The Mind Behind `Phantasmagoria' -- Game Designer Focuses On Story, Characters

NEW YORK - At first blush, Roberta Williams seems miscast.

Her speech isn't peppered with the references to video compression and microprocessor advances that one might expect of a high-tech pioneer. She doesn't have the glazed-over look of someone who has spent hours at a keyboard writing computer code.

Dressed in neat business attire and chatting over breakfast at a posh Manhattan hotel, Williams could easily pass for an attorney or a successful corporate executive.

Make no mistake, though. Williams, the woman behind the hit computer game "Phantasmagoria," the "King's Quest" game series and co-founder of Bellevue-based Sierra On-Line Inc., is a high-tech groundbreaker.

For Williams, one of the few well-known women in her field, designing games is more than just a job.

"At the end of a project, I get very weird, you know, in my head because I'm not doing it" anymore, she said. "It's like an addiction. I have to do it."

Completion of "Phantasmagoria," then, must have been an epic letdown. Involving more than 200 people, two years of work and $4 million in development costs, "Phantasmagoria" ranks as one of the most ambitious computer games attempted to date. It is played on seven CD-ROMs and brings real actors and actresses into a computer-generated world of terror.

Williams' romance with computer games began after she and her husband, Ken, a programmer, got an Apple computer for Christmas 1979. She soon found herself playing one of the early text-only games.

"I have never been pulled into anything so hard in my life," she said. "It's like a light bulb went off."

The Williamses decided to create a game of their own based on a murder mystery. She would write the story. He would program. The result was "Mystery House," which the company touts as the first computer game to use pictures as well as text.

That game, introduced in 1980, evolved into Sierra On-Line, one of the nation's leading computer-game companies, with revenue of $83.4 million for the fiscal year ended March 31. Ken Williams runs the company. Roberta Williams, who isn't a programmer but instead works in the realm of character and plot, designs games.

"She's one of the best in the world, no arguing about that," said David Farina, a securities analyst at William Blair & Co. "She's just a good storyteller, and that's the thing that's been lacking in games."

Others, too, point out that it's tempting - and all too common - to create games that have blazing graphics and ear-popping sound but that don't have much of a plot to keep a player's interest.

That is one of the industry's big challenges as it attempts to appeal to the general marketplace rather than solely to hard-core game players. "Phantasmagoria" was designed with the general computer user in mind.

"It's paced well," said Graeme Devine, chief executive of Trilobyte Inc., another computer-game maker. "It's definitely designed for a wider class of audience. I actually enjoy games like that."

Williams' story revolves around Adrienne Delaney, who with her husband, Donald Gordon, moves into a mansion on a small island. The couple is played by real actors, as are other characters, and as Adrienne explores her new surroundings she uncovers a world of evil and horror that turns her life into a nightmare.

With the click of a mouse, players control her choices and actions, such as having her pick up a key, unlock a door and walk into the world beyond. The cast of actors is presented in computer-rendered color, and an eerie soundtrack helps build the mood.

The game's violent moments - evil has a way of easily finding its female protagonist - have created some controversy. For example, the big computer chain CompUSA Inc. has refused to carry it.

Williams, who notes that the package is labeled to make clear that the game is not for children, argues that the terror is not gratuitous.

"You decide you're going to do horror, then gosh darn it, do horror," she said.

A horror game that's not scary would hardly be worth the time, said Williams, 42, the mother of two.

Controversy doesn't appear to be scaring buyers away from Williams' creation. "Phantasmagoria" ranked as the best-selling game by unit volume in September, said PC Data Inc., a software marketing firm.

Despite some recent rocky results, Sierra On-Line's finances have improved, as has its stock price. Trading on the Nasdaq National Market System, the company's shares have more than doubled in value this year alone. The Williamses own about 11 percent of the stock, which was trading at $36.75, down $1.50, at midday today.

Profit for Sierra On-Line's fiscal second quarter ended Sept. 30 totaled $3.3 million, compared with a loss of $850,000 a year ago.

"Sierra is a company that had a past that was less than stellar," analyst Farina said. "They were very good at spending a lot of money and doing great games and not good at making a lot of money. That's changed. It's a company that's focused on its mission now."

Williams, too, seems to have a mission, luckily for her.

"If I weren't doing this," she said, "I'd probably still be bumbling around trying to figure out what to do with my life."