Robert Carr of Lamprey Systems: Interview

Robert Carr can be reached through Lamprey Systems. You can download the following games from his web site or from the list below.

All the games are designed for a MAC platform.

XiST:
X-Day Invasion Survival Trainer
(1.3K, .hqx)

Shock Da Monkey
(1.2 K, .hqx)

eMission Statement
(630K, .hqx)

Straight To Hell
(1.2M, .hqx)

HexOn Exon
(200K, .hqx)

MacJesus ProGold
(1.4M, .hqx)

Gerald-O-Matic
(75K, hqx)

Operation Rescue
(430K, .hqx)

Rupture The Rapture
(1.8M, .hqx)

PGP3, Pretty Good Pornography
(1M, .hqx)

F*ck 'Em! Lite Demo
(450K, .hqx)

Robert Carr of Lamprey Systems
Interviewed by Poppy Dixon

Miss Poppy:
Your games have gotten considerable coverage in the Internet community. How did this happen?

Mr. Carr:
I spend a fair amount of time on the phone talking to St. Jude and slammed out a couple articles for Mondo. And I think after that there was Spy magazine.

Miss Poppy:
Did you do a lot of publicity?

Mr. Carr:
No. I don't turn it down but I don't go out actively seeking it.

Miss Poppy:
How long have you been doing this?

Mr. Carr:
I started with zines, back in 1985 and those lasted up through 88 or 89. Then I started messing around with software in 1988.

Miss Poppy:
What's your REAL job?

Mr. Carr:
I run copies. I worked for Kinkos. One thing leads to another, you know you're around copiers, what's the first thing you do? You start a zine. Then I ended up working for the state, stripping negatives and didn't have access to a Macintosh anymore. So I bought one, just to type the zine and got really interested in the software and seeing what people did.

Miss Poppy:
Do you still do zines?

Mr. Carr:
No, I don't do hard copy anymore. It's so expensive to produce.

Miss Poppy:
How did you get started with programming games?

Mr. Carr:
I got my Mac+, there wasn't much software around and I saw things that were just, wow, how do you do that? I got ahold of a couple of Infocom games that really disappointed me and thought, "I could do better than this." I ran across this little program called World Builder from a company called Silicon Beach Software which was bought by Aldus, which in turn was bought by Adobe. It was a simple adventure game creation program. I started with that for a few years and decided, well after awhile you bump up against the limitations, to move from there to Hypercard. Then I moved on to Supercard, dabbled with C and Future Basic then ended up with Metro Works Code Warrior C. It was gradual and I'm still a really crappy programmer.

Miss Poppy:
Are you going to work with Java?

Mr. Carr:
I just started dabbling with Java and I have to admit the results have been good. Hopefully I should soon have some simple applets ready for public consumption.

Miss Poppy:
Do you make games for anyone other than Christians?

Mr. Carr:
I try to offend everyone equally. I go through different periods. Which religious programs are you talking about.

Miss Poppy:
Well, it's not religious per se, but "Operation Rescue" is aimed at the religious right. "Mac Jesus Pro Gold" and then there's "Marital Aids for Christians".

Mr. Carr:
Oh, you saw that. Yeah, they're one of my pet peeves. I like to whack them around a bit.

Miss Poppy:
Any particular reason?

Mr. Carr:
Well, they're stupid, they're obnoxious, they're gonna kill us all.

Miss Poppy:
Did you have a religious upbringing or are you a product of our godless secular school system?

Mr. Carr:
I was a genetic atheist child. It was really weird because my parents are not overly religious, but my sister is. They tried to send me to Bible school at 5 or 6 and it was a complete disaster. I stuck stickers in the wrong places, got in arguments with the Bible teacher telling her there's just lava inside the earth, this at 6 years of age. I've been reading that a good deal of religious faith is genetic. And I just never did believe in anything and was surprised when people believed in things that were just patently absurd. I was the only athiest kid in a class full of Mormons.

Miss Poppy:
What's the most popular of the religious games that people download.

Mr. Carr:
Probably MacJesus. It's in its second rewrite, MacJesus Pro Gold.

Miss Poppy:
What's been your favorite project.

Mr. Carr:
They all have things that irk me and things that I like about them. Probably Operation Rescue, just because everybody hated it. It's the most offensive thing I've ever done. I really enjoy that aspect of it. I would say MacJesus ProGold is up there.

Miss Poppy:
I love the mirrored sun glasses.

Mr. Carr:
I'm probably going to be redoing that and call it MacJesus ProGold Millennium.

Miss Poppy:
What kind of responses do you get?

Mr. Carr:
I get all kinds of mail. When I started nobody used the internet but I now Iget everything from, "I love your stuff," to "I'm going to hunt you down and kill you." I save the death threats. Those are kind of special. I started a section at the site called Children's death threats to Lamprey Systems.

Miss Poppy:
What's the significance of the Lamprey?

Mr. Carr:
It's a spineless, parasytic fish that attaches onto other ones and kind of sucks the life out of them. I thought it was good symbolism. It's also a name that's almost obscure enough that I can say it in public and people don't lose their shit over it.

Miss Poppy:
Your work is very in-your-face. What is the value of that approach?

Mr. Carr:
I think it's good for people to be offended about things. We spend most of our time lying to ourselves. The only way we'll stop that is to realize that we ARE lying to ourselves.

Miss Poppy:
And an in-your-face style works better than say, persuasion, dialog....

Mr. Carr:
I get the Nation at home and it's endless arguments over whether or not the Rosenbergs are guilty, things like that, Trotskyite spanking secrets. I mean I could care less.

Miss Poppy:
My work is often accused of being in-your-face but really, when the religious right is trying to pass laws against abortion, that's in my face, or in my...

Mr. Carr:
Right, if they had their way you couldn't get a drink on Sundays. That law was finally taken off the books.

Miss Poppy:
Is it still illegal to dance in Boise on Sundays? It was when I lived here.

Mr. Carr:
I don't know but I wouldn't be a bit surprised.

Miss Poppy:
A lot of people make an argument against an in-your-face approach because they claim it's not effective. Are there other reasons for doing something besides effectiveness?

Mr. Carr:
Yeah, you're never going to win the argument. They're never going to go, "Damn, you're right." But there are people that feel really beaten down and they'll see your piece and write you that after dealing with all the scummy people at work your game really made them laugh.

Miss Poppy:
Do you design for a specific audience?

Mr. Carr:
I don't go out and pick on the typical minorities...

Miss Poppy:
Just the Christian minority, the persecuted Christian minority...

Mr. Carr:
Well, you know I think they enjoy persecution and I wish we could give them a lot more, like the Romans did.

Miss Poppy:
So you're just doing your part.

Mr. Carr:
Yeah, I'm just trying to put my boot in too. They can't go to heaven if they don't suffer.

Miss Poppy:
What do you get out of all of this?

Mr. Carr:
First of all, I learned how to program. Before I found the Macintosh I didn't have anything to do. I had my job which takes the brainpower of a lightbulb. I was totally bored, spending money, drinking, anything.

Miss Poppy:
What about recreation and leisure?

Mr. Carr:
Programming the games vents my frustrations and anger.

Miss Poppy:
You don't get paid for any of these?

Mr. Carr:
I used to collect shareware fees. But it doesn't begin to touch even the equipment involved, let alone all the hours.

Miss Poppy:
Not since the days of Paul Revere and the Raiders has such creativity come out of Boise, is it the water?

Mr. Carr:
Like heavy metals? No, I think it's just profound boredom. A lot of my friends who were really creative, moved up to Seattle in the 80s. They went up there and did nothing. There's so much real leisure. But here in Boise Idaho you can shop, drink or go to Family Home Evening.

Miss Poppy:
Are there others of you?

Mr. Carr:
In Boise? I don't maintain a profile in this town. I really don't know.

Miss Poppy:
Who would you want for a celebrity spokesperson for your products.

Mr. Carr:
Harvey Keitel, Peter Weller.

Miss Poppy:
How has your life changed since the Wired interview and are you equipped to handle fame?

Mr. Carr:
I'm armed now. I made a little money off of the interview, enough to buy a COLOR Macintosh. That helped. But it doesn't have as much impact as you might think.

Miss Poppy:
Are you hooked up with the Reverand Ivan Stang?

Mr. Carr:
Yes, I'm writing a subgenius game right now. I earned the title of anti-pope, which I'm really proud of. I get mail from him once in a while, he's really busy. But I wrote him that I wanted to do a subgenius game.

Miss Poppy:
Do tell.

Mr. Carr:
It's Xist, about X day. You're in a maze, with a flying saucer and you're devouring the pinks.

Miss Poppy:
Pinks?

Mr. Carr:
Normal people.

Miss Poppy:
What are your plans for the future?

Mr. Carr:
A rewrite of MacJesus, with better facial animation. Stang wrote me an interesting letter about how he has long conversations with it and sent me some transcripts. One of the reasons I wrote that program was because most conversations that you have with people could be handled by a program. At one time on my BBS I had a little program that people thought was me. They'd chat with it and most of them would figure out that they were chatting with a Hypercard stack but occasionally they wouldn't. It was interesting.

Miss Poppy:
Did you ever see ELIZA or RACTOR?

Mr. Carr:
Yes, that's one of the things that got me going was running ELIZA on my MAC+.

Miss Poppy:
My cousin is home schooling her kids right now. They're totally isolated from the real world. I can't wait until they get online and have a chance to hear some different ideas.

Mr. Carr:
That's why the religious people are so freaked out about the Internet, not because of the smut but because NO religion can stand up to access to information.