If you’re old enough to have once used mainframe computers–or if you once owned an 8-bit computer like the Commodore 64, Atari 800 or Apple II–then you probably played a text adventure at one time. Zork, Planetfall, Suspended and Enchanter were amongst my favorites. Games such as these gave rise to multiplayer dungeons (MUDs), which in turn inspired the creation of the MMORPG industry (massively multiplayer online roleplaying games, such as World of Warcraft).
PAX East just did a screening of Get Lamp, a documentary by filmmaker Jason Scott. If the history of games and the origin of text games interests you, then you’ll want to buy a copy!
I was interviewed for Get Lamp, in part because of Legends of Future Past, the text-based online game I started in the 1990s. That was the inflection point away from the “interactive fiction” era, and into the era of multiplayer games. A lot was changing. I’m excited that I got to play a part. I’m also humbled that I’m in a film that features several of my heroes: legendary designers like Steve Meretzky (Planetfall, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, A Mind Forever Voyaging) whose games I devoured on my parents C64, or Richard Bartle–inventor of the first MUD. These are the people who got me interested in computers and games during my formative years.
