Life and Work of Warren Schwader

Schwader's First Exposure to the Apple II

1977

When Warren Schwader was 18, his brother purchased an Apple II computer. Schwader helped his brother put commands into the Apple II, and it would be here that his hacking experience would begin (Levy 2010).

Hi-Res Cribbage

1980

After the factory that Schwader was working at closed down, he devoted the rest of his time to developing his first game, Hi-Res Cribbage. It was this game that would result in Ken Williams asking Schwader to join Sierra On-Line (Levy 2010).

Schwader Is Hired to Sierra On-Line

1980

After seeing Hi-Res Cribbage, Ken Williams asked Schwader to join Sierra On-Line, which was On-Line Systems at the time. Schwader agreed and moved to California to begin his work there (Levy 2010).

Threshold

1981

Warren Schwader would work with Ken Williams to develop a game in a similar genre to the game Astro Blaster (Hague 2002). It would mark an increase in gameplay intensity and graphics for Apple games (Levy 2010).

Thrilogy

1981

Thrilogy was a mash-up of three games that were created by Schwader: "Smash-Up","Bustout", and "William Tell". Although it didn't sell quite well due to it coming out shortly after "Mystery House", it would be enough of an exercise in graphics and programming to jumpstart Schwader's career (Hague 2002).

Sammy Lightfoot

1983

Warren Schwader worked on and made Sammy Lightfoot for Sierra On-Line, coming up with a way to mitigate "flicker". The way he mitigated this was by page flipping in such a way that while viewing a static image, the next page is being made. Then when the page is flipped, the next image is shown without any flicker (Hague 2002).

Video Game Crash

1983

There would be a period of time called the "video-game crash" which would cause many video game companies to go out of business. Although many jobs were lost at Sierra, Schwader was technically a freelancer and therefore did not immediately feel these effects (Hague 2002).

Schwader Finds Different Work

1985

After having his money from Threshold and Sammy Lightfoot run out, Schwader began to take different jobs to provide for his family. This would consist of body and paint work, in addition to masonry and concrete work (Hague 2002).

Schwader Returns to Sierra On-Line

1988

After the success of King's Quest, Ken Williams would ask Warren to return to working for Sierra On-Line. He agrees, and returns to create games for Sierra On-Line (Hague 2002).

Hoyle Official Book of Games: Volume 1

1989

This game would be the first game where Warren Schwader would program in SCI, which is a proprietary language Sierra On-Line had created (Hague 2002).

Hoyle Official Book of Games: Volume 2

1990

Utilizing his expertise in creating card games, Schwader would create another entry to the Hoyle series that had around 28 solitaire variants (Rade 2000)

Jones in the Fast Lane

1991

To further Schwader's work on computer board games, he would lend his talents to the creation of Jones in the Fast Lane. It would be Sierra's first multimedia creation on CD (Hague 2002).

Schwader Transferred to The Sierra Network (TSN)

1993

Also called the ImagiNation Network, Schwader would transfer to work on the online multiplayer program due to the games it offered: card and board games, which were his specialty (Hague 2002).

Schwader Joins iWin

2000

After working for ImagiNation Network for several years, Schwader would join iWin, which was and still is a popular game publisher (Zoominfo 2023).

Jewel Quest

2004

Schwader was the designer and main engineer for the game Jewel Quest, which would result in many sequels due to its success (Xoleras 2004).