Random thoughts... - by Tocky
Nicker on 5/11/2023 at 01:06
Quote Posted by mxleader
Looks like there's a couple of studio apartments...
I can see a few garrets, actually. Speaking of which, we could just pass the loot sack around and make a gift of it.
Tocky on 5/11/2023 at 04:26
Not sure a studio apartment would do for the kind of parties I envision. No access except by boat, everyone stays the night, mandatory ballroom dancing, a table to seat fifty, grounds to stroll, floating targets to shoot flaming arrows at, the usual. Perhaps something in the Dry Tortugas. Fort Jefferson would work had the government not snagged it. They get all the best stuff. Imagine the parties one could plan in such a place though. Pagan bonfires on the beach. Cannon firings at midnight. Harpooning blowup sex dolls for status of king and queen of the island. Naturally they would be secured to fishing lines reeled about by other guests so as to not endanger sea life. Or maybe phosphorescent kites shot at by flare guns. The insurance alone would be gloriously prohibitive.
Inline Image:
https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/american_latino_heritage/photos/DryTortugas_02.jpgJust coming up with the themes each month and the preparation for them would be great fun. Imagine what a witches weekend could look like after a months preparation. Live magic and props! Or an alien weekend with blinking light saucer go-kart races along the beach. The fun we could have with billions of dollars not wasted on actual important sensible stuff would be spectacular. Even scaled back with waivers and not so dangerous stuff on a semi reasonable budget would be grand. I could figure some wild stuff. And being the most flamboyant ringmaster raconteur I feel is my true calling. It could be like Fantasy Island without all the boring morality. I'm certain I missed my calling. Sigh.
CZmeltdown on 5/11/2023 at 13:59
Is it just me or does every single public transport bus always smell like someone pissed in a bucket of old pennies?
mxleader on 5/11/2023 at 16:11
Quote Posted by CZmeltdown
Is it just me or does every single public transport bus always smell like someone pissed in a bucket of old pennies?
Must be the water from being in close proximity to old copper mines. That's my answer and I'm sticking to it.
Qooper on 5/11/2023 at 20:30
Quote Posted by Tocky
Just coming up with the themes each month and the preparation for them would be great fun.
How about a System Shock -themed party with laser tag in a sprawling neon-lit maze? Or even an alternate reality adventure where one person plays Shodan and the rest must solve puzzles to infiltrate her chamber of CPU nodes by hacking her security measures. There would be a whole host of cool stuff put together using Arduinos and all kinds of gadgets. She'd be watching the players through security cameras, which the players could hack and disable. And of course she'd be taunting the players through speakers installed in the walls at every turn. If all Shock fans here got together, we could come up with a great 7-day adventure. Or at least a weekend length one, starting Friday and ending Sunday.
Tocky on 7/11/2023 at 00:53
You know you could do that with all the open space inside the fort. Painted silk screens and wire supports could make a decent game maze.
Qooper on 9/11/2023 at 00:33
Yeah, and UV-lights to illuminate the neon-painted walls and corridors of the maze. The walls could be built from plywood. Something like this:
Inline Image:
https://cms.happens.fi/app/uploads/2022/02/happensfi-megazone-paketti-2.jpegThat would be enough if we're only going for laser tag. But then there's the option to go a bit further and do an entire adventure, kind of like an escape room, just much bigger. So one or two people would play the role of Shodan, watching the players through security monitors and taunting them using Shodan's voice played through speakers. The players would need to solve puzzles to unlock more and more of the arena, getting access to more and more tools to do things, and their final goal would be to reach Shodan's CPU node chamber and disable all nodes. Puzzles would range from simple ones like find a replacement breaker to restore power, to more difficult ones like hacking into an access terminal to open a door. Let's say the adventure begins on a Friday. Everyone arrives at the location. And let's say we've rented two floors and built each floor full of puzzles, and that there's an elevator. Friday the players start in MedSci, the first floor. They manage to solve a few puzzles and Shodan tells the insects to tread carefully. They hack into a vending machine to get some food and drinks. They also find some nanites in a trashcan in the bathroom. On Saturday they manage to restore power, which gives them access to the elevator and the second level where the CPU nodes are. Etc. etc.
I figured it might be a good idea to have more than one person play Shodan so they could keep each other company. Since the adventure would take an entire weekend, it would get boring if one person was alone. I envisioned the role of Shodan to be to create the atmosphere by controlling the practical effects, like lights, door locks, voice taunts etc. Most of the work would be in creating these practical effects, and the environment. It's relatively easy to program a bunch of Arduino chips with logic for our puzzles, but how do we create the environment? If the location already has tight, labyrinthine corridors, the amount of work is much more realistic, but if the location is something like a big factory hall where we create everything from, let's say, plywood, then the amount of work quickly skyrockets. It's like creating an entire movie set.
Laser tag and a maze is a lot simpler. We rent the laser tag systems, we buy cheap plywood and paint, we perhaps rent the UV-lights and speaker systems, maybe a few smoke machines, rent the place for the weekend, boom.
Or there could be a smaller escape room with just a room or two, with System Shock theming, in addition to laser tag.
heywood on 9/11/2023 at 02:01
The only time I ever enjoyed laser tag was when my family had the whole place to ourselves for a game. I would have enjoyed it much more with System Shock background music and art. It's not inconceivable to copy some of the level design too. Because of game engine limitations, the levels are built with simple shapes that would be straightforward to construct.
The System Shock themed escape room is a great idea too. Escape rooms are getting really common and I've been wondering when somebody is going to make one with a cyberpunk theme. It could be cool.
mxleader on 9/11/2023 at 02:57
I remember playing laser tag in the 80's when it first came out. I can't believe it's still a thing.
Tocky on 9/11/2023 at 03:44
Plywood? No. No. No. You underestimate silk screen and wire. You can make it any shape you want. You paint it with a wash type paint and then back light it. It's light weight throughout. The wire can be whatever gauge you need from stiff to bendable and can be tack welded and the silk wire tied and you would hardly know wire is there behind the silk. It can look exactly as it does in the game. You can form columns or consoles or doorways or doors out of it. Maybe silk screen isn't the name of it. It's like the material inflatable yard stuff is made of. You can even project images onto it from the other side. Unless you need stairs there is no need of plywood at all. As long as everything is on one level a maze with some open rooms like in a game would work. Essentially it's the same thing.
Although I could weld rebar together for walkways the liability would go up with upper levels but you wouldn't need them anyway. A fake elevator opening to another area with moving lights behind the silk would amount to the same thing. You can do anything with painted silk and wire.
