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GeekNights Tuesday - FTL
Tonight on GeekNights, as our triumphant return to business as usual, we review the fantastic FTL. We also review Organ Trail: Director's Cut and Ten Thousand, as well as the masterful book Characteristics of Games. Look for us at Burning Con '12: The TRIADUMVIRATE, but not at the New York Comic Con (where nothing looked interesting enough to apply for press passes this year). Be sure to check out our new GeekNights IRC channel (and check out this delightful little web page about IRC).
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I wasn't very impressed by 10000000, although I did like the Bejeweled-style play enough to beat the game. It felt that even if you had the run of your life, you weren't going to be able to hit ten million points unless you progressed all the way down the upgrade tracks.
What really broke the game for me was that I found I did a ton better if I ignored the dungeon crawl up top and just focused on creating matches like crazy, disregarding what I was actually matching and trying to gets 4s and 5s wherever possible. The trick to me excelling at the game was to ignore half the game, so thumbs down. Beat it and deleted it.
That book has been ordered. It will be consumed in the very near future. I have several similar books on my Amazon wishlist that I was planning to "get around to reading one day," but none of them came from any recommendation, just my own stumbling. You guys gave this book a pretty strong one.
NYCC not happening for me this year either, but I did decide to put a press registration in on the last possible day. I really have zero interest in the shopping mall/expo hall, but I like to go there because it's a hometown show for MTV and I don't get to hang out with the rest of the staff that often since I'm a part timer from home and have a real dayjob.
MTV Geek, being so comic focused, has a great presence at NYCC with their own private skyboxes to work in and such. They make it really easy to cover the show as press. Since there's little to no gaming, I typically just focus on the artist alley, and last year was able to bring Matthew Inman from The Oatmeal back upstairs for an interview. Was pretty cool, and MTV also throws a great afterparty. All that scrapped now due to daughter surgery bumping a week. Of course it could bump again and I'd wind up at NYCC, but hoping that doesn't happen.
Plus lots of rough handling by staff, restraint, unsanitary conditions... the whole thing sounds like a one sided S&M orgy with poor boundary definitions. No thanks.
There are things I like in haunted houses. Darkness. Mystery. Feelings of being lost. Surprise. Vertigo. Any actual physical danger or at least something that seems authentically dangerous.
But I balk at some other things really easily. I remember even as a kid that when the kid came after me with a weed eater instead of a chainsaw I stopped in my tracks, turned around and all suspension of disbelief was blown. "A weed eater? For real?"
I wouldn't mind the waterboarding. A lot of the sexualized blah would more than likely take me out of the proper mind-state though. Or staple guns and other non-weapon weapons.
But who knows, I'm not going to be in New York anytime soon.
Was mostly a creepy ass crawl-through where they did a good job of having you pass through many horror-movie type scenes where you weren't sure where the actors were going to pop out, or which one of the actors would and which one would bluff and stay as statues the whole time. You crawl through, they pop out and go boo, you enjoy a good scare and a bit of theater, and continue on your way.
The fundamental question is how can you scare someone who thinks in the meta? If they know supernatural things don't exist, they know it's all an act, and they know it's all perfectly safe, they know they won't be harmed, how can you still scare them? Maybe they have an irrational phobia you can take advantage of, but that's about it.
This haunted house takes the lazy solution to that problem by removing the guarantee that it is perfectly safe and that you won't be harmed. Even if it works, its disingenuous. You are supposed to be scared of zombies, ghosts, or monsters. Instead if you think in the meta you are just scared that these actors are going to hurt you because you gave them permission, and that's what they do here, and you're not a masochist who wants to be hurt.
Now there are the truly awesome Haunted Mansion(s) at Disney that aren't scary at all, but do they really count? They're more of a work of art that happens to be thematically set in a mansion of ghosts and ghouls. They're not intended to frighten.
So I tried to think of even one thing that you could have in a truly scary haunted house that would scare even someone like me that isn't bullshit. I came up with just one idea, so here it is.
You are walking through a typical haunted house. You and your friends go through a door into a longish and narrow hallway. You get to the end and the door is locked. There are no other doors. Of course it's kinda dark and haunted styling. Someone tries to go back out the way you came in. Door is also locked! Actually locked! You can make the fire marshal happy with a secret exit that will open in an actual fire, but is otherwise invisible. Maybe a staff member looks into the room through a peep hole and can open the door form the outside.
Anyway, you are literally trapped in this room for a bit and you start exploring with the giggles of a haunted house. Maybe some typical spooky shit happens. Then spikes come out of the ceiling and it starts to descend. Still lols! They aren't actually going to crush us. It will stop or go back up at the last second after making is sweat, then the doors will open, and we'll go onto the next encounter.
Now it's getting really tight in there. Someone is manually controlling the ceiling based on the height and behaviors of the people in there. It gets really uncomfortable. Maybe even to the point where people are laying on the floor. Oh yeah, the spikes are not sharp, but they are metal and not springy or squishy.
Then the best part. Just as it has reached the limit of safety before anyone gets hurt. The floor opens and its a pit trap! You actually fall some short and safe distance, and you land on something soft and safe, like a big poofy mat. However, there will be an optical illusion in place. While you are falling onto something safe, it LOOKs like you are falling onto a bed of spikes. It will happen so fast, your logic won't have time. Most likely you will feel not just the cheap surprise of the pit trap you didn't know, but the real fear that you are about to die or be severely harmed. Maybe someone might twist an ankle in the fall or something, but that's not intended.
That's the kind of thing I want to see in a truly high quality haunted house. That's the kind of thing that might even have a chance of working on someone multiple times. Yeah, you know it's coming, but your body is your body. You would have to be an employee going through it many times to really get used to it.
Anyone else got ideas for true quality haunted house things?
Shabby skeleton costume guy stabs the fuck out of the actor, who screams and tries to get away past you, then turns toward you.
"DIDN'T HAPPEN"
*Close video*