Get Lamp 10 Years

[HappyMacXL]

The interviews for Jason Scotts "Get Lamp" documentary are 10 years old!

So.... 10 years later, what has changed in the IF world?

HMX

[Adam Thornton]

Post by HappyMacXL
The interviews for Jason Scotts "Get Lamp" documentary are 10 years old!
So.... 10 years later, what has changed in the IF world?

I got fatter, I got thinner, I moved out of IF into tabletop RPG mostly.

The more useful answer is "ChoiceScript" and generally mobile
CYOA-things.

Adam

[HappyMacXL]

Thanks Adam.

No mazes in Tabletop RPG eh? :D

10years goes quick but it's a fair old chunk of time, I'm guessing a lot of people have moved on to other things.

HMX



May 17Adam Thornton

Post by HappyMacXL
The interviews for Jason Scotts "Get Lamp" documentary are 10 years old!
So.... 10 years later, what has changed in the IF world?

I got fatter, I got thinner, I moved out of IF into tabletop RPG mostly.

The more useful answer is "ChoiceScript" and generally mobile
CYOA-things.

Adam

[Adam Thornton]

Post by HappyMacXL
Thanks Adam.
No mazes in Tabletop RPG eh? :D

Heh. Not these days. But, for instance, there's an early Judges' Guild
module for Empire of the Petal Throne called The Nightmare Maze of
Jigresh which is pretty much exactly just a big complicated maze.

Actually the classical tradition is pretty heavy on mazes and mazes with
teleport traps and so forth. But, as with IF, not generally regarded as
good design in this day and age.

Some day I really will write that essay about how the caver aesthetic
without a communication of the actual physical context of caving, plus
the limitations of 1975 technology, plus the ludic necessity to make
dungeon crawling about the dungeon rather than the crawling,
simultaneously created a made-vastly-safer-and-more-human-friendly
notion of cave travel and the need for consciously-designed labyrinthine
spaces in RPGs, CRPGs, and adventure games.

Some day. Maybe after I retire.

Oddly, over in the tabletop world, Patrick Stuart and Scrap Princess
have just released a book called _Veins of the Earth_ which is in part
an attempt to bring the physicality of cave navigation to tabletop
RPGs. It's a cool book, although pricey.

Adam

[John W Kennedy]

Post by Adam Thornton

Post by HappyMacXL
Thanks Adam.
No mazes in Tabletop RPG eh? :D

Heh. Not these days. But, for instance, there's an early Judges' Guild
module for Empire of the Petal Throne called The Nightmare Maze of
Jigresh which is pretty much exactly just a big complicated maze.
Actually the classical tradition is pretty heavy on mazes and mazes with
teleport traps and so forth. But, as with IF, not generally regarded as
good design in this day and age.

Even when Infocom was still in Cambridge, classic mazes were out of
fashion; for example, in one game, there was a maze, but the correct
solution involved finding a map.

And, on the other hand, you might want a maze even today, if it’s
logically part of the setting—Hampton Court, for example, or Knossos.
But it had better have a better solution than just dropping inventory
objects.

Post by Adam Thornton
Some day I really will write that essay about how the caver aesthetic
without a communication of the actual physical context of caving, plus
the limitations of 1975 technology, plus the ludic necessity to make
dungeon crawling about the dungeon rather than the crawling,
simultaneously created a made-vastly-safer-and-more-human-friendly
notion of cave travel and the need for consciously-designed labyrinthine
spaces in RPGs, CRPGs, and adventure games.
Some day. Maybe after I retire.
Oddly, over in the tabletop world, Patrick Stuart and Scrap Princess
have just released a book called _Veins of the Earth_ which is in part
an attempt to bring the physicality of cave navigation to tabletop
RPGs. It's a cool book, although pricey.
Adam

[Kerr Mudd-John]

On Thu, 18 May 2017 17:37:41 +0100, John W Kennedy =

Post by HappyMacXL
Thanks Adam.
No mazes in Tabletop RPG eh? :D

Heh. Not these days. But, for instance, there's an early Judges' =
Guild
module for Empire of the Petal Throne called The Nightmare Maze of
Jigresh which is pretty much exactly just a big complicated maze.
Actually the classical tradition is pretty heavy on mazes and mazes =

=

with
teleport traps and so forth. But, as with IF, not generally regarded=

as

good design in this day and age.

Even when Infocom was still in Cambridge, classic mazes were out of =
fashion; for example, in one game, there was a maze, but the correct =
solution involved finding a map.

You are in a maze of twisted clich=C3=A9s, all alike.
[]

Took me ages to get out of the maze that won an award back in 1999:
http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/XYZZY_Awards_1999
http://www.ifwiki.org/index.php/Hunter,_in_Darkness


-- =

Bah, and indeed, Humbug

[HappyMacXL]

Post by John W Kennedy

Post by Adam Thornton

Post by HappyMacXL
Thanks Adam.
No mazes in Tabletop RPG eh? :D

Heh. Not these days. But, for instance, there's an early Judges' Guild
module for Empire of the Petal Throne called The Nightmare Maze of
Jigresh which is pretty much exactly just a big complicated maze.
Actually the classical tradition is pretty heavy on mazes and mazes with
teleport traps and so forth. But, as with IF, not generally regarded as
good design in this day and age.

Even when Infocom was still in Cambridge, classic mazes were out of
fashion; for example, in one game, there was a maze, but the correct
solution involved finding a map.
And, on the other hand, you might want a maze even today, if it’s
logically part of the setting—Hampton Court, for example, or Knossos.
But it had better have a better solution than just dropping inventory
objects.

Post by Adam Thornton
Some day I really will write that essay about how the caver aesthetic
without a communication of the actual physical context of caving, plus
the limitations of 1975 technology, plus the ludic necessity to make
dungeon crawling about the dungeon rather than the crawling,
simultaneously created a made-vastly-safer-and-more-human-friendly
notion of cave travel and the need for consciously-designed labyrinthine
spaces in RPGs, CRPGs, and adventure games.
Some day. Maybe after I retire.
Oddly, over in the tabletop world, Patrick Stuart and Scrap Princess
have just released a book called _Veins of the Earth_ which is in part
an attempt to bring the physicality of cave navigation to tabletop
RPGs. It's a cool book, although pricey.
Adam

--
John W. Kennedy
"The blind rulers of Logres
Nourished the land on a fallacy of rational virtue."
-- Charles Williams. "Taliessin through Logres: Prelude"

John, i'm going to make this newsgroup busy again - or perhaps not - but i'm going to try.

Adam

[Yosemite Sam]

Post by John W Kennedy

Post by Adam Thornton

Post by HappyMacXL
Thanks Adam.
No mazes in Tabletop RPG eh? :D

Heh. Not these days. But, for instance, there's an early Judges' Guild
module for Empire of the Petal Throne called The Nightmare Maze of
Jigresh which is pretty much exactly just a big complicated maze.
Actually the classical tradition is pretty heavy on mazes and mazes with
teleport traps and so forth. But, as with IF, not generally regarded as
good design in this day and age.

Even when Infocom was still in Cambridge, classic mazes were out of
fashion; for example, in one game, there was a maze, but the correct
solution involved finding a map.
And, on the other hand, you might want a maze even today, if it’s
logically part of the setting—Hampton Court, for example, or Knossos.
But it had better have a better solution than just dropping inventory
objects.

I made a unique discovery about Maze Travel while playing Azurik, which has stunning graphics. One of the reasons for this is with visual representations, exits have a cone shape instead of a line shape.

Escape From Monkey Island involved a maze which could not be mapped. A severed head was the key to navigation.

[HappyMacXL]

Post by Adam Thornton

Post by HappyMacXL
Thanks Adam.
No mazes in Tabletop RPG eh? :D

Heh. Not these days. But, for instance, there's an early Judges' Guild
module for Empire of the Petal Throne called The Nightmare Maze of
Jigresh which is pretty much exactly just a big complicated maze.
Actually the classical tradition is pretty heavy on mazes and mazes with
teleport traps and so forth. But, as with IF, not generally regarded as
good design in this day and age.
Some day I really will write that essay about how the caver aesthetic
without a communication of the actual physical context of caving, plus
the limitations of 1975 technology, plus the ludic necessity to make
dungeon crawling about the dungeon rather than the crawling,
simultaneously created a made-vastly-safer-and-more-human-friendly
notion of cave travel and the need for consciously-designed labyrinthine
spaces in RPGs, CRPGs, and adventure games.
Some day. Maybe after I retire.
Oddly, over in the tabletop world, Patrick Stuart and Scrap Princess
have just released a book called _Veins of the Earth_ which is in part
an attempt to bring the physicality of cave navigation to tabletop
RPGs. It's a cool book, although pricey.
Adam

10 years passes relatively quickly but it's still a fair old chunk of time. Is it fair to say that a good number of the Get Lamp interviewees have moved on in one form or another?

[namekuseijin]

it got more flashy and colorful with far less substance

I'm still playing classics from 80s, 90s and early 2k but barely interested in anything from the twine kids or from the let-me-choose-some-paths-to-you folks

[Andy Kosela]

Post by namekuseijin
it got more flashy and colorful with far less substance
I'm still playing classics from 80s, 90s and early 2k but barely interested in anything from the twine kids or from the let-me-choose-some-paths-to-you folks

Nothing like playing old Infocom classics on a _real_ Commodore 64 and _real_ Commodore CRT monitor.

--Andy