Before his death in 1997, American writer, poet and performer William S. Burroughs dabbled very briefly in game development, serving as a voice actor on Inscape’s 1995 PC horror game The Dark Eye.
This bizarre bit of video game history is getting a fresh wave of attention today thanks to an Open Culture blog post that collects disparate recordings of Burroughs’ work on the game, which encompassed voicing the character Edwin and reciting two Edgar Allen Poe poems, “Annabel Lee” and “The Masque of the Red Death.”
Developers may appreciate this look back at how poetic performance was incorporated into the design of what became a cult classic horror game, released 20 years ago this October.
For more insight into the game’s development, check out designer Russell Lees’ 2011 Gamasutra blog post about (in part) the experience of making The Dark Eye.