Get Lamp

"They were called 'computer adventure games', and they used the most powerful graphics processor in the world: the human mind." A documentary that tells the story of text adventures through the words of the people who made them, it's taken digital historian Jason Scott five years of researching, interviewing, filming, editing and polishing. And it was worth waiting.

This is oral history at its best.

While Jason's work to preserve the viewpoints and images of early creators before it's too late is commendable, I watched it with a set of friends who never saw the games in action. For them, it was just odd and a little intriguing, but as we watched the whole 90+ minutes in non- interactive mode there was boredom in the room. Not having experienced the thrill of the chase, it meant not that much to them.

However, myself having experienced many of the early games in my teens and early 20s, it was a great look back at what was an obsession. Granted, I never finished most interactive fiction games because I might be willing to put 5 or 6 hours into it but not 20 or 30 hours so I guess that makes me stupid.

I agree with the other reviewer who said there were opportunities missed to link it with games that evolved out, such as King's Quest, which were a hybrid of text and graphics. Why the bias against that? Also, to be fair, remember David Ahl's "BASIC Computer Games" which had the text of some 300 text games to type in. Many of them, such as Hunt The Wumpus, contained many Adventuresque elements.

Even so, I applaud Jason for having the tenacity of going after his early heroes and definitively linking Collosal Cave system to Adventure for all time.

The movie seemed a little too personal to me, and I guess in many ways that was the point: it was a love letter to this type of gaming. A love letter to first generation gamers. In that sense, there were definitely some poignant lines on people reflecting on their work in these games/genre/time period. But I also thought there was a missed opportunity to show how this type of gaming really morphed into many of the popular games that we see today. To take one example, the common threads are so distinct going backwards from Lionhead's Fable series (third generation console gamers) to Sierra's King Quest (second generation PC gamers) all the way back to Adventure (first generation "computer" gamer). There's also the obvious example of Myst!

I think there were missed opportunities to create a great documentary (that could have had universal appeal amongst gamers). But if you were involved with interactive fiction, played interactive fiction, or just generally want to know where gaming got its start, the documentary is worth a look-see.

As someone who grew up playing interactive fiction from the original Adventure game all through Infocom's text games, I could make sense of all the interview clips. But the flow from one clip to the next often stray off into the obscure, often intellectual discussions. Be warned, this film is only suitable for gamers who've played these games.

If you were born too late to play these text games when they were viral, you will be bored out of your mind. The editing of these clips... it's heartbreaking to see how disjointed they are.

I'm just thankful that this documentary exists. But just like the text games themselves, this film will only appeal to the small crowd who played these games.

Viewers be warned. You will be bored. I personally loved it, but I wish someone good at editing could re-do this whole thing and make it more engaging.

It is what it is. This is the only documentary covering this part of gaming history. So if you're desperate to know about Adventure and Infocom, have at it. My advice, watch it when you have a lot of energy - probably upon waking up in the morning, on the weekend. Make a strong cup of coffee, sit down and get ready to FOCUS. Because if your mind wanders off, you will be lost as to what's going on.

For what it's worth. The people that were interviewed. All treasured icons of the industry that I've never seen in any other gaming documentaries. They are all stellar, and convey a lot of important history.

The editing is what really ruins this experience. But it's worth gritting your teeth and getting through this if you really love learning about the history of the game industry.

I quite like Jason Scott's style of collecting as many geeks on camera and let them rant. This already worked quite well in the BBS documentary, but you have to be quite dedicated to the subject to sit through the whole two discs. The collection of talking face is certainly eclectic and at times you're getting a very intimate insight into some of the fans' private lives. The rise and fall of Infocom is documented quite extensively, but have benefited from focus on the most famous/infamous games. I would have expected a bit more on the history of IF, which for some reason got short shrift, but overall a gem of a collection.