Get Lamp

March 31, 2010
Stacey Mason

Get Lamp is a forthcoming documentary on Interactive Fiction (IF) by Jason Scott. Pax East attendees saw a preview this weekend, with around an hour of fascinating interviews.

Early IF pioneers, scholars, and writers and traced IF’s history from its origins through its commercial peak and on to today’s hobby and amateur scene. It also follows the academic study of IF from the first dissertation in the mid 1980s.

Perhaps the most interesting segment addressed the playing of IF by the blind. Some really fascinating observations came out of this section.One guy commented that the first few times he encountered a dark room, it didn’t occur to him that he needed a light to interact with the things in that room. Another person noted that IF is especially appealing to a blind person because of the explicit explanations of what the player-character can “see,” adding “it’s like role-playing being sighted.”

At the end of the preview, guests were shown the video for MC Frontalot’s “It is Pitch Dark” which has been stuck in my head since the session.

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