Bunker Project Log

This is the guy who made it all happen.

My Dad (AKA, SweetLambChop) is the #1 reason there is a Bunker at all.

He was the guy who got me my first Atari 2600 (a Sears Telegames). When I was in grade school, he did contracting work for a TV store, and they paid him in merchandise, so he was always bringing me home cartridges. This put video games in my blood.

When I was 14, he got me my first computer. A Commodore 128! However, I must admit… he wasn’t that happy when all I did on it was play games. This put computing in my brain.

All throughout my early years, he took me on contracting jobs with him. Sometimes I liked it, sometimes I didn’t. But… I did learn how things are built, and that you can build anything if you try. This attitude is what led me to build my first 386 PC from scratch when I had never had experience with anything other than my C-128, Mac LC, or Amiga.

Eventually, in my first house, I tried my first major solo building project. This led to a lot of phone calls to Pa. I did a decent job, and had some pretty lofty goals (one of the things I am most proud of is the computer room window, that I just had to have, and he thought was crazy.) I did the first half myself, with a few thousand mistakes. He came and did the other half, and it was perfect.

I ended up selling that house for twice as much and within 2 days of listing it, and the realtor said it as because the basement (the Bunker) was so great. It also had a lot to do with my dad coming out and painting and fixing all the stuff that I had screwed up over the years that I lived there.

Fast forward to now, and Bunker 2.0. There wasn’t much of a “half” this time. My dad has built every bit of the basement. Starting with the storage room within the first 2 months, then he came back to do the theater/lan room (he had no idea what I was really going to turn this into!) Third, he did the DDR Room and the Bathroom (He thinks the TV would be better in his house than on my bathroom wall, but that’s a different story.) And Finally, he finished the Garage about a month ago.

Each time he does this, he packs my mom and all his tools into the back of his truck, and drives 1200 miles each way. Busts his ass while I am at work, and later when I come home and try to weasel out of doing anything. (For some reason, I didn’t inherit his power source, or it is broken, or I let it get decroded.)

And… he does all this with a raised eyebrow. A sort of “you want to do what?!” look. Which sometimes manifests itself as a “that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard” look.

On the last day of the last project (the garage) we had a last-minute “show my dad what a Bunker Party looks like” Bunker Party. He and Jjam shot the breeze and talked about manly things, while everybody else had a much less manly game of 4-way Donkey Konga and Singstar Pop. By the time we got to anything remotely macho (UT2K4 Assault) he was passed out in bed. The 2-weeks of building had finally caught up with him.

Those are the times when I think, “I wish he would take it easy.” But on the other hand, I’m so grateful for all the stuff he has done. I keep telling him that once “it’s finished” he should come back and we can watch movies and play games and go out to eat the whole time. But I am sure we’ll spend the first day watching “Commando” and “The Final Countdown”… then I’ll try to show him the newest hottest game out, and he’ll humor me for a few minutes. Then, ultimately he’ll go find something wrong in the attic, or under the deck, or decide to rewire all the lights in the guest room, and I’ll find myself with a list of stuff to pick up at Home Depot.

So it goes.

BTW, that picture up there is real, and the story that explains it is far less interesting, so I’ll leave it to your imagination. Here are some that are less… frightening.

Just kidding… here’s a more dignified shot:

Thanks Dad! I love you!

Another year, another apartment. “A small, cramped basement apartment.” to quote Tyler Durden.

This lan was all over my huge computer desk, and the fourth machine was in the kitchen counter. For some reason, all I remember doing here was playing Quake II Coop, and the Holy Wars mod.

There was a good reason for this…

Somewehere along the way I had met the girly who is now my wife. She was a lawyer at the time, and had coped with law school by playing Doom instead of studying. I thought that was pretty cool.

However, there was a bit of a “skill gulf” between the two of us… so coop it was.

Note to the game industry: if you really want to attract more female players, you need to put coop mode back in. (And add options to remove spiders.)

As for Holy Wars, for those who don’t know, this is a Q2 mod that changes the rules of the game. It is like “kill the guy with the ball” or “Oddball” on Halo. Basically, there is a single halo in the game that must be found and picked up. The player who does this becomes the Saint. The Saint glows brightly, even through walls, so s/he is hard to miss. All other players are marked Sinners. Sinners are allowed to kill the Saint, but penalized (or even booted from the game) if they kill other Sinners. The Saint is allowed to kill anyone.

The great thing about this is, the most skilled player usually gets the halo, so the less skilled players are polarized against him/her. This keeps the n00bs from constantly being killed (and frustrated with the game). It also ensures that there is a challenge for the best player, since everyone is against him/her. Finally, by the law of averages, even the n00best of n00bs will be the one taking off that final HP off the Saint, giving them the satisfaction of actually killing the best player in the group.

Featured Games
Quake II
Starcraft

I finally got out of the hotel and moved into an apartment building. I’d made friends at work, so of course, it was time for a Lan party.

This was a great time for hardware. My company was switching over to Windows 95, and was ditching tons of old stuff. I was making a decent salary and had no expenses, so I could spend freely on the parts I couldn’t scrounge. There were lots of demos floating around, and the games that were out were free with licensing on Lan games. (Contrast that with today… almost every game requires a unique CD key, even for Lan gaming!)

So I had about six machines set up on a table in the dining room. Duke Nukem was my favorite, but Jedi Knight was on there as well. I remember spending a lot of time getting the sound in DN3D working. (Does anyone remember Soundblaster environment variables??!!)

After about two weeks of setup and worrying about getting everything perfect, I was finally ready. I invited about 10-20 people, went out and bought drinks and chips and all that party crap, and…

Two people showed up.

Have any of you had a Lan party with two people? Much less… two people who came not really to play, but to party?

Needless to say, it was lame. I don’t think we even played anything that night.

Surprisingly though, all was not lost. The Lan did live on at lunch time. For a while, four or five of us would drive out to my place over lunch and get a good 45 minutes of Quake II deathmatch in. Things were finally starting to catch on!

Finally Online
Regardless of what happened on the Lan, I had a phone line for the first time in seven months, so I spent quite a bit online with my buddy Jjam playing Command and Conquer: Red Alert. I had made this groovy map that was quartered by bodies of water from the center left to center right, and center top to center bottom. On each quarter were giant fields of gems. We would start at opposite corners, build our bases and chat. Jjam wasn’t very much of a gamer, so I always ended up taking the other two quarters, building up a massive force, then just pounded his stuff. I think we both just wanted something to do. Good times.

Featured Games:
Duke Nukem 3D
Quake II
Command and Conquer: Red Alert
Jedi Knight
Descent 2

At some point in late 1996, the company I was working for was bought, and I was shipped out to the East Coast. I lived in a hotel across from work for seven months while they tried to figure out what to do with me.

So, I had a truck full of computers and crap, with not many options other than to just set them up. The room was a suite, so I had a weird little kitchen area with a table (to put two computers on) and a third computer on the dresser. Unfortunately, I didn’t have too many guests, being the weirdo new guy.

So, I only had one game in seven months, and that was a two-man deatchmatch in Terminator: Future Shock. Boo.

Featured Games:
Quake 2
Diablo
Terminator: Future Shock

Thinking back, I still don’t know how I could afford it. In fact, it probably stayed on my credit card until 2001. Somehow though, I managed to buy parts for 4 486-DX2-66’s. You young whippersnappers probably don’t know that “modding” options for pc cases were limited to switching the Mhz display on the front from 33 to 66. My clever thing was to have the LED’s spell MW when viewed sideways.

Anyway, those were the days of Doom, followed by Doom II, then Descent and Rise of the Triad. As I’m typing this, I’m remembering so much dead tech… DOS, Pharlap, QEMM. Loading network drivers from boot disks. Playing Descent on Kali (My Kali ID is less than 1000, but I can’t find it!)

Life was very different before Windows 95.

I still have fond memories of that OS. It really was an amazing time. Launch day was ridiculous, and although MS has tried, nothing really has topped it for me.

So, back to the Lan… I was in a weird rental house in the frozen north. All of the machines sat side by side on a hollow-core luaun door that was held up by 2 short Target file cabinets. They were token ringed together, which was the dominant networking topology for cheapskates like me who couldn’t afford a hub. Token ring was basically a daisy-chained string of coaxial cable with T’s at each machine, and terminators at the ends. And… just like Christmas lights, if one piece goes out, every part of the chain thereafter is hosed.

As you all should know, Doom was it. It was the thing that revolutionized the graphics card industry, the cpu industry, and the networking industry. I wholeheartedly believe that if it were not for Doom, the PC, and even console world would like very different than it does now.

Featured Games:
Doom
Doom II
Rise of the Triad
Descent
Magic Carpet
Hi-Octane
Diablo Demo
Command and Conquer

I thought I was pretty clever the way I mounted my projector. It is basically a piece of melamine shelving material dropped into the ceiling grid.

Unfortunately, If anyone walks anywhere near it on the floor above, the vibration causes the projected image to bounce.

This is nearly impossible to avoid when you have a hyperactive 3-year old! (Luckily, Bunker Parties and movie watching usually happens after bedtime.)

I don’t know whether this is a function of the cheap eBay mount, the ceiling grid, the construction of my house, or some other hidden x-factor, but it sucks.

As always, looking for theories and solutions,

boardgamegeek link:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/10547

Synopsis
Betrayal at House on the Hill is unique in that it has two personalities. It starts as an exploration game with all players on the same side. “Exploring” is accomplished by building the house room by room as the tiles are drawn from the deck. However, after several turns the “haunt” begins, and all hell breaks loose. Depending on the circumstances at the time of haunting, one player becomes the Traitor, and must leave the room with the Traitors Tome. The remaining players stay with the Survivor’s Handbook. Once the appropriate scenario is read and understood, the players are reunited at the board, and the second phase begins with completely new goals.

Personal Bias
This game has got a few things going for it. First, the wife bought it for me, so I am forced to at least act like it’s cool. Second, it has a tile-laying mechanic, which I love. Third, the game has a narrative. In fact, it has 50+ narratives, as each scenario is a completely different story with a wide variety of goals. Finally the combat system is clever, and has just enough of an RPG feel to it that you can customize your characters for their short life during the game.

Gameplay
To begin, all players choose their avatars. Each being the usual Horror movie stereotype. The painted miniatures have a double-sided stat pentagon that shows a wholesome or creepy version of the character: Jock/Convict, Bookish Professor/Creepy Priest, Cheerleader/Bad Girl, etc. Each side has minor variations of the four stats. There are two physical stats: Might and Speed, and two mental stats: Sanity and Intelligence. At certain points during the game, players will be required to make saving throws (dice rolls) against these statistics. The outcome of these events may result in raising or lowering these stats.

Once characters are decided upon, the exploration begins. All players begin in the entrance hall, which has 5 exits. Four doorways to rooms on the ground floor, and a stairway up to the second floor landing, which has three doorways. Each character may move through a number of rooms equal to his or her speed stat. A player “discovers” a room by moving through a doorway that has no room on the other side.

When a player discovers a room, they must draw the top card off of the face-down room deck. The back of the tile shows what level of the house the room may be placed. The options are basement, ground floot, and second floor. If the tile on the top of the deck is not marked for the floor the player is on, the tile is discarded.

Once the room has been revealed, the player must stop in that room. Some of the rooms have symbols on them that require further actions. The three symbols are:

Animal Skull – Item: The player finds an item in the room. Examples are a mirror, a dagger, and the Monkey toy. Items can be used later in the game, and often determine which scenario is triggered by the haunt.

Spiral – Event: Something unusual happens in the room, like a ghost appears and takes a swipe at you, or you are transported to a completely different room.

Crow – Omen: Herein lies the path to the “Haunt”. Omens can be like events, or may be items. In either case, after an Omen card is drawn, the player who drew the card must make a “Haunt Roll”. This must be over the number of Omen cards that have been drawn since the beginning of the game, so each haunt roll gets more difficult to beat. If the player fails the haunt roll, the haunt begins.

The Haunt

At this time, the Traitors Tome is consulted. There is a chart that compares the room that the Haunt took place in, to any items that may have been in the players’ possesion. Based on this, the Traitor is determined. Once the traitor is identified, they must leave the room and read the specified scenario in the Traitors Tome. The remaining players read the scenario from the Survivors book. Each has information that the other does not. Each has certain modifications to the rules that the other may not be aware of.

From these rules, the rest of the game is played out. Since there are over 50 scenarios, each with different victory conditions, there isn’t much more I can tell without spoiling the fun. Here are some brief descriptions of scenarios that have taken place in the Bunker:

Baby in the Lake: A girl you encounter in the game (as an item card) is stolen and will be sacrificed to some elder god, if you can’t rescue her in time.
Dragon!: A dragon is unleashed that can only be killed with certain items found in certain rooms.
Bug Boy: The little boy character goes misanthropic and commands giant mutant bugs to eat his former friends.
Serial Axeman: The Traitor is a distant relative of a serial killer, who returns to life in the mansion, hungry for blood.

First Play
Our first game was played with 3 players. Myself, the wife, and Pottse the Boy Wonder. This was the “Baby in the Lake” scenario.

Surprisingly enough, the wife ended up being the traitor and played the role of the monster with the girl. Pottse bit it early, and I found myself wading ever further into the underground lake trying to find her. I’m not exactly sure how it worked, but some combination of the “Haunt Track” and die roles were used to determine how close I was to the girl.

Since I am the unluckiest dice roller in the universe, I managed to get the littel girl eaten. By this time I was so invested in the game (and having a little daughter of my own) I was pretty shaken up by the whole thing. Wife, in a surprising moment of morbid callousitude mimed munching the little girl. I was heartbroken.

Nevertheless, I had a great time playing, and felt that the game was very successful in evoking the horror mood. I can see where the game could go differnt ways, since some scenarios are probably better than others, but I haven’t seen an unhappy group after the experience.

In short, if you have the chance, play it! And if you see one on the shelf at your local game shop, buy it! They are out of print and difficult to come by.

I used to take great pride in having built, and upgraded, and rebuilt, and maintained the Bunker machines.

However, I’ve got two kids now, and about 5.7 seconds each day to figure out why machine #3 bluescreens, restore the drive on #6, and calculate the price to performance ratio on this motherboard and that processor combo at Newegg.

So I gave up.

Dell has had 3 weeks of amazing deals on their barest of systems… the E521. Somehow I got to sniffing around and realizing, there’s no way I can compete.

I used to be able to justify it in some way or other. Better performance, upgradability, geek cachet. Whatev. I realized that I didn’t care anymore, and as my buddy JJam says “I just want sh*t to work.”

Now I’ve got 8 boxes in the Dining room waiting to be scratched and installed. I took the guinea pig downstairs, patched it all up and shoved my Woot Nvidia 7900GS (http://www.woot.com/Blog/BlogEntry.aspx?BlogEntryId=1420) in there. Here’s what I found:

My Bestest Machine E521
3D Mark 01 15035 24219
3D Mark 03 10131 15678
3D Mark 05 4805 7445

In short. Dell 1. Being Alpha Geek 0.

Dude, I got a bunch of Dells.

Life is good.

One of the design goals of the Bunker Lan was to keep all the hardware tucked away. No big beige boxes, no fan noise, no power buttons. The only thing players need to concern themselves with is the mouse, keyboard, monitor, headset, and the stick.

The only problem with this is the big fat bundle of USB and VGA cables that snakes its way from a crude hole in the wall to another cruder hole in the seating platform.

So far, there has been only one trip that I know of, but I worry about it every time.

And… sure it’s unsafe, but more importantly, it’s ugly!

I’ve looked up cable covers, but none of them are big enough. I’ve also thought about masonry work, but that is scary, and I’ll probably screw it up worse and end up _really_ messing up the house.

So… is there anyone out there with cleverer ideas?

First, here is the boardgamegeek link:
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/9209

Basically, the goal of Ticket to Ride is to build the biggest railroad empire, by claiming routes on a map of the US. (Other versions of the game take place in the whole of Europe, or Germany.) The game ends when any player has 2 or less train cars to place. Points are awarded for the number of cars in a route, for having the highest number of cars in a contiuous path, and for completing paths between cities (for example, San Francisco to Miami).

Game One
I played this for the first time two weeks ago, with my wife and father-in-law. As with most of my game experiences, I had to somehow maneuver my victims into playing through subterfuge, or bullying. I can’t remember which.

My wife detests rules, she seems to think they get in the way of gameplay. Luckily, the number of things that can be done in the game is limited to three.

1) Claim a route on the board.
You do this by “spending” train cards that match the color of the routes marked between cities. A route made of three red cars, requires three red train cars. Certain cards depict Locomotives, which are wild. Any number of Locomotives can be used in place of the necessary colored cards. Some routes are grey, and can be completed by any set of train cards of the same color. For example, a route made of four grey cards could be claimed by placing four black cards, or four green cards, or of course, 2 yellow cards and 2 locomotives.

2) Draw Train cards
There is a common deck of train cards, face down, as well as five cards in a kitty, face up. You are allowed to take one locomotive from the kitty, or two cards from the kitty and/or the deck. After any card is taken from the kitty, it is replaced by a card from the deck.

3) Draw Tickets
There is a second face-down deck of cards called “Tickets”. Each Ticket defines a path between two cities on the map, and a point value for completing the path. A longer path gets upwards of 20 points, a short path may get you four points. If you choose to draw tickets, you pull three from the deck, and have the option of discarding up to two. (You _must_ keep at least one of the tickets.) The risk is, if you can’t complete the route by the end of the game, the value of the route is subtracted from your score in the final tally.

Since there are entire sets of turns devoted to collecting cards, the game moves fairly quickly, only slowing down when a player decides to pull tickets, and must look over the board to decide which cards to keep. (By this time though, players may be grateful to have a minute to plan their strategy!)

By the end of the game, the wife had won (as usual) and I think I came in second. Father-in-law was itching for a re-match, since I screwed him with a few mid-game rules corrections. (Innocent thought they were.)

More than anything though, I came away impressed with how “full” the game felt, yet being very lean on actions. (I will expound upon some of the strategy in later posts.) Although there are only three things to do, they all feel momentous when you play them.

I have since read the descriptions to the expansions, and am convinced that they can only needlessly clutter a very tight, almost perfect game.

In fact, the only complaint I have is that the person at the top of board has a disadvantage, at least for an inexperienced player.

So… don’t be surprised if you find yourself huggermuggered into a game of Ticket to Ride. (This week’s D&D session got hijacked for a good 30 minutes pre-campaign.) Give it a try, you’ll have a great time.