From Ken’s Desk ~ “For the first time in our newsletter we actually have an article by Roberta. She talks about the game and why we decided to come back from retirement and make a game after all these years.
I hope you will enjoy this issue of the newsletter!”

In this edition…
Why Roberta Loves Colossal Cave!
Livestream event with GOG.com and Kilg0re_Tr0ut! Ken & Roberta play Colossal Cave!
New Accolades Trailer!
Thank you for reading.

The past two years, I have been asked, repeatedly, “Why Colossal Cave? Why bring it back?” Essentially, the question really means, “What is it about Colossal Cave? Why now? And what’s really your motive?” I’ve detected that implication each time those innocent questions are asked. So, I feel compelled to confess my real thoughts and inner feelings on the subject of this game, Colossal Cave Adventure.

Much has been written about the history of Colossal Cave, about William and Patricia Crowther, and Don Woods — and I won’t delve into the history of the Colossal Cave Adventure game itself, as that information is readily available on the Internet. (A quick aside – I find it interesting that we can search for information about William Crowther on the internet, yet without William Crowther, there might not be an internet! He was a senior software engineer on an elite team developing the Arpanet – the precursor to the Internet – but also, he was the inventor of the Colossal Cave Adventure game! Kind of cool, huh?) But back to the question of “Why bother with Colossal Cave now?” Well, here we go then, taking a deep dive into my past and early psyche!

Ken and I married very young – him 18, me 19 – in November of ’72. I was always a bright, imaginative child, but remained immature as I entered my teen years. In my mid-teens, I must have appeared capricious, impulsive, and even a bit flighty. However, in my own mind, I was not really ‘that,’ but instead was an awkward and somewhat shy girl – and deep inside, unsure of myself. My personality does tend toward the idea of ‘adventure,’ though, and still today, I can get excited by ‘possibilities’ which, when you’re a teenager and you’re still a bit immature, can gain you a reputation for capricious behavior and impulsiveness. That was me then, and I had no idea what in the world I wanted to do! Ok, I take that back — I kind of did and had I gone that way, it’s very possible that I might have turned into a world-famous archeologist!

In my senior year of high school in southern California, my father was desperate to focus me on a stable future with a good job – he knew that I was smart and could do anything – if I wanted to. He constantly advised (maybe, nagged) that I should go to a university and become a dentist, an optometrist…or a nutritionist! Why those three occupations? I have no idea, but that was my dad! My retort to him always, “Ugh, I’d like to be an archeologist or a Hollywood script writer – or maybe write children’s books.” To him, those sounded like silly, childish ideas. “What kind of money do you think you’d make doing that?” he’d respond, dismissively. So, I rebelled and refused to go to college at all! That was me then: rebellious, stubborn, creative, silly, immature.

By the beginning of 1974, I was a young mother and Ken had just graduated from a technical school called Control Data Institute to learn how to operate and program computers on large corporate or government mainframe computers. He turned out to be a super-whiz at computers and programming, absolutely a natural! He loved everything about computers (still does!) and his career took off immediately. His first job was as a computer operator for a junior college in southern California – operating an IBM 360 mainframe computer. Many nights, I remember bundling up our new baby and going with Ken to the college computer room to ‘help’ him — meaning I was doing the actual computer operating while he was using the computer to hone his skills as a programmer. A few months later, he got his first job as an actual programmer, and from that point on, he was ‘in demand,’ constantly changing jobs – seemingly about every 6 months – getting better and better jobs and salary. In those halcyon days, being young and starting our married life at the beginning of the computer industry, life just seemed unbelievably fortunate and bright! I got in the act, too; because I had learned how to operate IBM 360 computers, I was able to obtain a couple of jobs as a computer operator — for a junior college in Springfield, Illinois and later on, for the County of Los Angeles in LA. But, for me, those jobs were boring and totally ‘unfun.’ Intermingled somewhere in those first 3 to 4 years of marriage, I had also taken some COBOL programming classes and somehow managed to get a trainee programming job at a southern California food company. But though I was doing a ‘reasonable’ job at it, I just didn’t like programming. Computer operations or programming jobs were definitely not for me! I just didn’t know what I wanted to do!

Deviating backward a moment, when I was in high school, I began to notice the Women’s Liberation Movement. But being me, didn’t really pay much attention to it; it was too serious of a subject, and I wasn’t into serious thinking. As I hinted earlier, I was into fun, rebellion and being very unserious. Had I been more of a thoughtful girl, I probably would have taken my dad’s advice on majoring in dentistry or optometry. Alternatively, I might have really tried to have a serious discussion with him about my passion of studying archeology. I probably could have convinced him if I had really tried, but I was into boys and fun and looking ‘cute.’

And besides, I had just met Ken, and there was nothing to keep me from continuing my generally aimless ways.?However, during the 5-year gap between the birth of our two sons, I became more aware of the Women’s Liberation Movement and began to think more about it. In fact, my lack of earnestness on the subject began to weigh on me and I began to grow a bit alarmed by my fleeting approach to life – relying too much on Ken and not doing much for myself. I felt that I could do more! But what? I could feel that I was losing my sense of ‘fun’ and ‘adventure,’ and that I didn’t really seem to be going anywhere. I remembered, as a girl, getting after my mom for never following through with her dream of becoming a graphic artist – she was very talented! But she would respond that her life was as a wife and a mother, which was very common for women in the 1960’s and 70’s. Was I going in that direction, too? Did I want to be more than that? Yes, I did, but the big question was…

What should I do?

Enter Colossal Cave! Our second son was just a baby when I discovered Colossal Cave Adventure in November of 1979. It was simply called Adventure on the IBM computer on which Ken was doing some after-hours contract work. He had brought home a teletype machine with which he could sign into the company’s mainframe computer from our home in Simi Valley, California to the company’s location in downtown Los Angeles. One evening he decided to search deeper into the computer’s server, and he found some games. Wow, he thought! What are these? From my memory, there was a text-based Star Trek game, a text-based football game with X’s and O’s representing the players — and one other game with the odd name of Advent. Ken tried out those other two for a while, and then checked out the curious Advent. Turns out that it was a text-based cave adventure called Colossal Cave Adventure. He started playing it, then decided that I might like playing it while he went to work at his day job. He introduced Colossal Cave to me — and my life changed! Well, actually, it was even more profound than that; what it really did was to help me ‘find myself.’ Yeah, I know that sounds so New Age-y, and I’m definitely not a New Age-type of person – though I do admit to practicing yoga! – but, underneath it all, I’m basically a pretty down-to-earth person. What I mean by ‘find myself’ — as explained above — I was lost and didn’t know what I really wanted. Colossal Cave gave back to me my ‘inner child,’ of whom I had honestly lost track. Playing Colossal Cave, I became obsessed and addicted to it, really. I played it every spare hour I could — possibly even ignoring the baby more than I should have (though he turned out all right!), but I couldn’t help myself. An idea began to form in my head as I continued playing this game. I had never felt like this before! I found myself thinking and planning a game of my own in bed at night and became so excited by the idea that I drove to a local art store and bought oversize pieces of thick white paper. I brought them home and sat down at the proverbial ‘kitchen table’ to start sketching and doodling out a game map of my own. In my mind, I was calling it Mystery House because I based it on the board game ‘Clue’ and a story much like an Agatha Christie novel.

It was an impulsive thing to do, but I found myself compelled, and just knew that I was on to something! I convinced Ken to work with me on it, and together we created the first computer game with graphics – for the Apple II computer. So, how did Colossal Cave Adventure manage to change my world in such a profound way? It did it by reaching deep into my soul, my very brain. Though I was ‘spelunking’ in the Colossal Cave game, Colossal Cave had entered into the crevices of my own grey matter and dug out forgotten urges of fun, adventure, creating, and storytelling.. In actuality, I had never really lost those, but had locked them deep inside and tossed aside the key. Colossal Cave recovered that key for me!

… to be continued…

here will be a live 60 minute (plus) Twitch stream with GOG’s streamer Kilg0re_Tr0ut interviewing and playing with both Ken and Roberta Williams on March 10th, at 12:00PM PST | 3:00PM EST.

Interview, game play, plus live chat!  Grab the 50% off code for Colossal Cave, only during the live event. 

We hope to see you there!

GOG on TwitchTV

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RELEASE SCHEDULE

Already released and available now:

• Windows, Mac, Linux, Steam Deck, Sony PS5, Nintendo Switch, Meta Quest 2

Coming in March (All dates subject to slippage, so no promises!)

• Sony PS4, Xbox X|S, Xbox One, Steam VR, Pico VR
• European and Asian release on the Nintendo Switch version of the game

Coming in April

• Sony PSVR 2, iPad

Coming in May

• iPhone, Android phones and tablets

PRICE CHANGE

“I have good news! Colossal Cave has a new price! Colossal Cave is now $24.99!

(Note: Due to restrictions, Meta Quest 2 will not lower in price until April.)

Behind the scenes, there was a debate between myself and our marketing group. I thought the correct price should be significantly higher, and we did launch at $40. But our marketing group insisted that the world has changed since Roberta and I last released a game, and that gamers expect lower prices from indie developers.

There were a few reasons I felt a higher price was justified, including that this was a very expensive game to build! And yet, I’m not sure this is a game for everyone. It targets a fairly small slice of the market. It’s a mentally challenging game in a world where the bigger hits are action oriented. We didn’t want to cheapen the quality of the game. So, when you look at our production cost, and divide it by the size of the target market, you recognize that the price per copy needs to be high.

I didn’t (and still don’t) consider $39.99 to be a big number. You can hardly go to the movies these days, with popcorn and parking, and not spend that much. Roberta’s last game sold over a million copies at $59.99, over 25 years ago! That’s probably over $100 in 2023 numbers. I’d also mention that many of today’s games, that are available at low cost, have in-game spending. We have none of that and don’t plan on using this game in any way to make money beyond the initial purchase.

I should also mention that buying the game (at least through Steam) gives you all of: The Windows version, the Mac version, the Steam Deck version, and the Steam VR version (when it is available .. soon I hope!) The Steam Deck version is a true Linux version that runs awesome on a Steam Deck, and the Steam VR version of the game is a big step up from what we released on the Quest 2. I should probably also admit that we got pinged for a few things on the initial release of the Quest 2 version and we are addressing those issues now for our Steam VR version of the game. The Steam VR (or should I call it PC VR?) release will be an amazing one. From my perspective, it’s a heck of a deal. Note that all improved functionality and polish will be automatically updated on the Meta Quest 2, as well as all future VR ports.

And all of that said: Today’s price points are lower and player expectations are for lower prices. It doesn’t matter what I think is fair, what math I run through my spreadsheets, or anything except what players think. The message I’ve heard is that $39.99 is too high, so we lowered it.”

– Price change – $24.99 (Quest 2 will update in April)

– Aside from Steam, the game is available:

• Epic Games
• Nintendo Switch
• Meta Quest 2
• PlayStation 5
• GOG (New!)
• Humble Bundle (New!)
• Amazon
• Itch.io (Coming Soon!)

– It doesn’t sound like a big deal, but probably the biggest change we’ve made was to add text to the page that asks the player if they would like instructions. The way the original text game works is that if the player asks for instructions they are given 1,000 moves on the lamp, otherwise they are given only 300. Completing the game in 300 moves should only be attempted by someone playing the game to get the maximum 350 points. The idea is to take instructions until you have worked out your strategies for winning and then play again NOT taking instructions. The original game gave the player no indication of what was happening. We debated adding something but forced ourselves to be true to the original game. That turned out to be a bad idea, in that players were running out of lamp time.

– A less obvious change, but one with great impact was that we completely replaced all of the marketing information on places where the game is sold and added a video of Roberta playing the game. We are still in the process of ripping that content through the other store fronts.  Our initial marketing information gave the impression that it was an action game. I never wanted that. It’s not an action game and anyone thinking it is will be disappointed. It’s more like an interactive escape room or puzzle game. It’s important that the right players buy the game, and that they know what they are getting. I also wanted to emphasize the history more. It’s a museum piece for people who want to see the history of gaming. We’re working on a documentary now that highlights the origins of the game.

– There are a couple mazes in the game, and they are impossible for some players. There are at least three solutions to the mazes that make them very easy. Mapping is one, but there are others that make them even simpler. There is a hint that pops up asking the player if they’d like a hint, but it was coming up only every 50 moves and was only in one of the two mazes. We dropped this to fewer moves and placed it in both mazes.

FYI – Don Woods, one of the authors of the original game played the game and gave this feedback with a fourth way to solve the maze (Spoiler alert!)

“I was dismayed at how trivial the all-alike maze becomes when the game fills in the map as I go. I just ran around a while and then looked to see what I had. And of course the pirate’s lair is much much easier to find given that the map reveals the northwest exit: the ONLY passage in that maze that isn’t E/W/N/S/U/D. I wasn’t sure what you’d do to make it harder to find, and instead the map makes it stand out! (The art for the lair itself was quite nice, btw.)”

– When a player would get killed and choose resurrection, the lamp counter was not being reset. In other words, if you were almost out of lamp light, and fell off a cliff, you’d still have the same number of time left in your lamp post-resurrection. We now give you a minimum of 300 moves in the lamp after resurrection.

– The hint on the grate (the entrance to the cave) was broken. We fixed it.

– There are some rooms that have passages that return you to the room from which you departed. There are also passages that roll the dice to decide where to take you. We added hints to these so that players would realize what was happening. Once again, the original text game gave the player no indication of what was happening, and we wanted to be faithful to the original. We treated the whole project as preserving history. However, now that we have real player feedback, we have softened a little and realize that some additional hints are needed.

– Various bug fixes, translation fixes (improved the Russian, Japanese, and Italian translations), and improved animations.

And there is more coming!

– We decided to bundle all five versions under one Steam key: PC, Mac, Steam Deck (a true Linux native Steam Deck version), Linux AND an amazing Steam VR version (coming very soon) There are some VERY dramatic enhancements that are in the Steam VR version over what was released on the Quest 2 VR (which has been updated with these changes).

– We’ve put a lot of effort into the VR versions of the game! The inventory system has been completely redesigned and coded. Plus, and I don’t like promising things that we haven’t released, but this is real, and I’ve played it, so it is coming. I’m just not sure exactly when, but we are adding a THIRD form of movement in VR. We have the classic mode which operates like most VR games you might play, and we have a special “comfort mode” that Roberta designed. We are now adding a Teleport mode, so that players who get nauseous in VR can play the game comfortably (or, at least more comfortably)

AN INTERESTING RUMOR AND A LOOK AHEAD

You may have seen some rumors in the press that we are talking to the team who made the game SpaceVenture. At this time the talks are strictly just that: “talk.” There is no agreement and there may never be an agreement. But here’s what I know: Scott Murphy and Mark Crowe developed the Space Quest series for Sierra. After the company was sold and Roberta and I retired, Scott and Mark did a KickStarter to develop a game called SpaceVenture. It has the same twisted humor as their Space Quest games, and has been in development for almost 10 years. Roberta’s and my new company, Cygnus, has experience building games for lots of platforms, and in lots of languages, and can help get SpaceVenture more widely distributed. Space Quest was always one of my favorite games at Sierra and I’d love to find a way to help them bring the game to more people.

That said, Roberta and I were happily retired prior to building this game and are not sure we want to do more. We’ve been living real-world adventures by exploring the world on a small boat. I’ve been watching boat videos each morning and remembering our times spent at anchor with crystal clear blue water and white sand beaches. We’ve already started planning this summer’s cruising and are even working on a boat slip in Mexico for next Spring. I’ve signed up for the Elon Musk satellite service so we can have fast internet on the boat, so working from anywhere is possible. But, is working while boating what we really want to do? Your guess is as good as ours.

At this point we are very busy getting this game successfully launched, and after that we’ll go boating. Whether that will include working on SpaceVenture, or creating some new series of games, or just relaxing and enjoying the boating, we do not know.

We shall see.

AND LASTLY, HERE ARE LINKS TO SOME OF OUR OTHER RECENT PRESS FOR THE GAME, AND SOME VIDEOS WE HAVE DONE TO SHOWCASE THE GAME

EscapistMagazine: Industry Legends Ken & Roberta Williams on Remaking a Classic Adventure, Colossal Cave

GOG News: In-depth conversation with legendary Ken and Roberta Williams for the Colossal Cave release!

XRSource: Colossal Cave Coming to PS VR 2.

BleedingCool: Colossal Cave will be released on Xbox in late March. (Trailer)

Adventure Game Geek: We love our fans and have a tendency to reach out and play with reviewers both big and small.  Some really great videos coming up.  Here’s just one of many fun ones we recently contributed to.