Video Blog #5 - BioShock New Year's Eve Party

Happy New Year!

This year, my boyfriend Jason and I decided to host a BioShock themed New Year's Eve party at my house. We loved the idea of re-creating Rapture, the underwater metropolis of BioShock, but MAN we had NO IDEA what we were getting ourselves into.

Here is the Video Blog I created for the Frag Doll site:



And now, for the details:

1. Creating the under-water city

Rapture is an iconic city featuring New York-esque buildings and art decco-styles. I fell in love with the city as soon as I read my first BioShock article in a Game Informer magazine years ago, and it has been so much fun re-creating the city in my house.

Designing the City
The first step in creating Rapture was designing the multiple skyscrapers in the city skyline. Using the picture above, I drew different buildings (styles and sizes) on black cardboard. To make the perspectives stand out, I painted the lines of the buildings with silver paint - just light enough to see, but not too bright so as to take away from the silhouettes.

Lighting the City

After designing the buildings, Jason took strands of white LED lights (super cheap after Christmas!) and re-soldered all the connections to match up with the windows and signs. As you can see from the picture, the new light strands were long and involved. Each building section (above) took roughly 1~2 hours to light, and with 10 building sections the time really added up!

Submerging the City
Once the buildings were lit, we attached them to my basement walls with tape and thumbtacks. We then cut blue cellophane into 92" strips (the height of my basement walls) and attached them on top of the buildings. The blue cellophane provided a great under-water impression, and made the lighting especially dramatic.

Between each "panel" of blue cellophane (meant to be windows looking out on the city skyline of Rapture) we put one strip of white paper to symbolize columns.

The Finished Product

Look at that under-water skyline! :D

2. Adding details
Propaganda
In BioShock, Rapture is littered with propaganda for Fontaine and Ryan, as well as tons of advertisements for locations in Rapture and of course - Plasmids! We decided to print out some posters for our re-created Rapture, including some of the most well-known signs:

Glowing Sign
Jason found a great company online that deals with El Wire. If you're not sure what El Wire is (I can't dive into specifics because even I don't quite get it) check out this company (elwirepros.com) for the full details.

We ended up buying yards of this wire to create a "neon-glowing" sign for the party. Here's a picture of the desired sign in the game:

Happy New Year 1959

And here is our sign - created out of plywood (black base), El Wire, and hot glue!

Plasmid Drinks
In BioShock, Plasmids are essential for destroying your enemies. - Because this game mechanic is so heavily used in the game, it stands to reason that a BioShock party would entail the use of Plasmids too! Here is the drink list I created for the party:

Electro-Bolt
1.5 oz Amaretto almond liqueur
1-2 splashes Sweet & Sour mix
Green food coloring

Incinerate
1 oz Goldschlage Cinnamon Schnapps
2 oz Lemonade
Red food coloring

Sonic Boom
1 oz Vodka
2 oz Orange Juice
No food coloring required

Telekinesis
2 oz Vodka
1 oz Coffee Liqueur
Light Cream
Purple food coloring

Winter Blast
2 oz Vodka
1 oz Blueberry Schnapps
1 oz Pineapple Juice
Blue food coloring






Splicer Masks
Although Big Daddies are the iconic enemies of the game, the most common fight you'll get into in BioShock is with a splicer, left over from the fall of Rapture. To commemorate this, I picked up some plain white masks, paint, hot glue, and white feathers so that guests could create their own splicer masks.

Splicers with their masks!

3. The Vita-Chamber
We decided that no party in Rapture would be complete without a Vita-Chamber, and making it actually turned out to be fairly straight-forward.

Jason created a wood frame to match the frame of a door in my basement. By cutting semi-circles out of the wood, we were able to create a rounded top from which to hang the "doors." We used a clear shower liner for the "doors" and attached a light colored fabric to the front for the door design. Jason was able to hook up two lights to the top of the Chamber; one with a blue light below the top, and a regular light on the top. Out of the same black posterboard used for the buildings, I used stencils to create the Vita-Chamber sign. We added some blue pipe cleaners for electricity to complete the look:

Overall, it was a pretty amazing party. I ended up leaving a lot of good ideas out at the last minute - but the guests had a great time (whether they had played BioShock or not) and we had a fun time hosting :-)

Happy New Year!

VBlog #4 - Happy Holidays!

As promised, I have created a Video Blog for my Protoss Nexus Gingerbread House (affectionately renamed the "GingerNexus").

I'll post up pictures later, but for now - enjoy!



Happy Holidays, and keep on gaming!

And the beat goes on...

Current exciting news:

1. Still pluggin' along with research: I'm meeting with Dr. C on a regular basis now, which is great and will hopefully keep me on a schedule. I've realized that I'm extremely goal-oriented, and I need to set goals and deadlines for myself the way classes and school used to do. Now that I'm working full-time, it's harder than ever to come home after 8/9+ hours days and attempt to read numerous scientific articles. I think I'll try the divide and conquer approach; I'll break my model into sections, then attack each one separately within a tentative timeframe. And no matter how difficult or daunting this task seems, I'm determined to see it through!

2. Playin' some games: I have a number of games on my "to-play" list, and I'm very excited to get at them. However, Black Ops has been released and my division of the PMS Clan (Modern Warfare 2) will be switching official to a Black Ops division in January...in preparation for this, I've been trying to ramp up my play time on the new game. I both like and don't like Black Ops - it feels a lot like Modern Warfare 2, as I suppose it should, but I miss the Special Ops missions and the maps. Oh, I *really* miss the maps...Black Ops has some great detail in it...but when does it become too much? I wonder if anyone else feels the same...

3. Holidays! Gearing up for the festive season by scoping out the game selections and figuring out what games to buy friends and family. I've also been invited to my boyfriend's family's annual Gingerbread House Party, and I'm trying to figure out a way to create a Starcraft II scene out of gingerbread...we're thinking either a Protoss Nexus (a pyramid out of gingerbread is easy, right?) or a Terran Command Center. Either way, I plan on incorporating my favorite race into the scene - candy-coated zerglings and creep! We'll see how this turns out... :D

That's all, ta-ta for now!

(BTW, hope everyone out there is doing well)

Video Blog #3 - Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear!

I know this isn't video game/industry specific....but I couldn't help but post this. Enjoy!

Fallout: New Vegas

Here are my initial thoughts on the game:

1. I LOVE the intro; Brings the player up-to-speed on the main character, the social/political climate of the West Coast, and the status of the "war." Not to mention it's downright beautiful! I mean...if you can get past all the nuclear waste and grime. I'm kind of all about that though; anything post-apocalyptic or utopia = super awesome in my book.

2. Some things never change - like the character creation! I find it amusing that they can create beautiful scenery and detailed characters, but the character creation functionality is poo. Sure, it gives you plenty of options to change, but on the super-tiny screen that shows your character's face, you can't really see any of the changes! And why does my character look like she always has a 5 o'clock shadow, no matter what settings I change? This is a carry-over problem from Oblivion as well...couldn't make a decent looking character no matter how hard you tried. Fallout is certainly better...but damn.

3. The story is fairly interesting, so far. I was drawn to Fallout 3, not only because I was born in and raised close to Washington D.C., but also because I'm a daddy's girl :-) The New Vegas storyline doesn't pull at my heartstrings, but I like some of the characters enough to continue on. Plus, I'm eager to see what this "New Vegas" is like, and see how it differs (if at all) from the actual Las Vegas.

4. I'm roughly 4 hours into the game, and I feel like I've barely done anything. I like this, however, as I expect RPG's to take hours upon hours to complete. I'm just now leaving the starting 'town,' and as eager as I am to get to New Vegas, I'm forcing myself to stop and look around the wasteland a bit.

So far, I'm diggin' this game! Stay tuned...

Video Blog #2 - New York Comic Con 2010

1. Still getting used to doing Video Blogs, hence they don't have any real 'purpose' yet.

2. Please pardon the poor camera quality and instability - walking and talking are obviously not my strong points.

3. Look at all the pretty, nerdy things!

A message from the ESA

Thanks to a great friend of mine, I was forwarded the following message from the ESA...

October 4, 2010 Dear Friends, In the past few weeks, we witnessed a unique series of events that reflected the significance of the entertainment software industry. These include: an outpouring of support from the political, scientific, business and legal communities in defense of the constitutional rights of video games; a White House ceremony at which President Barack Obama launched a national competition to create a video game promoting math and science learning; and a cover story in the Sunday New York Times Magazine about the importance of games in education.  All of these occurrences represented more visible proof of the positive impact our remarkable industry is having on society. On November 2, our legal team will be before the United States Supreme Court, defending the First Amendment rights of our industry's innovators, creative artists, and storytellers. I am extremely proud of the respondents' brief we filed with the high court, which clearly detailed why the California statute is unnecessary, unwarranted and unconstitutional. No less important, on September 17, a bipartisan group of state attorneys general were among more than 180 First Amendment scholars, social scientists and organizations representing entertainment media, business and journalism that filed amicus briefs in support of our position. Groups as diverse as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Cato Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce joined entertainment media companies and others in opposing the California law as an unconstitutional infringement on our right of free speech. The video game community also continues to show its support through the Video Game Voters Network which now has more than 250,000 activists who believe in the First Amendment and are fighting with us to protect it. To read the amicus briefs and other materials related to the upcoming case, please visit our Supreme Court microsite. By ensuring that computer and video games receive the free speech protection they are entitled to, our industry can focus on creating innovative products that are a source of entertainment and learning. This powerful combination was highlighted on September 16 when President Obama launched the National STEM Video Game Challenge at a White House event as part of his national "Educate to Innovate" campaign. The Challenge, which ESA co-sponsored, aims to motivate interest in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning by tapping into students' natural passion for playing and making video games.  Research has demonstrated that playing and making games fosters the development of the critical thinking, design and problem-solving skills needed to succeed in STEM subjects and motivate students to pursue careers in these fields. The competition -- supported by The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, Microsoft Corporation, American Library Association, The International Game Developers Association and other organizations -- will feature prizes for middle school students who design an original video game, as well as prizes for emerging and experienced developers who design mobile games that teach STEM concepts to young children. The growing use of entertainment software as an educational tool was also highlighted in the September 19 edition of the Sunday New York Times  Magazine article Learning by Playing: Video Games in the Classroom. The piece profiled Quest to Learn, a New York City public school that has incorporated computer and video games into virtually every aspect of their curriculum in an effort to "support the digital lives of young people and their capacity for learning." The fact that the influence of games in education will continue to grow was underscored by neuroscientist Paul Howard-Jones who told the Times that 30 years from now "we will marvel that we ever tried to deliver a curriculum without gaming." To respond to the expanding role that computer and video games are playing in education and other aspects of daily life, an increasing number of institutes of higher education are offering degrees in video game design, development, programming and art. Our own research has shown a record 300 American colleges, universities, art and trade schools will offer these types of programs during the 2010-11 academic year, an almost 20 percent increase over 2009-10.  I know in the weeks, months and years to come we will see even more recognition of the many positive ways computer and video games are impacting the American economy and society. As our Supreme Court case demonstrates, we face challenges today. As our industry's history proves, there is no limit to what our creativity can achieve tomorrow.   Sincerely, Michael D. Gallagher President and CEO Entertainment Software Association More information on this case can be found here. Go crazy!