Roberta Williams Eats a Sandwich

The year is 1983. You are Roberta Williams -- Imagineer, Dream Weaver, and Renegade Adventure Game Designer. Sierra, the fledgling video game company that you founded with your husband Ken Williams, is in trouble. You need a hit game to stay in business. And not just any hit. You need the biggest hit that the video game world ever saw or else IBM is going to send a bunch of goons to knock you out and tie you up in a basement so deep that not even a helpful mouse that you earlier saved by throwing a shoe at a cat could save you. The pressure is on. But your mind is blank. Maybe a light [[snack]] would replenish your mental reserves

Yes, a nice peanut butter sandwich would just hit the spot. But how will you get your hands on some peanut butter? [[Burn down the custom-built Sierra Redwood building, approach Habitat for Humanity to build you a new home, gradually become friends with ex-President Jimmy Carter as he oversees the construction, eventually get invited to his family peanut farm for a tour, and receive a commemorative souveneir jar of peanut butter as a keepsake.|burn]] [[Become an international cat burglar, break into top-secret government lab in Nevada's Area 51, steal clandestine plans to build a time machine, go back in time to meet peanut butter inventor George Washington Carver, ask him for a jar of peanut butter.|burg]] [[Look in the Refrigerator.|fridge]]

Ok, you've decided to burn down the building! Now how are you going to set the fire? [[Rub some chocolate on the bottom of an aluminum can, then polish it with a paper towel until shiny, then use it as a reflective tool to aim a beam of sunlight at the wall and hold it there until the wall bursts into flames|shine]]. [[Use your ultra modern 1983 rotary telephone to call Ron Gilbert, explain your game design philosophy until he spontaneously bursts into flames, flames travel over the telephone wires to issue forth from your receiver in a manner that you're pretty sure is totally consistent with the way that flames behave in the real world to then burn your building down.|ron]] [[Strike a match.|match]]

Ok, it's decided: You're going to become an international cat burglar. First things first. You need to do some research to figure out how to burgle. Maybe you can get started by reading up on cat burglary in your Encyclopedia Brittanica set. How do you take the book off the shelf? [[Throw yourself down the stairs, break all your limbs, get local university to assign you an experimental helper monkey to open the book for you.|monkey]] [[Convert to ultra-conservative orthodox Judaism, wait until Saturday, hire a Shabbos goy to open the book for you.|goy]] [[Open the book with your hands.|hands]]

You open the fridge; the blast of slightly cooler air immediately gives you hypothermia and you die. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|snack]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

Ok, you need to fall down the stairs! How are you going to trip? [[Take a university course to familiarize yourself with third wave feminism, use your new found understanding of modern riot grrl power to then join a roller derby team, leave your equipment lying around the house, accidentally step on a roller skate.|skate]] [[Become an underground graffiti artist whose signature is ironic reimagings of innocuous commercial imagery into thought-provoking tableaus, adopt trappings of modern youth culture as you become an idol to nation's disaffected young people, accidentally slip on skateboard as you are spraypainting "Skateboarding is not a crime" on some pig's car.|pig]] [[Fall down|fall]].

Ok! First thing you need to do, you're going to convert to super conservative orthodox Judaism. [[Go to kitchen, find wooden meat tenderizing mallet, smash the walls of your home, use splintered wood to build a catapault, launch yourself toward nearest Synagogue.|catapault]] [[Find a railroad, tie at least two people to the tracks, launch a trolley card toward helpless victims, find one very large fat man, wonder whether it is moral to throw fat man at the trolley if the loss of his one life will result in the net savings of other lives, hope ethical quandary will attract notice of advice-giving rabbi whom you can then ask about converting.|trolley]] [[Read the Torah.|torah]]

You open the book, accidentally slicing your finger on the page. The small papercut quickly becomes infected and you die. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|burg]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

Thanks for playing [[Roberta Williams Eats a Sandwich|start]]. As usual, you've been a real pantload.

Before you can do that, you suddenly forget how to breathe. You are now dead. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|burn]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

Ok, you're going to call Ron Gilbert! But how are you going to dial your telephone? [[Go to your local Sizzler buffet which still exists at this date, gorge on shrimp until you grow morbidly obese, obtain a special dialing wand from local bariatric surgeon.|surgeon]] [[Travel to secluded woodland area with husband Ken Williams, park car in ominously quiet clearing, listen to radio broadcast about escaped mental patient with a hook hand, insist that Ken drive you home, discover disembodied hook stuck to car door handle, use hook to dial.|dial]] [[With your finger.|finger]]

You strike a match, but at that exact moment a yeti bursts through the wall of your office and strangles you to death. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|burn]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

Ok, you're off to Sizzler! But how are you going to get there? [[Go to see as a privateer, engage her royal majesty's armada off the coast of the Spanish main, lose legs to stray cannonball, have ship's doctor replace legs with wooden pegs, use wooden pegs to walk to Sizzler.|pegs]] [[Argue with your parents, resolve to run away to join the circus, become professional stilt-walking clown, use stilts to walk to Sizzler|stilts]] [[You're going to walk.|walk]]

Ok, you're off to the woods with your husband Ken Williams! How will you get Ken Williams' attention to let him know your plan? [[Move to Tierra del Fuego, become accepted as an honorary member of the indigenous Yamana people, learn traditional Yamana smoke signals, use signals to notify Ken.|smoke]] [[Complete the world's first fully immersive animated adventure game using 16-color graphics and interactive screens about a knight named Sir Graeme, the complete overpowering awesomeness of which will attract Ken's attention via his own famous Ten Foot rule.|rule]] [[Say "Hey, Ken!"|ken]]

"Watch out, Roberta!" screeches your until now unmentioned owl companion Cedric, "That's a pooooooisonous telephone!" Too late! The telephone bites you and you instantly succumb to its venom. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|ron]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

As you prepare to put your plan into action, you suddenly spontaneously combust for no reason at all. Better luck next time! [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|surgeon]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

From out of nowhere, a swarm of bees swoops down and stings you to death! "What's that, Roberta, a new dance?" chuckles Cedric, your until now never mentioned owl companion. "The Bugaboo? Ho ho!" Too bad you're too dead to appreciate his wit. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|surgeon]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

You've resolved to walk to Sizzler. Unfortunately, you neglected to pick up that bit of carpet fuzz that we neglected to mention in the very beginning. You are now dead. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|surgeon]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

You're about to put your plan into action when suddenly the earth begins to shake and a giant grell bursts through the floor to swallow you whole! [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|dial]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

As you complete your game, you sit back and admire your masterpiece. Suddenly, you realize that you've done it! You've created King's Quest 1 and single-handedly revolutionized the adventure game genre! "I kneeeeeeeew you could do it, Roberta!" cries your bemonocled, bewaist-coated owl companion Cedric as he flies out the window and off into the wild blue sky above the regal northern California redwoods and, tellingly, the majestic Sierra Nevada mountains. Congratulations! But there's no time to rest for you, Roberta Williams, world video game designing champ! Now it's on to create The Colonel's Bequest!

You start to call to Ken but suddenly you fall into a moat and are eaten by a crocodile! [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|dial]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

Ok! Before you can join a feminism roller derby team, you need to familiarize yourself with the basics of feminism! [[Spend a year on a Kibbutz learning the principles of a self-sustaining agrarian community, use that knowledge to found a separatist lesbian commune upon your return to your home country, use your new life experiences to more fully understand the words and legacy of Andrea Dworkin.|dworkin]] [[Reflect on the inevitable backlash against gender progress that is currently being experienced by career women in the 1980s as conservative elements in American society strive to return America to a regressive standard of purity embodied by a mythical media representation of the 1950s, ignoring the true social, economical, racial, and sexual divisions that characterized that era.|era]] [[Fight for true and meaningful equality between the sexes.|sex]]

Before you can do that, an alien embryo implanted into your brain without your knowledge by unfathomable creatures from a dark parallel dimension to our ouwn world bursts out of your head and you die. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|monkey]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

You go to fall down the stairs but before you can reach the stairs, you stub your toe. The pain is so intense that you pass out and smack your head on the floor, giving yourself a fatal concussion. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|monkey]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

You grab a mallet from the kitchen but, as you walk, your feet shuffle against the floor, building up a fatal charge of static electricity that kills you as soon as you touch the doorknob. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|goy]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

You're about to put your plan into action but then you have an unexpected heart attack and die. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|goy]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

Oops! You forgot that, in super orthodox Judaism, women aren't allowed to read the Torah. God punishes you with fatal sores and boils. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|goy]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

Oops! You didn't play your harp fast enough and now you've been eaten by wolves! [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|skate]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

Oh no! As you were busy thinking about that, five weird dwarves with oversized sensory organs marched out of the woods and asked you some weird riddle that you couldn't answer in time... so they killed you! [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|skate]] [[QUIT?|quit]]

Before you can do that, a rip in the fabric of space time opens. A Sequel policeman step out and blasts you to atoms. Typical. [[RESTART?|start]] [[RESTORE?|skate]] [[QUIT?|quit]]