S4E11 – A Fucked Up Stick Figure Looking Game That Doesn’t Make Any Sense

Back Seat Designers

The history of computer games. A list of one fucking game after another leading to perfection – King’s Quest V.

We have pushed this view of history for a long time on this show. But apparently there’s another way to look at things. To put us straight, we phoned up Laine Nooney and asked her to explain what we’ve been doing wrong.

As the historian of the group, I was asked to mediate the discussion. Which was a good call, since it only took her five minutes to chastise Troels for his terrible jokes about academics. She was right to do so. And we all thank her for it.

What Troels can see on his Skype call screen – while getting a SICK BURN, BRO

Laine discusses why a wider history of Sierra and other companies can tell us more about ourselves and where our games came from. The history isn’t just about great designers and classic adventures; it’s about janitors, low-level coders, PR departments and the wider culture of the 80s and 90s. If you look at AGI as an assembly line, we can dig beyond the myths and legends and start poking around the true industrial side of the gaming industry.

We also spend some time doing what we never usually do – praise Roberta Williams. And Laine gives us some fascinating insight into just why Roberta matters – not as a female game designer, but as an outlier that tells us so much about the wider culture of those pioneers in 1980s adventures.

Given how clever this is and how flippant we are about everything, Laine did rather well to keep control, I think.

You can actually play this game FOR FREE at Archive.org — https://archive.org/details/Hi-Res_Adventure_1_Mystery_House_1980_On-Line_Systems

Throughout the episode I mention this article a lot: it’s an academic piece that might be a bit dense for the lay reader. But, fear not! Because Laine linked us to topless photos of Roberta Williams (sort of)…

Yep. That’s Bertie on the right.

Check out her article on the Softporn photo shoot here on The Atlantic.

I know you’re all now dying to get your ear balls around the new episode. So here’s a YubTubs vid…

And the audio is at the bottom of this post.

Laine can be found most easily through her excellent website here. Based on this, I think it’s time to give my academic portal a spruce. (That is not a euphamism.)