Given your professional background with Infocom and your shared experiences there, what is your impression of the hobbiest IF community that arose after Infocom closed? Any idea on general feelings about the community from other former Infocom personnel? Do you keep in touch with or have any residual relationships with other former Infocom personnel, or has everyone essentially drifted apart?
4 Likes
Is there any news about this? Was the interview conducted as scheduled? Will it be posted somewhere online?
7 Likes
Hi! We’re going to conduct it on the 8th of January. Hopefully it shouldn’t take too long to get it up and online past that. I’ll be sure to post when it’s live.
11 Likes
Just an update that the oral history has been completed and almost all of your questions were answered! There’s some repetition from other articles and the Get Lamp interview, but plenty of new stuff as well. I think I have about 2 hours of footage and it should most all be going in.
20 Likes
Update! I’ve been up to my neck with research requests, reunion, and sesquicentennial asks from the college, but I’m splicing the interview together in Premiere at this very moment. I just need to create a couple of quick title cards, combine the three clips (I had to grab a second SD card during the interview as we filled a 128G up), export it to a manageable size in Handbrake, and then get it online. It’s a bit slower as I’m teaching myself Premiere as I go, but it’s nothing too terrible. But, end of this week at the very latest. Hoping for tomorrow! It’s an easy 2 hours long.
11 Likes
It’s spliced together. Just waiting for Amy to give the thumbs up.
6 Likes
Still waiting on Amy to watch it and give final approval (she’s been a bit busy). I just talked to her though and it should be soonish.
6 Likes
Busy, no doubt. We’re just excited to see her speak!
1 Like
Has there been any update on the availability of this interview?
2 Likes
Not to be a pest about this, but has there been any word about availability of the interview? I know a young lady who is very eager to see it (and who asks me about whether it has been posted at least twice a week).
4 Likes
I’ve been excited to see it too, fwiw.
2 Likes
It looks like @chat_contraire has not been by for the last seven weeks. Even if there is no further official word, I am pretty sure that the end result will eventually make its way to the archives at https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu.
7 Likes
Sorry for the delay! I had to wait for permission from Amy to post it (and it’s been a very hectic end of semester), but it’s finally here.
24 Likes
Let me know if anyone has any thoughts or feedback or maybe even follow-up questions for Amy. The goal was to keep it pretty informal and I haven’t done many of these, but I think it went pretty smoothly.
5 Likes
This was such a delight! Thank you for reaching out to involve us. It was very generous of both of you.
When I think of Amy Briggs, I think of romance and Infocom, but her and Jeff O’Neill dating was something of a revelation.
2 Likes
I love her statement at 55:37, where she follows the logic that there must be more people interested in romance videogames than were currently around. She was perhaps before her time, but the ubiquity of dating sims since has arguably proven that true and prescient.
ETA: At 1:02:31, she discusses how, after Plundered Hearts came out, the Imps were being pressured to “Write the next Hitchhiker’s Guide.” She then points out that what stood out to her was that Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was not an original Infocom IP. It was being supported by an existing body of work and an existing pool of fans. So she tried pitching a few different preexisting IPs, including A Prairie Home Companion, an Anne Rice vampire game, and even a Dr. Who adaptation, but management shot them all down. One, what a missed opportunity! Could you imagine an Infocom Dr. Who game!? Two, this line of thinking is something I’ve heard echoed recently with trying to get an existing literary IP to try IF. And Three, this is a regular practice in Hollywood; they often look for an existing IP with preexisting traction and inertia to make a movie out of which is why so many films are based on successful books.
ETA: Very cool they all keep tabs on each other and still talk. Pleasantly surprised by that.
5 Likes
@chat_contraire: Thank you for following up, and for inviting the community to participate in the first place!
Perhaps Ms. Briggs would be interested in one of the recent dementia-related titles written by Amanda Walker (@AmandaB), such as Of Their Shadows Deep.
5 Likes
I’ll let Amy onto that. I’m also assuming it was your daughter who contacted me as well! I passed on the message to Amy and I would be very surprised if she didn’t get back to her. E-mails like that are what make my job as an archivist and historian worth it.
1 Like