Category Archives: text in games

JET LAMP SLC: A few thoughts about the event…

By Rubes | Published: September 14, 2010

…in no particular order:

1. Loved it. The event went off without a hitch. Brewvies was a great place to have it, especially with the beer and food to go along with the big screen. I was a little worried at first, since it was a pretty large theater with 160 seats, not intuitively conducive to an informal screening and discussion. But seeing the film up on the large screen was very cool, and the post-movie discussion actually worked quite well.

2. This:

was exceptionally cool to see. Not sure why, but this probably made the night. That, and seeing Jason’s reaction to it.

3. Who knew? Taking photographs of a cinema marquee, no big deal. Taking photos of the lingerie and sex shop next [More...] Read the rest

Also posted in adventure games, interactive fiction | 1 Comment

JET LAMP tour stopping in Salt Lake City

By Rubes | Published: September 6, 2010

Well, after taking the summer off from the blog, we’re now officially back in business. And what better way to start back in than with an excellent announcement about Jason Scott’s documentary film on the history of text adventure games, GET LAMP.

Jason is making the rounds during the months of September and October to promote the movie, thanks to a special “all-you-can-jet” ticket through JetBlue airlines. Since JetBlue flies into Salt Lake City, I invited him to stop in for a screening, and he accepted.

The screening will take place at Brewvies Cinema Pub, a cool place in downtown SLC that serves beer and food with movies, so it should make for a great place to see the film on the big [More...] Read the rest

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Long Flights Are Good For Something

By Rubes | Published: March 22, 2010

One thing long flights are good for is addressing old issues that you’ve always meant to fix but never really got around to. So when I found myself on a three-and-a-half hour flight yesterday, I decided it was time to tackle an old parser syntax issue that has been nagging at me for some time.

My goal with the parser has always been to make it as robust as possible, even if much of the functionality isn’t necessarily used in Vespers — I’d hate to have to add functionality after the fact, like for a future game. So the idea was to develop the parser to provide at least the typical performance one might expect from a TADS or Inform game. Most of the early [More...] Read the rest

Also posted in interactive fiction, Vespers | 1 Comment

“Get Lamp” Discount Deadline Approaches

By Rubes | Published: December 29, 2009

A gentle reminder for those interested enough in text adventures to be eagerly awaiting the arrival of Jason Scott’s sure-to-be-singular documentary on the matter, GET LAMP: the pre-order discount ends on January 1st.

According to Scott, the documentary will be priced at $40 for a 2-DVD set that will reportedly include additonal “wrap-ins” in the package, although no word yet as to what those are. It’s set to be released in March 2010, around the same time as the PAX East convention, where the movie will be premiered alongside (hopefully) a host of other interactive fiction-related panels and presentations, which is pretty neat.

But if you know you’re going to buy the documentary, you can pre-order it now for 25% off, or [More...] Read the rest

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Wrapping Up At the GDC Austin

By Rubes | Published: September 18, 2009

I’m finally getting some time to put some thoughts together on this year’s GDC Austin, as I sit in the airport waiting for my flight back. Luckily, it’s still possible to put some thoughts together, after dumping half a beer on (and in) my laptop last night. I thought for sure that was the end of the line for the MacBook Pro, but it seems to have survived the scare.

It was an impressive amount of beer dumped directly over the power button and right half of the keyboard, and I wasn’t exactly the swiftest to respond. But after giving it some time to dry upside down, it did start up the first time I tried. After that, though, on subsequent power-ups it would only [More...] Read the rest

Also posted in characters in games, game design, interactive fiction, Vespers | 3 Comments