<![CDATA[Game Designers Remembered

After learning to program assembly language in college, Bill Williams coded his first game in 1982 called 'Salmon Run' on the Atari 800 his father gave to him. Without really thinking he would get it published, he sent the game to Atari's 3rd party publishing arm, Atari Program Exchange (APX). To his surprise, Atari liked the game and published it! Thus started Bill William's career as a game programmer.

"I had this awful fear that, unless I worked really hard, it would be impossible for me to produce anything but time-wasters. I demanded from every one of [my games] that, as much as possible, they be in some way drawing the person forward so they were acquiring something, they were growing somewhere, they weren't just killing time." -Bill Williams in an interview with Peter Olafson of Amazing Computing magazine 1998

His games were unique, innovative, and definitely not "time-wasters". Always delivering more than what was expected of him, he churned out some great, stand-out games in the mid 80s. Mind Walker, Sinbad and the Throne of the Falcon, and Pioneer Plague really pushed the limits of the technology of the day. In fact, Pioneer Plague is noted to be one of the first, if not the first game for the Amiga to use all 4096 colors on animated objects. Imagine that!

During the days of 4-color CGA graphics from DOS PCs, Bill Williams was creating some rich, colorful masterpieces that no one had ever seen before. He was also developing amazing sound effects and original music in his games too. And with all the time he spent on those creative components, he still made the effort to interweave deep story lines and intelligent character dialogue as well.

"The action in the shoot ‘em up sections is incredibly frenetic, leaving you feeling quite drained after a long battle. Blasting fans should enjoy Pioneer Plague as it’s much more than a few pretty pictures."
-Zzap! C64 Amiga magazine review of Pioneer Plague

Near the end of his career, Bill created Monopoly for the NES and a nearly complete Bart's Nightmare for the Super Nintendo. By this time however, he was jaded. As excited as he was creating games for the new Amiga platform and PCs in the 80s, he felt just the opposite trying to work with all the "suits" in the more corporate environment that evolved in the video game industry. What his bosses would deem as okay on a game idea one day, would be rejected the next.

The environment became too corporate and oppressive, and Bart's Nightmare (what he later phrased as "Bill's Nightmare") was handed to another programmer as he walked out the door. With the magic he once felt designing games now gone, he quit the game industry.

Bill went on to receive a master's degree in theology, wrote a quasi-fictional autobiography titled: Naked Before God, then passed away shortly after it's publication.

"When I die, it's not going to be a tragedy, it's going to be a release ... It's Bill finally being able to set down a weight that's gotten very, very heavy." -Bill Williams

Near the end of his life, he was still being asked by various people to work on video games. However, he always said 'no'. He was quoted in an interview with Peter Olafson of Amazing Computing magazine saying, "My job these days is breathing".

One's priorities certainly change when surviving has to be positioned above all other goals. We miss you Bill.

What you may not know:

Bill hid the message, "MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND KEEP YOU" within the code in his game Alley Cat
Bill made only $600 on Alley Cat

Portfolio: