If you are a fan of old Sierra games, it might not come as a surprise, that Ken Williams, who got bored during the quarantines, has been developing a new game after he started tinkering with modern game development tools to relieve his boredom. For a while, he popped up here and there around the net, talking of how he was impressed with Unity engine after having been out from the loop for a good 20-years or so. He was planning on making a game, not a big one, just something small in order to get back in the groove. And Roberta had suggested to him a good idea on what to do
And now we know, as do you, as I'm sure you read the title, but I'll slap it here just to be safe: Colossal Cave Adventure 3D
For those, not in the know, Colossal Cave is the granddaddy of all adventure games and the game that sparked Roberta's interest in becoming a game developer. Without it, she would have never dreamed up Mystery House, the very first game she and Ken developed and which laid to foundations for the company that was Sierra On-Line.
As Ken Williams has himself stated in his book, his big idea was always to look forwards in tech and this time around, he's doing the same. While Colossal Cave 3D Adventure is coming to PCs, his newfound studio Cygnus Entertainment is planning on releasing this new iteration of the Colossal Cave to VR as well.
So while remaking Colossal Cave isn't a new idea in itself, there have been more than 100 remakes of the 1975 original, but this version plans on not only adding 3D environments and graphics, it plans on taking the old classic to virtual realms as well.
If you were wondering how Colossal Cave ended up as the game Williams's ended up doing, the story is quite simple, really. It all began, when Ken wanted to check out modern game-making tools, out of boredom, during the Covid. At first, after tinkering for a while, he decided he'd do a sort of an educational title, teaching people to code, but Roberta wasn't that keen on the idea. Then the next day, she told Ken, perhaps half-joking, maybe he should do Colossal Cave instead. A couple of hours later, Ken informed, that he had called Don Woods, the co-developer of the Cave, the main developer being Wiliam Crowther, and he stated he was fine with the idea if they wouldn't try to claim the title as their original invention. With that blessing, Ken and Roberta started tinkering with their own money.
If you want to learn more about Williams's story, you can head down to Cygnus Entertainment's site. They have posted more stuff there.
Only time will tell how Colossal CaveAdventure 3D will end up as. But it is nonetheless interesting to see Ken and Roberta is at it again after such a long absence from the gaming world. Apparently, the planned release date is in fall 2022, so we might get to see the results sooner rather than later.
Personally, I'm cautiously optimistic about this. It's fun to see Roberta and Ken back on the saddle again. For a couple of decades, they've been sailing around the world, but now they have the itch again to create at least one game. Maybe, hopefully, if this does well, there's more stuff in the future.
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