Jim Walls

Who is Jim Walls?

Jim Walls is a retired police officer, who in 1971 joined the California Highway Patrol. He retired after 15 years on the force after a shooting incident that left him traumatized.

During his recovery from the shooting incident, Walls met Ken Williams, who was then a developer for Sierra On-Line. Williams asked Walls to his house for a game of racquetball, and over drinks after the game, Ken told Walls of his idea of starting an adventure game series with a police genre. Williams told Walls that all he needed was a real police officer to be involved with the design in order to maintain realism.

Following that meeting, Walls went on to become a game designer for Sierra On-Line.

Walls claims "When I first sat down in front of a computer to begin the design story of the original Police Quest I had to be shown where the on/off switch was. I typed the entire story with two fingers."

Walls' best-known works were the first three Police Quest games. Walls also created an espionage game called Codename: Iceman in 1989, but this sold poorly in comparison to the Police Quest titles. The games included real situations that he had lived through in his career.