'I've got a reputation to protect': How a game design legend was lured out of retirement

One of the most revered American game designers is sitting in the lower level of a yacht somewhere off the coast of Canada, discussing how she was unexpectedly dragged back into the life she left behind. Roberta Williams, creator of the franchise "King's Quest," a breakthrough in interactive storytelling and one of the first major graphic-driven adventure games, has a reputation as being a bit enigmatic, perhaps a tad shy.

And at this moment, with her husband sitting beside her, she's calmly explaining how she wasn't going to let him sully the family name with a subpar game. The Williams brand, after all, is one of legend.

Roberta and Ken Williams, the founders of Sierra On-Line, helped mainstream the idea of narrative-driven games. Consider Roberta's games — "Mystery House," "Mixed-up Mother Goose," "Phantasmagoria" and eight core "King's Quest" titles among them — plus other works published by Sierra, some of which have aged better than others, including the "Space Quest," "Police Quest" and "Leisure Suit Larry" brands. Sierra in the '80s and '90s was a household name, to computer game players what Nintendo was to console users.

And now, Roberta and Ken are making a comeback.

They're readying their first new game in about 25 years. "Colossal Cave 3D Adventure" is still a ways away from release, but it will mark their return to an industry that they left amid professional heartbreak, lots of frustration and a multiyear noncompete agreement that led them away from the game business. As they became boating aficionados and minor celebrities in that world — Ken has authored a few books on the subject of long-distance sailing — their return to gaming seemed increasingly unlikely.

Ken has written that the noncompete clause was