IS IT GUE TECH OR MIT? DAVE LEBLING EXPLAINS IT...
(The Status Line; Winter/Spring 1988; page 5)
Copyright 1988 (c) Infocom
Transcribed by Graeme Cree
Ever since we released THE LURKING HORROR by Dave Lebling we've been
getting questions from players about the setting. We thought we'd go
straight to the source and ask Dave for the straight dope.
TSL: Is GUE Tech really MIT?
DAVE: I definitely based it on part of the MIT campus. When I was a student
at MIT, there was a pastime called "Institute Exploring" (also known as
"Tunnel Tours"). A group of students would go over to the main part of the
campus at around 3am and try to visit some of the more obscure and
off-limits locations.
MIT is full of basements and sub-basements, and those are often
crammed with incomprehensible equipment left over from some cancelled
research project. Late at night there are still professors and students
working, but for the most part all you see are security guards and
maintenance crews.
TSL: So some of the locations in the game are based on real places?
DAVE: Except for a few. As far as I know, there is no eldricth altar at
which students are sacrificed to nameless gods. But then, I was never a
professor, so I can't be sure.
Most of MIT's buildings are connected by basements and tunnels, some
of which are not generally accessible to the student population, unless...
Well, let's put it this way. MMIT students are very good at acquiring keys
or at "getting past" locks when keys aren't available.
Until fairly recently there was a door (not at quite the same location
as in the game) in the chemistry building that said "Department of Alchemy."
Alas, I'm told that what was behind it was a storage room.
There really is a skyscraper (well, twenty stories) on campus, housing
the geology department, among others. There really was at one time a
semi-transparent dome housing a tree atop the building. I have no idea
why, or what type of tree it really was. When I was a student, it was
possible to get to this roof by going the wrong way through a door that
said "Positively No Admittance, Opening Door Sounds Alarm." When we visited
the roof, the alarm didn't go off.
The Great Dome, which has been featured in such masterpieces as Star
Trek, is often the site for elaborate decorations. In my memory it's been
disguised as a giant cupcake, a Halloween pumpkin, and so on. Rumor has it
that a cow and a Volkswagon Beetle have also been hoisted onto it.
TSL: The Infinite Corridor? Is it real?
DAVE: The main building of MIT is almost aligned east to west. On certain
days of the year, the setting sun shines all the way down the Infinite
Corridor just like the temple of the sun at Karnak, Egypt. MIT is reputed
to have more miles of corridor than any building except the Pentagon.
TSL: There can't really be a Tomb, can there?
DAVE: Yes, there can! It's called Tomb of the Unknown Tool ("tool" is MIT
slang for a nerd). It's rough, coffin-shaped, not quite as tight a squeeze
as in the game, and has no door inside it.
TSL: What about Miskatonic University? Is GUE Tech in Arkham?
DAVEL: Well, I have a theory about Miskatonic University. After all, the
troubles they were mixed up in in the twenties and thirties, they probably
had a lot of difficulty recruiting students. It was the Depression, after
which I think that perhaps a benefactor like George Underwood Edwards may
have infused a lot of money into several struggling small schools about
then, and caused them to merge into GUE Tech. After all, Yale University
was renamed after it's benefactor, why not Miskatonic?
TSL: Do you really live on a hill crowned with a circle of stone?
DAVE: Absolutely, although we since discovered that the odd noises at night
were merely a raccoon.
