Return of a Classic: Explore the Mysteries of ‘Colossal Cave’ Today on Meta Quest 2

Playing Colossal Cave Adventure was a pivotal moment for Ken and Roberta Williams, who went on to have a long and successful career making graphical adventure games for PC. Decades after retiring, the husband-and-wife duo are back with a modernized version of the classic text adventure game, one built from the ground-up for VR. Both longtime fans and those who never tried the original will find something to love in Colossal Cave, now out on Meta Quest 2 for $39.99 USD.

As in the original game from Will Crowther and Don Woods, Colossal Cave has you exploring a vast and mysterious cave system filled with fantastical locations and characters, hidden treasures, and many different puzzles to solve. But unlike its text-based predecessor, Colossal Cave has a fully realized 3D world with voice acting and music. Cygnus Entertainment spent years putting a lot of thought and care into this modern reimagining, and the team hopes it’ll delight and inspire a whole new generation of fans—just like it did for studio founders Ken and Roberta Williams.

Finishing the text adventure game is what convinced Roberta to start designing games in the first place, a path that eventually led to the creation of influential classics like King’s Quest and Phantasmagoria. Together with her husband and programmer Ken Williams, Roberta founded Sierra On-Line, a name that became synonymous with adventure games on PC in the ‘80s and ‘90s.

In 1996, they sold Sierra and stepped away from game development. In the years since then, the couple spent a lot of their time going on real-life adventures by circumnavigating the globe and becoming professional sailors in their own right. But when the pandemic came in 2020, they, like many others, found themselves locked indoors with nothing to do. It was around this time that Roberta had the idea to try making a game again, her first in decades, and she decided to revisit the one game that started it all.

To celebrate the release of Colossal Cave, we spoke with Ken Williams about the couple’s remarkable story, why it was the right time to return to game development, and their thoughts on working in VR.

Ken Williams: There are a couple reasons that made the timing for this game perfect. There has been a resurgence of interest in retro games. This has extended to adventure games with the recent successful releases of Myst and Return to Monkey Island.

It's a game that lends itself well to Quest 2. Most of the game takes place in a fairly tight environment, a cave. The original designers were serious spelunkers and we tried to recreate the claustrophobic feel of real caves. There are several places in the cave where there are giant chambers, but there are also quite a few tight places you need to squeeze through. Because of the way culling works in Unity and on the Quest 2 (hiding graphics that can't be seen), we were able to pull off some imagery that I think will blow people away. Colossal Cave is an awesome looking game on Quest 2.

Colossal Cave Adventure is also the game that inspired Roberta and I to launch our company, Sierra On-Line. It has special meaning to us and feels symmetrical to be launching our new company, Cygnus Entertainment, with the same product that launched our careers.

KW: The original game had very detailed descriptions, in text, of many of the locations in the cave, but had little or no description for other places. We were faced with the challenge of being true to the original but also wanting something that wouldn't be boring as players dig deeper into the earth. We constantly wanted to give them surprises. Roberta had a team of artists that would meet weekly to discuss each part of the cave and suggest ideas. We know that this game will be scrutinized closely by many players, because it’s not just us who have a passionate relationship to this game. Anyone who has been around the industry for a while knows the game and has ideas about how the cave should look. We felt a tremendous burden to “get it right.”

We had technical challenges, creative challenges, and an audience with preconceived notions on what the end result should look like. I think we nailed it, but I wouldn't tell you it was easy.

KW: The original game was a text game with zero graphics, a parser, and no user interface. I've heard our game referenced as a “remake” of Colossal Cave Adventure, but that's not a correct characterization. Would you consider the movie TheLord of the Rings a remake of the book? Bringing something from one medium to another medium is a very difficult undertaking. A better phrase might be, “a reimagining of the original text game.” We had to replace the parsing, add graphics, animation, sound effects, music, and much more. We spent months studying the original source code but not one line of source code from the original is in this game. It’s a brand new product built for today's players.

One thing worth noting: It's a "retro" game, in that anyone playing it will recognize its heritage from our Sierra days, and from the original Crowther and Woods game. That said, we built this game with a large team primarily composed of today's gamers. We wanted something that modern players could relate to. It was built by today's gamers for today's gamers, even though Roberta had the ultimate design responsibility and our stamp is all over it.

KW: If I’d been a ship captain before I was a video game publisher, Sierra's products would’ve been much better. There are things you learn crossing oceans that the software industry doesn't teach you. It's hard to define but I believe I am a much better manager. Roberta and I weren't going out for a day of fishing—we were navigating a small boat around the world. For example, in 2009 we departed from Seattle and headed for Japan across the Bering Sea. There's a level of self-sufficiency you need to embark on a journey like that. If your engine quits a thousand miles from shore, and if you’re somewhere that the coast guard might need a day or two to rescue you, even small mistakes can be fatal. To prepare for the journey meant becoming licensed as an electrician, as a diesel engine mechanic, understanding fuel systems, etc. You can't call a handyman if something breaks.

I also studied things like “bridge management,” which drilled into me how a series of small mistakes can lead to disaster. Our circumnavigation took us through 27 countries over a 15 year period. You can't cross that many oceans, or live in that many countries, and then not learn a few things. I'm a lot more self-confident and a lot calmer in difficult situations. I also consider myself an expert at logistics. Doing things like arranging moorage, security, customs, etc., for our boat to arrive in Siberia has more to do with building a software product than you might imagine. There's a lot of planning and coordination involved.

Roberta would put together thick notebooks full of detailed charts and maps when designing a game. She was typically charged with figuring out our course, and with the complex issues associated with getting our dogs into the various countries. Her research and organizing skills were put to the test. Imagine what it means to take a boat into another country where in some cases there might be hundreds of miles with no marinas. Roberta's “job” was to scout the shorelines and study the terrain, figuring where we could safely anchor. It was quite a bit more serious than designing a game, but all the same skills were needed: research, planning, thinking through every possibility, diagramming, etc.

KW: I opposed doing VR at first, but for reasons unrelated to anything other than a core strategy of mine in software development. I always like to think in terms of approaching anything new with a crawl, walk, run strategy. Colossal Cave on PC to me seemed like a slam dunk. It turned out to be a larger, more complex project than I realized. But in terms of building games and what I've done before, it fits my definition of crawling. VR is a new frontier and, when the project started, the tools for development were not as stable as they are today. The documentation and training that existed wasn’t mature and didn't always match the software. Finding team members who had built VR-based games before was virtually impossible.

I looked at VR development as well into the “running” category. I knew we could handle it, but was worried we’d be biting off more than we could chew. I was right, and if I had to do it over again, I wouldn't have bit off VR development. The game turned out awesome but it required an incredible effort by the team and there were a lot of days where I wondered if we'd ever be able to deliver. Roberta and I have been doing 12-hour days, seven days a week, for a year. And we're not alone! All of the team members have worked extra hours, and the VR team especially has missed many nights of sleep. The result is worth it and players will be delighted, but… with 20/20 hindsight, should we have tackled it? Probably not. It's not easy building a game of this scale for VR.

KW: VR has evolved much slower than I would’ve expected. I recently found a picture of myself wearing an early prototype of VR glasses in the mid ‘90s, and at the time I remember people criticizing me because I thought VR was still a couple years from being ready for prime time. That was over 25 years ago! We’re just now where I thought we'd be by 2000. Why it’s taken so long, I don’t know. As you probably know, the challenge from a hardware perspective has been delivering VR capability at a price point consumers can afford. Meta deserves a lot of credit for their investment to make it happen.

KW: We’re at the very beginning of a very huge market. The immersion that’s possible in VR is not possible any other way. The hardware will get cheaper and the capabilities will increase. The kinds of games that can be built will increase. The VR market will grow large enough that games can be designed for VR that wouldn't be possible any other way. Like any evolving medium, the growth will happen with various spurts of growth followed by periods of confusion. I still remember the mid-80s when console gaming was considered dead, only to become a monster industry today. Building games for VR isn’t easy, and the power of the medium, and how to exploit it, isn’t well understood. But we’re at the magic critical mass point where things will start happening. It’ll be fun to watch!

KW: At this point, both Roberta and I need some time off to recharge our batteries. We also need some time to think of something truly pioneering. Colossal Cave is awesome, but it isn't all that we're capable of. We've forced ourselves for two years not to think beyond this product. We wanted to make this game as good as it could be, and something that honors the original, and that can last another 50 years into the future. Next up we want to do something that no one expects. But what is that? Darned if I know. We need time to think. Whatever it is, it needs to be unexpected, or unprecedented. That's not easy to do. I don't know what we'll do or when we'll do it. For now we just want people to enjoy this game and are not thinking beyond that.

KW: We're just excited to be on the cusp of the next big technology wave. I believe that VR and AI are the technologies that’ll drive things forward over the next decade. It's exciting to have a front row seat as this technology is finally starting to take off! In the ‘80s, I was giving speeches about how interactive entertainment would completely reshape the legacy entertainment industries (books, music, and film). No one believed me. Now with the addition of AI and VR, many other industries will be redefined—industries well beyond games will be redefined. Medicine will change as surgeons start doing surgery using AR and VR. AI will reshape how virtual worlds are created. Roberta and I did spend an entire dinner this week talking about how we could assemble a VR grocery store, so that people could get that feeling they’re accustomed to of walking down an aisle and browsing the shelves. Don't get me started on talking about where all of this is headed, or we'll be here a very long time. You haven't seen anything yet.

Oh, and I forgot to mention. Please play Colossal Cave. You'll have fun! There's a reason it's a game so many people love and has lasted for 50 years. Our goal was to give it another 50, and I think we nailed it!

See what secrets you can unearth in Colossal Cave, now available on Quest 2 + Pro.