Interview with Muriel Tramis

Introduction by Ilmari

Our first interview with a French adventure gaming legend

It has been almost a year, since we posted a call for questions for Muriel Tramis, a creative force behind many titles of Coktel Vision - a company that played a similar role as Sierra in French adventure gaming industry, and indeed, later merged with Sierra. We've covered many of her games in the past and we might already distinguish two central topics investigated in her games - her Caribbean heritage (as shown in Mewilo) and sexuality (for instance, in Geisha). The latest game with her involvement we've covered was Fascination and we still have plenty of her games to look forward. I am pleased to announce that we've finally received the answers, together with some exciting news concerning a crowd-funding campaign for remaking an old game of Muriel Tramis. Without further ado, let's begin the interview!

Call for Questions for Muriel Tramis

Written by Ilmari


Although we have had a bit of a love-hate relationship with French adventure gaming, I am sincerely of the opinion that a history of its early days would be an interesting field of study. Careful readers of our Missed Classics might have seen that I’ve done my share in trying to make this otherwise rather forgotten era more accessible. I have especially followed the career of Muriel Tramis, interesting not just as one of the first female game designers, but also as probably the first game designer hailing from Martinique.

Her official LinkedIn -picture

This remarkable person worked for Tomahawk, subsidiary of Coktel Vision, which later became a part of the enlarging empire of Sierra. In what might be taken as an ironic result, the takeover of a French gaming company was followed by a takeover by a French media company Vivendi. After few years in this media corporation, Muriel Tramis left Vivendi and founded her own company Avantilles in 2003. I’ve been trying to track her down, in order to conduct an interview with her, but for quite a long time, the trail was cold.

Until the beginning of April.