The Zork Library Forum

The amazing 'Get Lamp" documentary is now available. If you ever played Infocom's Zork text games or have any interest in interactive fiction, you NEED to see this! http://www.getlamp.com/

My review: http://siriusstar.livejournal.com/153622.html

It is well worth the money!

Joline

Thanks for the notice! I remember reading about this last year while it was in development. It's a bit pricey for me right now for something I'd probably watch only once, but hopefully it'll show up on Netflix someday.

It's phenomenal. I was surprised to see how many of my old IF-writing heroes were interviewed (as well as designers of some of the best graphical adventure games, for that matter; for instance, Warren Robinett's in there). It's a lot of fun to watch, and also quite inspiring to a writer or designer of any kind. It takes a bit to really get going, but it's gloriously long.

My only complaints are tiny ones: The Casio-reminiscent, electronic-drum music is irritating, but this is sparse. Also, why a rap video was included among the extras is anybody's guess. It's an aesthetic flub that is, nevertheless, obviously easy to avoid selecting. I very highly recommend the film.

Chris wrote:Also, why a rap video was included among the extras is anybody's guess.

*sigh* I asked myself the same thing when I heard rap in Sesame Street several years ago Now it's there everyday. After Alex was born (4 years ago) I realized how bad it was and I said "my child is not going to watch this"... my first two children grew up with Sesame Street, we loved how the perspectives about cultures were built, very educational and harmless. But not nowadays... I just wonder what Jim Henson would think about that. I grew up watching Mr. Rogers and Shari Lewis' Lamb Chop back in the days, so you can imagine how the new stuff is affecting me. Last time I glanced at Elmo in Sesame Street I heard Elmo say "yeah Gordon's THE MAN!" -- Umm, o_0

Back to the topic... I'm glad to have found this, now you've got me curious, it will be in my list of things to get soon; when I can afford it. The price doesn't look too bad, but there are certainly other things that come first :-(

Agreed. It's highly incongruous and un-atmospheric in a film about adventure games, cave exploration, interactive prose for people who love to read, etc. So it goes beyond being just a matter of personal taste, when we're talking about context.

Good for you, keeping your little one away from that unmelodic fad and its associated botched English. It's a shame that everything has to be tainted by this unfortunate aesthetic trend. To me, it just looks like pandering to the lowest common denominator.

(The only atrocity committed on kids' shows when I was growing up was Sesame Street Disco, but at least that was an easily avoided album, rather than part of the show itself. )

Ah, but it is a rap video about grues! I'm certainly no fan of rap, but I'll make an exception to a rap song about grues.

There is some awesome info in this documentary. I've seen it in various guises about four times now. (Next time I'm counting the lanterns.) It still boggles my mind that the Infocom catlogue was put up for sale for cheap and that Legend nearly bought it... ack! If there is an alternate univese somewhere where that happened, I'd dearly like to hop over to see how it worked out!

Jason is doing a showing tour around the country right now. The one hour 'preview' is very interesting and informative. It certainly gives a good feel of the rest of the movie.

http://www.getlamp.com/jetlamp/

Joline