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It’s very unlikely that Roberta would look at your design. She made the comment the other night that she likes to think forward, not backwards. She is focused on whatever comes next, and doesn’t like to think about things she did before. She didn’t like thinking about Kings Quest 1 when she started on Kings Quest 2, or Kings Quest 2 during Kings Quest 3, etc. She loved the Sierra years (actually decades) – but, they were then and this is now. She refuses to do any interviews or ANYTHING related to the Sierra years.
-Ken W
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I think it’s a total shame that Roberta feels this way. Roberta is the reason why a lot of people in this forum are interested in, or actually working in, the game industry. (me for example) One thing I’ve noticed is VERY prevalent in this industry is that only the tiniest fraction of people actually see value in doing post mortems on their work. (looking back) Many say they do, but very few earnestly do. It usually gets done, but half-heartedly, is promptly forgotten, and people repeat the same mistakes they did 3 years prior. It’s a horrible shame that Roberta is of this school of people that would not impart her extremely vast knowledge to others on how things went from a designer’s POV. Very few people get the chance to design as many games as she has over the span of so many years, and her hindsight on mistakes/successes would help guide many others around time-consuming pitfalls and on to better game designs.
I’ve been inspired to get into games ever since I read Roberta quoted early in her career saying how she saw that most games out there were mindless action and that she wanted to make games that tested one’s ability to think logically and problem solve. I am personally trying to find out why this type of game fell out of favor (the average game today does not require the brainpower needed for the average game 15 years ago) and what can be done to respark an interest in them. I’m glad that Ken sees the value in analyzing the past, but I think Roberta’s perspective could be extremely beneficial as well.
-Jim