GB: First of all, let's go back twenty-five years. What originally influenced your decision to become a game developer? Was Akalabeth your very first attempt at creating a game?

Richard: I started writing small games in 1974. The first few were “Star Trek” style simple games, then I quickly moved to a series of tiny games I called D&D 1 through D&D 28 (I was a big D&D fan, as you can see.) Each was written in Basic, on a teletype terminal connected via an acoustic modem to a mini-computer offsite from my school. But even then they looked a lot like what would eventually become Ultima, but with “*”’s for walls, “$” for treasure and letters for creatures (“B” was a giant bat for example.) You moved around and fought monsters and collected treasure. Then I discovered the Apple II, specifically the one that is still functioning outside my office. That’s when I began the Ultima series… with “real” graphics!