GET LAMP: The Text Adventure Documentary
Google TechTalks5 HN recommenders · recommended in 5 months, 2014–2026
documentary · general · evergreen · 2014–2026 on HN
Jason Scott discusses making his documentary GET LAMP at a Google Tech Talk and screens part of the film. It covers the history of text adventures and interactive fiction, with interviews of Infocom developers and others.
HN recommends it to anyone interested in text adventures, Infocom, MUDs and early computer gaming history.
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8 comments from Hacker News
Jason Scott (of textfiles.com) made a great documentary video about the Adeventure game. I picked up a copy at DEFCON about 15 years ago. link ▶ this video
He also did a documentary about text adventure games called "GET LAMP" which I enjoyed a lot: ▶ this video
Oh the MUDs! Props to Forest’s edge and TempusMUD. Text is the ultimate medium because it directly connects with our imagination. I remember jumping out of my chair after reading a line of text on my screen. Recommend watching “Get lamp” documentary to fans of MUDs, text adventures and those born after: ▶ this video
If you like text adventure games, check out Jason Scott's documentary GET LAMP about the history of text adventure games, including interviews with some Infocom developers: ▶ this video link
Many Infocom employees are present in the documentary Get Lamp: ▶ this video Recommended if text games are of interest to you.
He also gave us the brilliant BBS: The Documentary link GET LAMP: The Text Adventure Documentary (shot in 1080p) ▶ this video and (apart from his many talks) his podcast "Jason Scott talks his way out of it" which is just gem after gem of documented tech ephemera. link It's baffingly hard to quantify how many people he (and all the other great people at the Internet Archive) has affected with his bullheaded conservation efforts.
Related: there's a few versions of "get lamp" documentary online ( ▶ this video ) or you can get the movie directly from getlamp.com. These histories (the maher link above, the getlamp doc, etc) bring back a lot of great memories. EDIT: the youtube link above looks like it's actually the getlamp movie being shown at a google event, with an audience (audience sounds in there now and then).
You can watch the non-interactive version of the documentary with some commentary by its maker in this Google Tech Talk: ▶ this video