deal with Sierra just for the money, although he acknowledges it is substantial.
Smithe Grimsley, Nancy. “Decisions Behind the Scenes of Police Quest: Open Season.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Winter 1993: 14-15. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 28 Aug. 2020. Images of Daryl F. Gates being interviewed, Gates coaching an actor, the different Police Quest: Open Season box designs, Daryl F. Gates on set checking a gun. Other information: “A lot of Sierra people come from the Los Angeles area so there were some pretty strong negative opinions against Gates early on. ;When you figure that Gates was with the LA Police Force for 43 years… ;…and he’s been everything from a patrol cop to the police chief. ;The final decision to go with Gates came when Ken took a trip to Lost Angeles to see the man personally… Gates’ actions were those of a perfect gentleman, and he was a real personable family kind of guy. ;Ken is also a fan of Rush Limbaugh… ;He [Ken Williams] decided the whole controversy over Gates would ultimately help the game sell better. ;…the Brand Manager and Marketing Research Specialist took three versions [of Police Quest: Open Season box samples] to two different software stores and solicited opinions from customers and retail clerks… of the three boxes…the file folder lost overwhelmingly. There was a split vote between the city scene and the bloody hand. Parents often had a side comment about the emphasis on blood, and we ended up leaning away from that presentation. ;To their [director Tammy Dargan and DOP Rod Fung] knowledge this is the first use of digital cameras in any computer game. ;He [Daryl F. Gates] sees Police Quest: Open Season as an opportunity to help people get a more realistic view of the police. All too often people form their impressions from TV and movies… ;One of the reasons I’m very anxious to do this particular game is that Sierra On-Line is giving a plug to D.A.R.E.
Scott, Jason, comp. “Correspondence.” InterAction Fall 1994: 4. Internet Archive. 21 May 2013. Web. 9 Sept. 2020. Image of LA Police Chief Daryl F. Gates in uniform
Magpie, Johnnie. “Rumor Mill.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Spring 1994: 16. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 30 Aug. 2020. Image of Tammy Dargan and Daryl F. Gates on-set of Police Quest: Open Season
Ceccola, Russ. “Down Mean Street with Daryl F. Gates.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Spring 1994: 67. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 31 Aug. 2020. Image of Daryl F. Gates coaching actor on set of Daryl F. Gates Police Quest: Open Season
Scott, Jason, comp. “Meet the Maker: Sierra’s SWAT Assault.” InterAction Spring 1995: 60-61. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 14 Sept. 2020. Q: How close do you think the game [Open Season] came to reality? Gates: Compared to other police games, the reality factor went up 100%.
Scott, Jason, comp. “Coming Soon – Police Quest: SWAT – From Boot Camp to Street Smarts.” InterAction Fall 1995: 39-41. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 15 Sept. 2020. Image of Daryl F. Gates holding machine gun. ;It paid off wonderfully because the Chief knows everybody. We had instant access to real experts. ;There were some things that we couldn’t give the public; we didn’t want to endanger any team member’s life.
Sauer, Jahn. “Coming Attractions: Daryl F. Gates: Police Quest SWAT 2.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Fall 1996: 96. Print. Image of Daryl Gates and Susan Frischer
Page 3 – The Quests Continue
Other Sierra Adventure Games
McKenna, B. (1989, August). Sierra’s Newest Games. Sierra News, Vol. 2 Num. 2. Images of Lori Cole, programming team and graphics team for Hero’s Quest/Quest for Glory
BLAZER. “Commodore Amiga 3D Boxes Pack.” EmuMovies. N.p., 15 Sept. 2018. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Image of Hero’s Quest box, Amiga version
Edgemundo. “Microsoft MS-DOS 3D Boxes Pack (732).” EmuMovies. N.p., 17 May 2020. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Images of Quest for Glory game boxes I – V
Magpie, Johnnie. “Rumor Mill: Hero’s Quest – Quest for Glory – Which is it?” InterAction, 1991, pp. 4–6.
For those that don’t know the background, Sierra had to change the name of the series to Quest for Glory when the original name of Hero’s Quest turned out to be the trademark for a board game by Milton Bradley.
Trotter, William R. “The Quest for Perfection.” InterAction Spring 1998: 50-53. Print. Fans of the QFG series were not happy campers when they learned that Shadows of Darkness was the “official” end of the series. They bombarded the company with email, snail-mail, phone calls, and long-range mystical incantations, pleading, demanding, begging for MORE ;”Sierra made an irresistible offer,” Lori says. “Everything that was on our ‘wish-list’ for the final game, we could have….
Bridgemon, Patrick, Lori Cole, and Corey Cole. “Quest for Glory Shadows of Darkness.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Winter 1993: 21. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 28 Aug. 2020. “Each player can set a ‘player skill level’ which will determine whether combat is arcade-like or purely strategic,” said designer Corey Cole.
Magpie, Johnnie. “Rumor Mill: More Trouble” InterAction, 1991, pp. 4–6.
It turns out that our old magazine name The Sierra News Magazine got us into trouble with none other than our environmental friends at The Sierra Club.
Clarke, Theo. “On Line With Sierra.” Comp. Marktrade. Strategy Plus Oct. 1990: 23-27. 30 Dec. 2016. Web. 19 Aug. 2020. So how come Sierra sells 25% of the computer games sold in the US? ;Its [Sierra] games are developed by teams of about two dozen people…
McKenna, B. (1989, August). Sierra’s Newest Games. Sierra News, Vol. 2 Num. 2. Images of Roberta Williams sitting in a chair in white sweater, Douglas Henning and Jerry Moore together, and Chris Iden and Chris Hoyt together
DeMaria, Rusel. “Industry News & Views.” Computer Play, Nov. 1988, p. 6. Roberta Williams is working with another author to create a mystery game called Murder in the Southern Quarter which will be set in New Orleans.
Busch, Kurt. “A Game Designer Designs the Future.” InterAction, 1992, pp. 40–42. 1992 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.
Sayes Wilson, Leslie. “Riding the Cutting Edge.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Winter 1993: 37-38. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 29 Aug. 2020. The script of Laura Bow in The Dagger of Amon Ra was over 600 pages in length, and took several months to record.
Mandel, J. (1992, season-01). Laura Bow II: The Dagger of Amon Ra: The Murderous Matter of Making a Mystery. InterAction, 30–33. Images of production sketches and the rogue’s gallery for The Dagger of Amon Ra. Other info: Bill Davis [Creative Director] knew instinctively which artist would fit the mood perfectly: J.C. Leyendecker. ;To create the characters, Production Designer Andy Hoyos created rough sketches of how the characters might look, Leyendecker-style…
Antic, “Roberta’s Bequest” by Tom Byron, pgs. 22 – 26, Mar 1990
Page 3 – Good Knight
The Gabriel Knight game series
Sayes Wilson, Leslie. “Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers – A New Kind of Hero.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Winter 1993: 22-23. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 28 Aug. 2020. Game designer Jane Jensen classifies the game as a “psycho-thriller”… ;Jensen cites Ann Rice’s Vampire Chronicles….Angel Heart, and Francis Ford Coppola’s Dracula as current fiction and films with themes and atmosphere similar to those of Gabriel Knight. ;At the last Consumer Electronics Show, Gabriel Knight won Best of Show. ;sidebar titled ‘Designer Jane Jensen’, info on Jensen’s upbringing, affinity for Sierra games, etc.
Magpie, Johnie. “Rumor Mill.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Winter 1993: 64-65. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 29 Aug. 2020. Image of irregular box for Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Robin55. “PC/Windows 3D Boxes (2868).” EmuMovies. N.p., 18 Feb. 2020. Web. 29 Aug. 2020. Box image for Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers – 20th Anniversary Edition, Windows version
“Gabriel Knight: Jensen, Jane: 9780451456076: Books.” Gabriel Knight: Jensen, Jane: 9780451456076: Books – Amazon.ca. Web. 05 Oct. 2020. Image of cover of Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers novel
“Jane Jensen – Gabriel Knight 2 – The Beast Within – Novel.” Scribd. Ed. Maliardo. Scribd. Web. 05 Oct. 2020. Cover for Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within novel
“Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned (1999) Windows Box Cover Art.” MobyGames. Ed. MAT. 6 Dec. 2003. Web. 05 Oct. 2020. Image of cover art for Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned
Scott, Jason, comp. “Just in Time for the Holidays!” InterAction Winter 1996: 32. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 5 Oct. 2020. Image of Jane Jansen in round frame, 1996
Sayes Wilson, Leslie. “Hot Off the Press – Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Spring 1994: 57. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 31 Aug. 2020. Images of Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, Michael Dorn and Leah Remini in recording studio
Phillips, Christia. “Gabriel Knight The Beast Within: Roll ’em.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterActive Fall 1995: 17-20. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 15 Sept. 2020. Images of Will Binder, Dean Erickson, Joanne Takahashi and Jane Jensen and Erickson together from The Beast Within: A Gabriel Knight Mystery. Other information: They have the added challenge of handling a very large cast (60 characters)… ;”I read Carrie when I was 12 and that was it”)
Sandler, Corey, and Jane Jensen. “Interview with Will Binder.” Gabriel Knight: The Beast Within Official Player’s Guide. San Mateo: Infotainment World, 1995. Internet Archive. Web. 16 Jan. 2023. The Beast Within is Will Binder’s first commercial “movie”, although he made some short films and an independent feature at the respected UCLA film school.
Jensen, Jane. “Meet the Maker: Gabriel Knight Interlude.” Comp. Jason Scott. Spring 1995: 40. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 14 Sept. 2020. If he only knew what was coming, and could real the 700-page script entitled The Beast Within… ;The Beast Within will be the next Sierra game produced this way. We actually are very lucky in that Phantasmagoria pioneered the process…
Scott, Jason, comp. “A Gabriel Knight Mystery: The Beast Within.” InterAction Spring 1996: 64-65. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 29 Sept. 2020. Technological advances and over 1000 SVGA images bring this terrifying tale up close and personal. ;Playing out on six CDs, this is cerebral terror at its best.
Twelker, Erik. “Inside the Mind of an Interactive Storyteller.” Comp. Sketch The Cow. InterAction Spring 1999: 30-33. Internet Archive. 28 July 2016. Web. 26 Sept. 2021. Colour image of Jane Jensen with library behind. Black & white image of Jensen, outside. Images of Steven Hill, Scott Honn and Jessica Tams.
Page 3 – Online Sierra
The Sierra Network
The Artful Gamer, Sierra’s “The ImagiNation Network Revived!” by Chris Lepine – www.artfulgamer.com/sierras-the-imagination-network-revived/”
“Excerpts from an Interview with Ken Williams On The Sierra Network.” InterAction, 1992, pp. 56–57. Walt Disney was my hero. The original mission statement for TSN, was: What if I could invent something….
Williams, Ken. “President’s Corner: Top Secret.” The Sierra News Magazine, 1991, p. 28.
In October of 1990 we announced a top secret R & D project at Sierra. What we announced, which is that we have a test going with 1,000 users in the Los Angeles area of a new multiplayer gaming technology…
“5 Computer Breakthrough Products Debut.” Journal and Courier [Lafayette, Indiana] 06 May 1991: A8. Newspapers.com. Web. 29 Apr. 2021. TSN will be available in California June 1…
Shapiro, Eben. “Network May Have Winning Strategy.” The Press-Tribune [Roseville, California] 25 June 1991: B4. Newspapers.com. Web. 29 Apr. 2021. But The Sierra Network, or TSN, is far more narrow. Using only a couple of powerful desktop computers and a handful of employees so far, it allows computer users to play checkers, chess and a few other simple games with each other, while trading electronic banter. ;After months of testing with about 800 players, the network officially began operating in California earlier this month. The company plans to extend TSN across the nation in a year, and some analysts are enthusiastic. ;So far, the system has served no more than 75 players at a time…
Ratliff, Rick. “Calling All Game-heads.” Detroit Free Press 23 Dec. 1991: 7F. Newspapers.com. Web. 29 Apr. 2021. Since it went commercial in October, the network has about 2,000 subscribers nationwide.
Winding, Dave. “Online Gaming for the Entire Family.” Dimension 3 Dec. 1995: 8+. Print. Images of female player model, loading screen, INN 3D Golf. Images of Coaches Club, coin toss, line of scrimmage and field goal in TSN/INN football. Images of Fates of Twinion skeleton encounter, inventory screen. Other info: by 1993, the company [TSN] had established itself as a player in the burgeoning online field and equity shares were sold to AT&T and General Atlantic Partners, thus forming The Imagination Network. ;According to the folks at INN, there are currently 60,000 members online.
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View.” InterAction, 1992, p. 6.
Skrzycki, Cindy. “AT&T to Enter the World of Electronic Attractions.” The Herald Statesman (WaPo News Wire) [Yonkers, New York] 02 Aug. 1993: 16C. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. AT&T last week announced it would spend $5 million to acquire a 20 percent stake in the Sierra Network, an on-line computer service. ;… which has been renamed the ImagiNation Network Inc. as part of the deal.
McClatchy, Will. “Oakhurst and the Information Highway.” The Fresno Bee 06 Sept. 1993: C1+. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. Last month Sierra On-Line President Ken Williams relocated the computer software firm’s headquarters and began moving 120 corporate staff positions from Oakhurst to Seattle, blaming an inability to attract executives and a dearth of office space. ;Over the past 18 months The ImagiNation Network has created 85 high-paying jobs, settling employees in a renovated 100-year-old barn… ;The network so impressed AT&T officials that they have invested $5 million in exchange for a 20 percent stake… ;Although the network had 40,000 subscribers as of six months ago…
Scott, Jason, comp. “Multiplayer Adventure Gaming.” Editorial. InterActive Spring 1997: 80-81. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 9 Oct. 2020. Profile of The Realm
Sierra. The Sierra Network Service Agreement. The Sierra Network Service Agreement, Sierra.
Geraci, Vince. “The Sierra Network.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Fall 1992: 62-63. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/InterAction_Magazine_Vol._V_Number_3_Fall_1992_1992_Sierra_On-Line_US/page/n67>. Image of TSN HQ water tower ;Images of The Shadow of Yserbius ;Image of LarryLand Super Get Lucky Slot
Magpie, Johnny. “Rumor Mill.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction June 1993: 80-81. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 15 Aug. 2020. Back in November, the opening of TSN’s new attractions LarryLand, SierraLand and MidievaLand… ;As expected, it looks like Dynamix will kick off next football season with a multiplayer version its award winning Front Page Sports Football for The Sierra Network.
Williams, John. “The Sierra Network Explodes!” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Summer 1993: 54-55. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 15 Aug. 2020. The network “blew up” with such regularity that even the most avid Bridge player grew frustrated with TSN’s instability. ;Not only will AT&T work with TSN to develop and improve network applications…[ETC] ;In late May, TSN and Prodigy announced a link between the two services…[ETC]
Geraci, Vince. “ImagiNation Explodes and Expands.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Winter 1993: 61-62. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 29 Aug. 2020. Images of Fates of Twinon, Stratego, 18-Hole 3D Golf and the NTN Trivia Network on the INN online network
Snider, Mike. “Web Is Fun and Games.” Green Bay Press-Gazette (Gannett News Service) 02 Feb. 1997: G-3. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. Also due soon is the 3-D chat and gaming environment CyberPark, being developed by the Imagination Network, bought by AOL in August.
“AOL Seen Buying CompuServe.” The News and Observer [Raleigh, North Carolina] 02 Apr. 1997: 8D. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. America Online said three weeks ago that it will buy privately held LightSpeed Media Inc. to develop an entertainment site on the Internet. In August it bought ImagiNation Network Inc., a computer game network, for $14.5 million.
“AT&T Selling 365,000 AOL Shares.” The Miami Herald 15 May 1997: 7C. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. AT&T owns 365,000 shares of America Online… An America Online spokeswoman said AT&T acquired the shares in a stock deal in August when the online service purchased ImagiNation Network from the telephone giant. AT&T had acquired the online games and entertainment company in 1994. ; Several analysts said they believe the deal was worth about $14 million in America Online stock.
Glaser, Mark. “Strangers in the Night.” The Los Angeles Times 13 Feb. 1997: 50 R. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. America Online is readying CyberPark, developed by the people at ImagiNation Network… CyberPark will let people choose an avatar representation of themselves, then walk through a computer-generated “town”, chatting with other people, playing a variety of action and board games, and even shopping in a virtual mall.
Rafter, Michelle V., ed. “Online Girl Games Are Hits for Ex-producer of Music Videos.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Reuters News Service) 03 Dec. 1997: C7. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. In former years, women made up only a third of 70,000 subscribers to the Imagination Network, a pioneering games network renamed WorldPlay (www.worldplay.com) after America Online acquired it last year.
Matzer, Marla. “AOL Fires 105 From 2 Game Sites.” The Los Angeles Times 12 Feb. 1998: D2. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. …leading Internet service provider America Online on Tuesday fired 105 employees from its proprietary Entertainment Asylum and WorldPlay entertainment/game sites. ;WorldPlay cut 40 people working in Oakhurst on a now-scuttled 3-D game (CyberPark), along with 25 employees in its Burlingame office. ;Bentley [Anne, AOL spokeswoman] said WorldPlay would be folded into a preexisting AOL site, AOL Games.
Nax, Sanford. “AOL Closes Oakhurst Office, Lays off 40.” The Fresno Bee 13 Feb. 1998: C1. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. America Online Inc. is closing a division office in Oakhurst… ;Employees at WorldPlay Entertainment in Oakhurst have spent the last few years developing “Cyber Park”, an interactive 3D theme park that officials at America Online apparently have lost faith in. As a result, the “Cyber Park” project has been shelved and the Oakhurst office is closing. ;Another WorldPlay office in Burlingame also was downsized. About 25 of the 60 employees there were laid off… ;[Mark Mooradian, market research analyst] said “Cyber Park” was almost ready to roll out two years ago, but kept getting delayed. The project has changed ownership twice, which didn’t help, he said. ;Sierra On-Line started ImaginNation Network in 1990, and it was losing about $1 million a month when AT&T bought it for $40 million four years later.
“Electronic Arts Taking over AOL Games Channel.” Palladium-Item [Richmond, Indiana] 28 Nov. 1999: B9. Newspapers.com. Web. 30 Apr. 2021. Electronic Arts is paying America Online $81 million so EA can take over operations of AOL’s Games Channel and all other AOL game content on CompuServe and other holdings.
Demetrescu, Beth. “The Realm: Multiplayer Adventure Gaming Invades the World Wide Web.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Summer 1997: 73-75. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 28 Apr. 2021. Image of BlueRose character from The Realm, image of BlueRose officiating wedding inside The Realm. Other info: Michelle Brose, also playing as BlueRose… ;…Michelle founded a guild. ;It was through the guild that this 22-year-old New Yorker founder calling – Realm Justice of the Peace. ;It’s estimated BlueRose performs at least half of all the weddings that take place in The Realm.
SierraVault. Sierra On-Line Categorical Game List. SierraVault. Internet Archive. 11 Dec. 2013. Web. 04 Aug. 2021. Closer image of Sierra HQ in Oakhurst
Page 3 – A Dark End
Phantasmagoria/The End of Sierra
Sierra On-Line. Sierra Catalog. Coarsegold, CA: Sierra On-Line, 1991. Internet Archive. 19 Oct. 2014. Web. 19 Feb. 2022. Image of larger Sierra HQ, in Oakhurst California
Sierra FX. N.p.: Sierra On-Line, 1998. Internet Archive. Jason Scott, 23 May 2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/Sierra_FX_1998_Sierra-On_Line>. Cover of SierraFX catalog
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Winter 1994: 8+. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 13 Sept. 2020. Sierra outgrew the Yosemite area. The town physically could not cope with our growth. There started to be all kinds of crazy logistical issues, like having access to housing for our employees. Also, we were having trouble recruiting enough people.
Scott, Jason, comp. “News & Views: To Merge or Not to Merge.” Info June 1991: 16. Internet Archive. 30 May 2013. Web. 15 Aug. 2020. On March 11, Sierra On-Line and Broderbund Software publicly announced their intention to merge. [ETC]
Magpie, Johnnie. “Rumor Mill.” Sierra-Dynamix News Magazine, 1991, p. 62.
In the next year, her time will be divided between two new projects. One is tentatively called “Scary Tales,” obviously a horror game.
Scott, Jason, comp. “The Ultimate Interactive Nightmare.” InterActive Spring 1995: 30-35. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 14 Sept. 2020. Image of Phantasmagoria director Peter Maris and designer Roberta Williams on-set together. Other information: Some of it is to see if I could do it – stretch my creative muscle. ;Now we’re on the last six months of the third year and we’ve got most of it done. ;From the beginning, it was a collaboration. Peter… would explain to me what he wanted from each scene from the perspective of a filmmaker, and I would explain what I wanted from the Perspective of a game designer. We always found a way to make it work for both of us.
Busch, Kurt. “A Game Designer Designs the Future.” InterAction, 1992, pp. 40–42. 1992 [Roberta Williams] “I’ve spent a lot of time studying horror, reading horror, watching horror.”
Williams, Ken. “The Inside View.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Fall 1994: 6+. Interaction. 31 May 2013. Web. 9 Sept. 2020. Phantasmagoria is basically a film with live actors, real sets, props, etc. but because its interactive, it will have as much video as eight full-length motion pictures.
Coming Soon: Phantasmagoria. (1994). PC Review. Images of design sketches of torture equipment from Phantasmagoria
Magpie, Johnnie. “Rumor Mill.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Fall 1994: 78-79. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 12 Sept. 2020. Originally announced as a product called “Scary Tales” over two years ago, Roberta Williams horror thriller will miss yet another Christmas this year. ;…the more than 15 weeks of filming that was done for the game.
Magpie, Johnnie. “Stories: Of the New Sierra Studio.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Fall 1994: 80-81. Internet Archvie. 31 May 2013. Web. 12 Sept. 2020. Image of Roberta Williams in torture chair on set of Phantasmagoria. Other information: Bill did make clear the enormous expense involved in creating the new production facility. He had been a little offended that one computer magazine had recently reported the cost to be around $60,000 when actually the final const had been about 15 times that.
Scott, Jason, comp. “A First Look: Phantasmagoria.” InterAction Winter 1994: 24-27. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 13 Sept. 2020. [Phantasmagoria] is the premiere production to use Sierra On-Line’s new video studio facilities, and it’s also Sierra’s first game to integrate live actors with computer-generated backgrounds. ; Prior to writing the story for Phantasmagoria, Roberta immersed herself in horror books and movies, devoting about six months of her time to understanding what makes a plot truly suspenseful and scary. She also held brainstorming sessions with Andy Hoyos, Phantasmagoria’s Art Director and horror aficionado. ;Inspired by her research, especially the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Stephen King, Roberta then created a storyline that places contemporary characters in a gothic-style setting with diabolical results.;Live actors speak their lines and go through the motions against a blue screen set. Motion-controlled cameras record camera angles and movement. The digitized information is then loaded into the Silicon Graphics computers which synchronize the relative motion of computer-generated, three-dimensional background art. Then, the live action and the backgrounds are seamlessly composited using advanced techniques controlled by an UltiMatte system. ;…Sierra On-Line has implemented a password-protected toggle that will enable parents to confine the game to the equivalent of a “PG-13 rated” version… ;The “R-rated” version (not recommended for children under seventeen years of age)…
Scott, Jason, comp. “Phantasmagoria 2: A Puzzle of Flesh: Horror.” InterAction Winter 1996: 13-16. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 5 Oct. 2020. Phantas[magoria] was the first major game ever to receive the “Mature Audiences Only” from the Software Ratings Board, instantly giving it national notoriety.
Scott, Jason, comp. “Phantasmagoria: Unprecedented Success…And Controversy.” InterAction Winter 1995: 5-6. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 28 Sept. 2020. With over $4 million invested in the project….
Scott, Jason, comp. “A Conversation with Roberta Williams.” InterAction Summer 1996: 76-77. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2020. Image of Robert Williams surrounded by her games, 1996
Scott, Jason, comp. “Phantasmagoria: It’s Finally Here… Let’s Explore.” InterAction Fall 1995: 30. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 15 Sept. 2020. Image of Phantasmagoria packing with CDs
Scott, Jason, comp. “Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh.” InterAction Summer 1996: 66. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 30 Sept. 2020. Image of Lorelei Shannon and Robert Standlee together, 1996
“Sega Saturn Japan 3D Boxes Pack – Authentic Set (1201).” EmuMovies. Ed. Jason Scott. Emumovies.com, 14 May 2020. Web. 15 Sept. 2020. Image of Japanese version of Phantasm aka Phantasmagoria for Sega Saturn
Edgemundo. “Microsoft MS-DOS 3D Boxes Pack (732).” EmuMovies. N.p., 17 May 2020. Web. 17 Aug. 2020. Image of Roberta Williams Phantasmagoria game box, Windows version
“Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh (1996) Box Cover Art.” MobyGames. Ed. JulesThe. N.p., 17 Feb. 2006. Web. 18 Aug. 2020. Image of Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh box cover, Windows 95 version
Williams, Ken. “Inside View: Dear Ken.” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Fall 1996: 6. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 1 Oct. 2020. Image of Ken Williams from 1996, surrounded by correspondence.
Jeff Tunnell: Pushing the limits. (1997, season-01). InterAction, 41–46. Image from InterAction magazine profile picture of Jeff Tunnell; image of Jeff Tunnell playing foosball. Photos by Matt Hulbert
Foxhack. (2008, January 21). Heart of China (1991). Moby Games. Retrieved June 22, 2024, from https://www.mobygames.com/game/164/heart-of-china/cover/group-37480/cover-102083/ Front box cover image of Heart of China
Edgemundo. 3D Image of Red Baron game box. Digital image. EmuMovies. Web. 14 May 2020.
Frumple. “NASCAR Racing (1994) Box Cover Art.” MobyGames. Web. 06 Aug. 2021.
“Sierra On-Line, 1981-2004.” PC Today Feb. 2005: 106. PC Today Volume 3 Issue 2. Internet Archive. Web. 13 Mar. 2016. Between 1990 and 1998, Sierra acquired Dynamic (1990)…SubLogic (1995), Impressions Games (1995), Papyrus (1995)…; In 1994 Sierra moved its headquarters to Bellevue Wash….;In 1996 it was purchased by Cendant…
Williams, Ken. “Who Is CUC and Why Is Sierra a Part of Its Family?” Comp. Jason Scott. InterAction Summer 1997: 6-8. Internet Archive. 31 May 2013. Web. 26 Apr. 2021. I first became aware of CUC through CUC Chairman Walter Forbes, who joined Sierra’s board of directors a little over six years ago.
Oakhurst: Sierra On-Line, 1998. Internet Archive. Jason Scott, 23 May 2013. Web. 17 Oct. 2019. <https://archive.org/details/Sierra_Studios_1998_Sierra-On_Line>. Pages promoting Caesar III, Half-Life, Homeworld, King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity, Lords of Magic and Return to Krondor
Letter from Sierra founder Ken Williams to Sierra employees laid off during ‘Chainsaw Monday’
Bateman, Selby. “Al Lowe – The Dirty Old Man Behind Leisure Suit Larry.” Comp. Sketch The Cow. Game Players PC Entertainment Feb. 1992: 18+. Internet Archive. 18 Oct. 2018. Web. 16 Aug. 2020. Image of Al Lowe sneaking a look at a Playboy magazine, 1992
Williams, Ken. “About Ken.” Welcome to KensBlog. Web. 05 Aug. 2021. We sold our [Nordhavn] 62 in 2004, after eight great years of world cruising, and have recently (August 2007) taken delivery of a new Nordhavn 68!
Baker, Milt. “Nordhavn 68: The Next Generation.” Circumnavigator 2006/07: 72-75. Internet Archive Wayback Machine. Web. 5 Aug. 2021. At the $2.8-million price tag, the Nordhavn 68 comes fully equipped…
“Nordhavn 68.” Nordhavn Yachts. 27 July 2021. Web. 05 Aug. 2021. Two images of the Nordhavn 68 owned by Ken & Roberta Williams.
Williams, Ken. “[KensBlog] Our First Cruise!” Welcome to KensBlog. 07 July 2021. Web. 05 Aug. 2021. Images of the Williamses 2021 boat Cygnus, Roberta riding inside Cygnus. Courtesy of Ken Williams, photographer Ken Williams
“Class 42.” Official Gazette of the United States Patent and Trademark Office. Trademarks 1999-10-05. Comp. MicrofilIssueGenerator. 1st ed. Vol. 1227. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Commerce/Patent and Trademark Office, 1999. 588. Internet Archive. 2 Mar. 2021. Web. 6 Aug. 2021. WORLDSTREAM COMMUNICATIONS, INC., BELLEVUE, WA. SN 75-452,610. PUB 1-12-1999, FILED 3-18-1998
Haines, Thomas W. “Changing Tunes.” Detroit Free Press 18 Sept. 1998: 3E. Newspapers.com. Web. 6 Aug. 2021. Williams’ company, Bellevue, Wash.-based WorldStream, has launched a new Internet talk-show network, called TalkSpot, that lets people listen to talk radio while voting on hot topics and E-mailing their own takes on the day’s debate. So far, TalkSpot – www.talkspot.com – offer a veritable Village People of show hosts, including…John Carlson, a conservative, Seattle-based political commentator. ;Ken Williams will be WorldStream’s chairman and chief executive officer. Jerry Bowerman, another Sierra veteran, is WorldStream’s vice president of operations. Roberta Williams is a company director.
“Webcasting.” Forbes 8 Feb. 1999. Web. 6 Aug. 2021. Williams figured that the proper model was neither video on demand nor sports nor hard news, but rather talk radio. He got the idea when his wife, Roberta, asked him to find a way to funnel Seattle talk shows to their future home in Mexico. Williams hooked up with Jarold Bowerman, who had run marketing and product development at Sierra Online, and in November 1997 they founded Worldstream Communications in Bellevue, Washington. Williams invested $3 million; Bowerman added $100,000. Williams hired six technical people and lured James Golden away from his job as producer of Rush Limbaughs radio talk show. ;To make all this happen, Williams wrote some 15,000 lines of software code in Java to compress audio, text and images.
Alvear, José. “Worldstream Shuts Down.” Streaming Media Magazine. 07 Aug. 2001. Web. 06 Aug. 2021. WorldStream Communications (www.worldstream.com) shut down last week, firing almost all of its employees after failing to get new funding. ;WorldStream, a privately-funded company was founded in 1998 by Ken Williams, famous for starting and growing the game company, Sierra Online. It was funded by Crosspoint Venture Partners, Polaris Venture Partners and Williams, himself. ;That vision turned into the company known as WorldStream, which later created a mobile “Studio in a box” solution for webcasters. But after that failed to take hold, WorldStream turned to corporate communications, helping companies with announcements, interactive meetings and other events.
Cow, Sketch The, comp. “Pioneers on the Digital Frontier: Roberta Williams.” Play Online Dec. 1998: 107. Internet Archive. 7 May 2018. Web. 30 Jan. 2022. Image of Roberta Williams looking camera left, 1998
A Return to Role Playing: Betrayal in Antara (J. Williams, Interviewer). (1997, season-01). InterAction, 17–21. Images of Betrayal in Antara production team. Photos by Matt Hulbert
Unannotated, Uncategorized or I Just Don’t Damn Remember!
Roger Wilco’s Virtual Broomcloset – www.wiw.org/~jess/roger.html
The Human Element – Stage Select – www.stageselect.com/News/NewsViewer.aspx?newsid=140
Adventure Classic Gaming, Ken Williams Interview by Philip Jong, Mar. 28 2006 – www.adventureclassicgaming.com/index.php/site/interviews/197/
Music Credits
Main Theme (Greensleeves), King’s Quest. Music by Ken Allen. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1984
Main Theme, King’s Quest III: To Heir is Human. Music by Margaret Lowe. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1986
Main Theme, King’s Quest IV: The Perils of Rosella. Music by William Goldstein. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1988
Finale, King’s Quest V: Absence Makes the Heart Go Yonder! Music by Ken Allen, Mark Seibert. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1990
Opening Music, King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow. Music by Mark Seibert. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1992
Girl in the Tower, King’s Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow. Music by Mark Seibert. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1992
Land Beyond Dreams, King’s Quest VII: The Princeless Bride. Music by Neal Grandstaff, Jay D. Usher, Lorelei Shannon. Performed by Debbie Seibert. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1994
End Titles, King’s Quest: Mask of Eternity. Music by Ben Hogue, Mark Seibert, Kevin Manthei. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1998
Main Theme, Space Quest: The Sarien Encounter. Music by Mark Crowe. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1986
Main Theme, Space Quest II: Vohaul’s Revenge. Music by Al Lowe. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1987
Main Theme, Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon. Music by Bob Siebenberg. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1989
Monolith Burger Jingle. From the 1989 SQIII demo VHS tape. Music by Bob Siebenberg. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1989
Main Theme, Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. Music by Ken Allen, Mark Seibert. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1991
Magmetheus bar music, Space Quest IV: Roger Wilco and the Time Rippers. Music by Ken Allen, Mark Seibert. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1991
Main Theme, Space Quest V: Roger Wilco in The Next Mutation. Music By Timothy Steven Clarke. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1993
Main Theme, Space Quest VI: Roger Wilco in The Spinal Frontier. Music by Dan Kehler, Neal Grandstaff. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1995
Soylent Clear jingle, Space Quest VI: Roger Wilco in The Spinal Frontier. Music by Dan Kehler, Neal Grandstaff. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1995
Main Theme, SpaceVenture. Music by Ken Allen. Published by Guys From Andromeda, LLC., 2022
Larry’s Theme, Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. Music by Al Lowe. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1987
Larry’s Theme, Leisure Suit Larry Goes Looking for Love (In Several Wrong Places). Music by Al Lowe. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1988
Larry’s Theme, Leisure Suit Larry III: Passionate Patti in Pursuit of the Pulsating Pectorals. Music by Mike Dana. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1989
Larry’s Theme, Leisure Suit Larry 5: Passionate Patti Does a Little Undercover Work. Music by Craig Safan. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1991
Larry’s Theme, Leisure Suit Larry 6: Shape up or Slip Out! Music by Dan Kehler. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1993
Larry’s Theme, Leisure Suit Larry: Love for Sail! Music by Frank Zottoli. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1996
Larry’s Theme, Leisure Suit Larry Reloaded. Music by Austin Wintory. Published by Sierra On-Line, 2013
The Ballad of Freddy Pharkas, Freddy Pharkas, Frontier Pharmacist. Music by Aubrey Hodges. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1993
Opening Theme, Police Quest: In Pursuit of the Death Angel. Music by Margaret Lowe. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1987
Opening Music, Police Quest II: The Vengeance. Music by Mark Seibert. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1988
Opening Music, Police Quest III: The Kindred. Music by Jan Hammer. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1991
Erana’s Peace, Quest for Glory I: So You Want to Be a Hero. Music by Mark Seibert. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1989
Main Titles, Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire. Music by Mark Seibert. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1990
Main Titles, Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness. Music by Aubrey Hodges. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1993
Maniac Mansion Theme, Maniac Mansion. Music by Chris Grigg, David Lawrence. Published by Lucasfilm, 1987
Main Theme, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. Music by Robert Holmes. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1993
Opening Theme, Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. Music by David Henry. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1999
Main Titles, Gabriel Knight 3: Blood of the Sacred, Blood of the Damned. Music by David Henry. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1999
Menu Theme, Roberta Williams’ Phantasmagoria. Music by Mark Seibert, Jay Usher, Neal Grandstaff. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1995
Intro Theme, Roberta Williams’ Phantasmagoria. Music by Mark Seibert, Jay Usher, Neal Grandstaff. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1995
Take a Stand (Closing Theme), Roberta Williams’ Phantasmagoria. Song by Mark Seibert, performed by Jacqueline Goodwin. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1995
Rage (Closing Theme), Phantasmagoria: A Puzzle of Flesh. Music by Gary Spinrad. Published by Sierra Studios, 1996
End Credits, Half-Life. Music by Kelly Bailey. Published by Sierra On-Line, 1998
End Credits, King’s Quest (2015). Music by Ben & David Stanton. Published by Activision, 2015
External Links (Click to view)
Click here to sift through the ashes of Sierra
Online version of Softporn Adventure, inspiration for Liesure Suit Larry
Disney acquired Lucasfilm and shuttered video game division LucasArts in 2013, here is what’s left.