# Get Lamp

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> License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/)

{{short description|2010 film by Jason Scott}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=February 2026}}
{{Infobox film
  | name     = Get Lamp
  | image    = Get Lamp screengrab.png
  | caption  = Title screen
  | director = [Jason Scott](/source/Jason_Scott_Sadofsky)
  | producer = Jason Scott
  | released = {{Film date|2010|7}}
  | language = English
| country = United States
  }}
'''''Get Lamp''''' is a [documentary](/source/documentary_film) about [interactive fiction](/source/interactive_fiction) (a genre that includes [text adventure](/source/text_adventure)s) filmed by computer [historian](/source/historian) [Jason Scott](/source/Jason_Scott_Sadofsky) of [textfiles.com](/source/textfiles.com). Scott conducted the interviews between February 2006 and February 2008, and the documentary was released in July 2010.<ref>{{Cite web
 |last       = Gagne
 |first      = Ken
 |title      = The Grill: Jason Scott
 |publisher  = Computerworld.com
 |date       = 26 Jul 2010
 |url        = http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/350365/The_Grill_Jason_Scott
 |archive-url = https://archive.today/20130119151255/http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/print/350365/The_Grill_Jason_Scott
 |url-status   = dead
 |archive-date = 19 January 2013
 |access-date = 8 Aug 2010
}}</ref>

== Description ==
The documentary and its hours of episodes and bonus footage contain material from roughly 80 interviews of interactive fiction developers, designers, and players.<ref>{{Cite web
  | title = Get Lamp: Interviews
  | publisher = getlamp.com
  | url = http://www.getlamp.com/cast/
  | access-date = 8 Aug 2010}}</ref> Included in the bonus footage is a nearly 50-minute documentary about [Infocom](/source/Infocom), the best-known commercial publisher of [interactive fiction](/source/interactive_fiction). The DVD release included photographs, essays, and a collectible coin.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Smith|first1=Graham|title=Get Lamp: text adventure documentary|url=http://www.pcgamer.com/get-lamp-text-adventure-documentary/|access-date=1 February 2016|work=[PC Gamer](/source/PC_Gamer)|date=6 August 2010}}</ref>

''Get Lamp'' is licensed under the [Creative Commons](/source/Creative_Commons) [Attribution-Sharealike-Noncommercial license](/source/CC_BY-NC-SA).<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.getlamp.com/order/|access-date=1 February 2016|title=Get Lamp order page|quote=Production is licensed Creative Commons-Attribution-Sharealike-NonCommercial|archive-date=5 January 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160105010959/http://getlamp.com/order/|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Raw interview footage is hosted at the [Internet Archive](/source/Internet_Archive).<ref>{{Cite web
 | title = The Get Lamp Interview Archives
 | url = https://archive.org/details/getlamp-interviews
 | access-date = 18 September 2022}}</ref>

The name "Get Lamp" comes from the first inventory pickup in arguably the first-ever adventure game, [Will Crowther](/source/William_Crowther_(programmer))'s ''[Colossal Cave Adventure](/source/Colossal_Cave_Adventure)'' (1975), more commonly known as simply ''Adventure''. The lamp appears as a kind of Easter Egg in nearly every interview. The film starts off with a tour of part of the real-life [Mammoth Cave](/source/Mammoth_Cave_National_Park) system in Kentucky that ''Adventure'' was based on. The soundtrack includes Creative Commons-licensed work from Zoë Blade (who started out writing [Amiga](/source/Amiga) [.MOD](/source/.MOD) files) and Tony Longworth.<ref name="ars" />

==Reception==
Jeremy Reiner of ''[Ars Technica](/source/Ars_Technica)'' called it "a gem of a film": "The documentary's peek into the culture of Infocom is one of the most fascinating stories I've seen in all of high technology."<ref name="ars">{{cite news|title=Looking back at the Infocom era: a review of Get Lamp|url=https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2010/09/the-great-thing-about/|access-date=1 February 2016|work=[Ars Technica](/source/Ars_Technica)|date=29 September 2010}}</ref> Gordon Haff of [CNET](/source/CNET) said it "does a great job of capturing a gaming era which is ultimately hard to separate from the history of Infocom."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Haff |first1=Gordon|title='Get Lamp' illuminates the text adventure game|url=http://www.cnet.com/news/get-lamp-illuminates-the-text-adventure-game/|access-date=1 February 2016|date=10 August 2010}}</ref> In ''[The Guardian](/source/The_Guardian)'', Will Freeman listed it among "Six of the Best Gaming Documentaries": "It is a low-fi doc prone to the sentimental, but takes the viewer on a journey through a world of gaming all too often forgotten now that [''Call of Duty''](/source/Call_of_Duty_(video_game)) and ''[Angry Birds](/source/Angry_Birds)'' are household names."<ref>{{cite news|last1=Freeman|first1=Will|title=How augmented reality builds bridge between games and children's books|url=https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/mar/10/augmented-reality-books-video-games|access-date=1 February 2016 |work=[The Guardian](/source/The_Guardian) |date=10 March 2014}}</ref>

== Gallery ==
<gallery mode=packed heights=150px style="text-align:left">
File:GET LAMP Packing August 2010.jpg|Get Lamp cases
File:GET LAMP coins.jpg|Get Lamp coins
File:GET LAMP coin close.jpg|Near view of a Lamp coin
</gallery>

==See also==
*[Mary Ann Buckles](/source/Mary_Ann_Buckles)
*[Steve Meretzky](/source/Steve_Meretzky)
*[Scott Adams (game designer)](/source/Scott_Adams_(game_designer))

==References==
{{reflist|30em}}

==External links==
{{commons category|GET LAMP}}
* {{official website|url=http://www.getlamp.com/}}
* [http://ifwiki.org/index.php/Get_Lamp Get Lamp article] on IFWiki.org
* {{IMDb title|1756529}}

'''Media'''
* {{YouTube|id=JzOPVe7Usms|title="Get Lamp trailer"}}
* {{YouTube|id=LRhbcDzbGSU|title="Get Lamp Commentary and presentation"}} at GoogleTechTalk
* [https://archive.org/details/infocomcabinet The Infocom Cabinet] at the [Internet Archive](/source/Internet_Archive)
::Collections of [Infocom](/source/Infocom) documents scanned by [Jason Scott](/source/Jason_Scott) in preparing the documentary
* [https://archive.org/details/getlamp-interviews The ''GET LAMP'' Interviews] at the [Internet Archive](/source/Internet_Archive)
* [https://archive.org/details/GET_LAMP_The_Text_Adventure_Documentary "The Get Lamp" DVDs]  Full [.ISO](/source/.ISO) Copy at the [Internet Archive](/source/Internet_Archive)

{{Infocom games}}
{{Jason Scott}}

Category:2010 films
Category:American documentary films
Category:Infocom
Category:Interactive fiction
Category:Creative Commons-licensed documentary films
Category:Documentary films about video games
Category:2010 documentary films
Category:Films directed by Jason Scott
Category:2010 English-language films
Category:2010 American films
Category:English-language documentary films

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Adapted from the Wikipedia article [Get Lamp](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Lamp) by Wikipedia contributors ([contributor history](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_Lamp?action=history)). Available under [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/). Changes may have been made.