Get Lamp - The Text Adventure Documentary

If you don't have any fond memories of those classic text games, you missed out. I was lurking the internet for information regarding the implementors (infocom/text adventure designers) of times past. To my pleasant surprise, I found out about an upcoming documentary on the storytellers and history of the genre. 

Thanks to Jason Scott, the world will soon get a glimpse of a now seemingly small but very important slice of the gaming industry with his newest documentary "Get Lamp". In an email from Jason, he expressed huge progress and an update to his blog this month. For status on the project, to offer support, or if you have anything to contribute, you can contact Jason at jason@textfiles.com

Jason Scott is also the director of "BBS: The Documentary" which can be found at bbsdocumentary.com.

Steve Meretzky Does Nerdcore

Due to the  advent of "Get Lamp", I came across a music video with Steve Meretzky in it. Steve Meretzky is responsible for a few infocom games text in the 80's including, Planetfall, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and Zork Zero. You can see his site at Boffo.

Jason Scott's documentary seems to have breifly given new life to the interest of this whole genre, albeit a small following still. I've never even heard about Nerdcore until I saw this MC Frontalot video, in which Steve Meretzky makes an appearance towards the end. Regardless of your preference in music, I thought this was an interesting event in the history of this subject.

City of Ember and Zork

While we are on the subject of Zork, am I the only one that had flashbacks to Zork at differnt scenes in this movie?  I know everyone has their own images in their heads of what the G.U.E. (Quendor) looks like, but this movie really had me wanting to dust off those old text games again.  How I did not know about this movie until 2 weeks ago, I do not know.

For me it was the presence of the movie more than anything. Set underground, lighting, costumes (especially the Mayors), etc.  The most noticable similarity was the generator control room.  Was that not an uncanny resemblance to the control room for the FCD #3 in Zork?

Please comment, I want to know if anyone else had the least thought of those old infocom games when you saw this.  I find it hard to believe that the author of this was not influenced just a little.

Get it here:  City of Ember

LOZ doesn't quite live up to the name, yet.

For a review of this disappointment please go HERE. 

Zork Lives!

I got my first taste of Zork on an Osborne CP/m machine.  In a dimly lit basement with a glowing flourescent lamp over head, I delved into the world of Zork, the Osborne's 94k 5-1/4" drive chattering away with every command. In green text on a 5" screen, Infocoms's ancient world of Zork came alive. 

But, that was a long time ago, since then there have been several releases and sequels with graphical versions as well, all of which are in my collection today. It has been a while since a new release, with ZGI being the last and one of my favorites. 

Just when you think it will never happen again, the guys at Jolt/Activision put some life back into the series with the online game Legends of Zork.  Success or failure, many thanks to them for keeping the legend alive.  Head over to Legends of Zork and try it out!  

Thanks to my brother at the Atomic Cheese Melt for finding this. Make sure to keep an eye out for his big fat review on this game.

Super Potato (スーパーポテト)

If you are on Facebook, there is an Akihabara fan page with groups of current pictures from around Akihabara.  Someone recently posted 35 new pictures of Super Potato, the retro gaming store.