NPR's text adventurer revealed!

by Christopher Grant { Jan 18th 2006 at 5:35PM }

Last week we linked to a post on Curmudgeon Gamer about spotting an obscure text adventure reference during an NPR report. NPR's science correspondant, David Kestenbaum, said, "Sisk admits that he lives in a complicated part of the city, a maze of twisty little roads, all alike." We pondered how the mention got in there, unsure of its pervasiveness outside ~~nerd~~ gamer circles. The culprit has voluntarily unmasked himself over at Curmudgeon Gamer and he's none other than... David Kestenbaum!

Hey there,

[Someone at NPR] pointed out your post about the Colossal Cave line in the story about online driving directions. I wish the story were that some menacing troll on the copy desk had slipped the line it, but it was completely my idea. (We don't actually have a copy desk.) It occurred to me while I was interviewing Jacob Sisk for the first part of the story when he mentioned how tangled the roads were and how everyone got lost. It seemed a perfect line to drop in, since this was about mazes and computers. I don't think I told my editor. It just sailed on through...

[I got] the old Infocom game Deadline last week, which I had played as a kid but never completed. It's pretty great. I love how spare the whole thing is. You end up creating these great mental images in your head. A lot like radio actually...

dk

After a little digging, it's really no surprise. Kestenbaum has a PhD in particle physics, so he's a purebred ~~nerd~~ gamer. David, in Deadline, make sure to "EXAMINE LADDER."

[Thanks, Matt]