Q&A with Roberta & Ken Williams, developers of reimagined Colossal Cave, out now

blog.playstation.com:

Ken and Roberta Williams need little introduction among adventure game fans. The duo, who founded legendary developer Sierra On-Line in the earliest days of gaming, has been responsible for some of the genre’s most innovative, daring, and memorable titles. The two have been away from game development for quite some time, but they haven’t been out of the spotlight–in recent years, the pair has been honored with a Gaming Icon Award from The Game Awards, and Roberta received a Pioneer Award at the 2019 Game Developers Conference. 

Now, the accomplished tag team is returning to the world of adventure games after 25 years with a new development team, Cygnus Entertainment. The team’s first outing is a full remake of a true classic: Colossal Cave. Originally a pioneering text adventure game released back in 1976 and called Colossal Cave Adventure, Colossal Cave transforms the lime-green-on-black text of the original into a visually captivating graphic adventure. The original game was a huge influence on many of the designers of the era, including Ken and Roberta, who are funding this ambitious remake. We sat down with the power duo to discuss their return to the world of game development and what players can expect from their return to game development. 

This interview has been edited and condensed for brevity and clarity.

PlayStation.Blog: Roberta, can you tell us about your experiences with the original text-based Colossal Cave Adventure back in 1976 or 1977?

Roberta: I had never played a computer game ever. I think Colossal Cave may be the first or, if not, then very very close to the first computer game ever. And it certainly was the first adventure game — I mean, it basically invented the concept of an adventure game.