We're not the only ones who are inspired by the Infocom games (ZORK, ENCHANTER, PLANETFALL, etc.) from the 80's and try to use that inspiration to create something new. But surely, MC Frontalot is unique in that he channels that inspiration into creating a rap song!
MC Frontalot has released a music video for 'It Is Pitch Dark', about the old Infocom games, and directed by Jason Scott, who is currently putting together a documentary about Interactive Fiction.
Jason writes about making and releasing the video on his blog, where he also discusses the "making of" and links to a lot of more high-res versions.
The lyrics are online here, and they drop so many Infocom references my head is still spinning. But the song is more than just in-jokes. These games steered me toward interests that I still have today, and it sounds like they did the same for Front:
I think I went once to some sands that were Egyptian.
And I retain plane tickets, snapshots, receipts,
yet I stand unconvinced that this has happened to me...
...did the TRS-80 in my brain get hacked?
Thanks, Grampa, for buying it. Now my life’s ruined.
Twenty-two years later, head’s infested: got the grue in.
PLUGHing, XYZZYfying, trying to escape,
but I can’t ‘cause I’m up and around and awake.
I remember going over to a friend's house who had a computer and he would show me the Scott Adams ADVENTURE games and I would sit, rapt -- but he would never let me play. Later, I went to another friend's house who had ZORK and we would spend hours and hours wandering around trying to solve it. And the joyous day when my family finally upgraded our TI 99/4A to a real computer -- an Apple IIe -- that could play Infocom games, and I went out and bought my first computer game, which was a little game called PLANETFALL, written by Steve Meretzky, who appears in MC Frontalot's video. And, well, the "grue got in," and he's been there ever since.