International Women's Day is a great time to celebrate women in gaming, whose achievements are often either overlooked or unfortunately sometimes dismissed.
This year, you should learn about Allison Hershey, one of the co-founders and member of the board of directors of the game development collective The Dreamers Guild. Hershey has been active in the gaming industry since 1989 as an outgrowth of her work in the science fiction and fantasy illustration business.
Hershey's company developed a number of cult adventure games, including I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream and Dinotopia. They also handled responsibilities for porting a number of games to other systems, including the Maxis-published A-Train. Hershey herself was the art director, designer, and writer for the Dreamers Guild's adventure games Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb and Halls of the Dead: Faery Tale Adventure II, and she contributed art to several other games (as well as a voice cameo in The Labyrinth of Time, a game developed by friends and collaborators of the Dreamers Guild).
The Dreamers Guild eventually folded, but Hershey continues to be participate professionally in the science fiction and fantasy community; she most recently worked for the 73rd annual WorldCon in Seattle last year.
We should celebrate Hershey's visible leadership in gaming at a time when the industry was wanting for representation!
