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Ken Williams | Co-Founder of Sierra On-Line - Retro Tea Break

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8th July 2021 1 hr 3 min

Ken and Roberta Williams created Sierra On-Line in 1979 with their first graphical adventure game for the Apple II compute "Mystery House". From these humble beginnings the world opened up for them and with games such as Police Quest, Space Quest, Leisure Suit Larry and Kings Quest, Sierra rocketed to the top of the charts and became one of the biggest game publishers in the world.

Today we meet Ken and discuss those early days, and find out a little more about his history and his exciting new game.

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●Chapters

00:20 Intro to Ken Williams

01:05 How Ken Williams got into computers

02:57 Ken Williams ambitions as a young man

05:23 Was Ken Williams a geek like us

07:36 Did Ken Williams play games?

08:28 On Ken and Roberta's Apple II

09:34 The inspiration for Mystery House

13:34 Did Ken want to sell more serious software?

14:22 Does Ken have an Apple I?

18:33 The Videogame crash

20:55 Offering royalities to designers

23:10 "Ken Sent Me" & Leisure Suit Larry 4

25:50 Sierra's deal with IBM for Kings Quest

31:12 What is Ken Williams favourite Kings Quest

34:12 Ken Williams on the quality of his big box games

37:30 What is the perfect Sierra game?

38:56 What is it like working with Disney?

41:02 How do you stay ahead in the games industry?

45:53 What Quest games did Sierra never release?

48:05 The demise of Sierra

54:05 Ken Williams on his new game

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● Episode Links

Kens new game: https://kensgame.com

Kens book: https://kensbook.com

Robertas Book: https://robertasbook.com

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