It’s International Women’s Day today and what better time is there to take a step back and look at the amazing women in the industry that have brought us some of our favourite games?
So without further ado, here are some of our favourite games created by some of the most amazing women in the video game industry:
Unpacking
Wren Brier is an industry veteran who has been around for over a decade before creating the award-winning indie game, Unpacking. Unpacking is a simple little game about moving to a new place and having to unpack. Each time the main character moves to a new house, the player must find a way to place all the previously packed items within the rooms.
It’s much more enjoyable than actually moving, trust me. Before her work on Unpacking, Wren Brieralso worked on Fruit Ninja and Jetpack Joyride.
Celeste
Celeste started as a PICO-8 game jam title which would later be fleshed out and become the award-winning platformer we know and love today. Maddy Thorson created the game which follows a young trans-woman named Madeline who wants to reach the summit of the titular Mount Celeste but will have to overcome her inner demons as she climbs the dangerous terrain.
The game is often referred to in gaming media as one of the best indie games and Maddy Thorson used a lot of her struggles with her identity and anxiety to make the game and protagonist one of the most relatable around.
Gabriel Knight
Gabriel Knight is an iconic 1990s trilogy of point-and-click adventure games where players take on the role of Gabriel Knight and help him solve supernatural cases. The first entry in the series, Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers, came into the world like a hurricane and had actors like Tim Curry, Virginia Capers, Mark Hamill, and Michael Dorn in lead voice-acting roles.
But what many don’t know about this iconic series is that it was created by Jane Jensen a famous American video game designer and author. Outside of her work on Gabriel Knight and the recent reboot, she is also credited with her work on other adventure games like Gray Matter and Moebius: Empire Rising as well as writing novels.
King’s Quest
Perhaps the most iconic and well-known female game developer on this list is Roberta Williams. In all honestly, gaming as we know it today probably wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for Roberta Williams and the company she founded Sierra Entertainment.
Back in the 1980s, Roberta Williams created the first-ever graphic adventure game, Mystery House for the Apple II. She then went on to create the iconic 1995 FMV adventure game Phantasmagoria.
However, it’s for her work creating the adventure game series King’s Quest, that Roberta Williams is best known and remembered for. She is credited with creating every entry in the series until the 2015 reboot.
Portal
Portal was released back in 2007 and is still to this day considered one of the best games ever made. It’s a puzzle platformer that was created by female game designer Kim Swift.
Everything started when Kim Swift developed the game Narbacular Drop for her senior project at DigiPen Institute of Technology and one of Valve’s developers, Robin Walker, noticed it and invited her to showcase the game to Valve.
Gabe Newell was so impressed he hired Kim Swift directly after the presentation and the game morphed into the Portal we know and love today. Outside of Portalm Kim Swift has also worked on Left 4 Dead and Star Wars Battlefront II.
Uncharted
Uncharted is the game series that many around the world credit for making them fall in love, to begin with. Inspired by Indiana Jones, the series follows Nathan Drake as he goes on dangerous adventures across the world.
Amy Hennig has worked in the video game industry since the late 1980s and worked on titles such as the Legacy of Kain and Jak and Daxter series. However, her magnum obis it would seem is creating the beloved Uncharted series and directing the first three main instalments.
After departing from Naughty Dog during the development of Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Amy Hennig started work on Forspoken.
Animal Crossing: New Horizons
Aya Kyogoku is a well-known and renowned Japanese video game director, producer, and supervisor. Throughout her years in the industry, Aya Kyogoku has worked on the Dreamcast title deSPIRIA and the PS2 game Wizardry: Tale of the Forsaken Land. She has also worked as a scriptwriter for the Legend of Zelda franchise, specifically Four Swords Adventures and Twilight Princess.
Aya Kyogoku did all of this before even starting her work on the Animal Crossing series, with the latest addition to the series, Animal Crossing: New Horizons listing Aya Kyogoku as the main director of the game.
Tomb Raider
Rhianna Pratchett might be best known because of her famous last name but the daughter of renowned writer Terry Pratchett has made a name for herself in the video game industry.
Rhianna Pratchett has worked as a writer for games like Mirror’s Edge and Surgeon Simulator 2 but perhaps the biggest game she worked on is Tomb Raider where she was the lead writer.
Under Rhianna Pratchett’s masterful writing, the reboot of Tomb Raider became one of the best-received reboots of a franchise yet.
