Roberta Williams Is the World’s First Graphic Computer Game Designer — But She’s Famous for All the Wrong Reasons
‘Video game history doesn’t know how to make sense of her except to single her out’
By Perrin Drumm
YOU ARE IN THE FRONT YARD OF A LARGE ABANDONED VICTORIAN HOUSE. STONE STEPS LEAD UP TO A WIDE PORCH.
— — — — — ENTER COMMAND?
If you’re a computer programmer or digital designer over the age of 40, this is probably how the future began for you. Two simple sentences and a cursor, blinking like a heartbeat, waiting for your command. To anyone else, it might read more like the beginning of an odd and boring story, but the format will be familiar to all those who have ever dabbled in microcomputing. It was the same way all text-based computer games started: a bare-bones setup and an invitation to venture forth, uncover the clues, and win the game. But it wasn’t just the text, flashing on the screen of an 8-bit Apple II that shot out like a siren call from the wild — it was the graphics. They were monochrome, ridiculously rudimentary, and they blew everyone away.
The year was 1980, and Roberta Williams, a shy, soft-spoken housewife with little coding or design experience to speak of, rose from obscurity…
