Here At The End

I'm here to talk to you about H.A.T.E..

You see those punctuation marks, clearly marking H.A.T.E. as an acronym?  Yeah, this is going to be a much less serious talk than the title and first sentence may make you think.  But it IS very important, especially if plan to attend GenCon Indy this year (more on that later), and double important if you live near southern Wisconsin and like to play dress up and/or whack people with padded sticks and/or shoot little bolts of light at people.

Here At The End is quickly becoming my favorite roleplaying world (live action or otherwise). It's the first LARP series by a dear friend of mine (or rather, his one-man company, Evil Genius Enterprises LLC), and the fifth event ever was last weekend.  I could tell you about the general premise of the world, but I think it would be faster if you followed that link above (or went to the H.A.T.E. page on larping.org) and read it straight from the Evil Genius' brain.  I'll wait.

Okay, now that you're back, a few things to add:  Yes, clearly the germ of this LARP owes a lot to the Fallout series, and if you're looking for a Fallout LARP but can't find one (or can't find one that fits your interpretation of canon), H.A.T.E. will definitely scratch that itch - play Old Guard for an original Vault 13/Brotherhood of Steel hybrid, or play Reborn if you're the type who recruited every useful ghoul and mutant you happened across.  But it is so much more than that.

This is a game where players from all the corners of LARP, post-apocalyptic or otherwise, can come out and play together.  Seriously - if you play medieval fantasy, Mad Max style post-apoc, steampunk of any stripe, military simulation or reenactment for any point in the last two centuries, vampires, werewolves, space opera, ANYTHING, or even if you don't play in any genre at all yet, there's a place for you.  No buying new garb just for your first event, unless you really want to.  Most of the generic NPCs just wear their rattiest available jeans and t-shirt, the Reborn start the same way but with some added actual rags and occasional extremely random other garments, the newer Edwardians are wearing thrift-store waistcoats and button-up shirts, Old Guard enlisted favor modern military gear while their officers look like stock photos of 1950s men, and most of the Elysians could go out into the real world and be mistaken for fashionable art/theatre students (the rest could step into a medieval LARP without changing clothes).  But somehow, for all that simplicity and catch-all randomness... we come out looking like this:


Everybody looks amazing, each faction still has its own distinctive look, and together we gel into a cohesive style for the world as a whole.  Even if all you can bring to an event is yourself and a spoon*, you can play and fit in somewhere.  Entropy and enthusiasm will rattle you into the shape you need to be for this game. There is really one way to explain why this LARP works... it's something that may scare some prospective players away, but hopefully will draw more in.  Because here's the real secret, the magic ingredient that makes everything work:

Here At The End is INSANE.  And I don't mean grim and chaotic "insane," although it is that, too.  I mean that this game has some serious bats in its belfry.  It's a PvP-geared LARP in which there has never been a major conflict between PCs (tension, thievery, friendly fire, and tripping non-faction members to use them as bait, but never conflict).  The first event featured several characters getting into a loud discussion about the movie "The Road Warrior" while still completely in character.  At event #4, I had to figure out on the fly which bit of the medical rules covered reattaching a severed hand.  ...These are just the few bits of insanity that are easy to describe.  My point is, while everything fits consistently into an internal logic, it is not always our Earth logic, and trying to predict how things will go is a fool's game.  And this most recent event really went down the rabbit hole...  LITERALLY.  There was a tea party with the Red Queen and everything, including a gloriously disturbing Cheshire Cat.

*There's food at most events, usually a hearty soup or chili.  The Evil Genius and his minions will provide a bowl if you need it, but keeping track of utensils invites the wrong sort of madness, so you have to bring your own.


Now, if that didn't scare you away (I hope it didn't), here's what you need to know:  Events happen roughly once every other month,  and to the best of my knowledge, the next one up is GenCon, where H.A.T.E. will be running one-hour mini-events all weekend long, for a total of 42 opportunities to try out this awesome new game.  I'm on the volunteer roster for the event, so if nothing else, come by and say hi to me!  I promise I won't bite!

Important Link Roundup (just in case you want to type instead of click):
https://www.facebook.com/EvilGeniusEnterprises
http://www.egelarp.com/index.html
http://www.gencon.com/

Photos in this post are courtesy of Shawn Smith and Anne Julia.

And now, back to your irregularly non-scheduled blog...

Hope I didn't bore you all too much with my adventure in online schoolwork! I had a lots of fun with it (once I remembered how to student and got over my complete lack of confidence in my drawing skills, that is), and as you may have noticed, it resulted in at least one new item to eventually add to my Etsy catalog!  I plan to keep on taking Coursera classes, although I'm pretty sure getting graded on my blog entries was more of an exception than a rule, so they probably won't intrude here.

Now that the class is over (mostly - there's still this week left for last round of grading and whatnot, but no more assignments), I'll be returning the sidebar to something resembling its old self - perhaps I'll make a set of pages with links to various project updates, with the class posts making up the first page.  I'll probably also make a couple other small changes as well, which I'd like your thoughts on:

Firstly, something I've mused about before but never acted on:  I'm thinking of adding a PayPal "Donate" button... Because I started this business with NO outside startup funds or anything, there are some big limits on what I can do.  It's hard to pick up commissions if you don't have any examples of similar work to show people, and even just the materials for some of the stuff I'd like to develop are pretty expensive - prototyping and product development alone on a spiral-boned corset (which I REALLY want to do) are cost-prohibitive for me - and that's not even touching the expense of building an inventory.  So I'm thinking that a "Donate" button (or maybe a GoFundMe link?) could function as a crowdsourced small business grant.  Whether or not I actually have enough people following my various social media for this to do any good remains to be seen, but it can't hurt.

Secondly... how do y'all feel about ads?  I'm not a big fan of them, and I'd rather not have my blog and (possible eventual) YouTube channel cluttered up with them, BUT... I'd rather have ads than a day job.  Since I'm pretty sure I don't generate enough traffic to even pay for my Netflix account, however, I'm leaving it up to you guys.  What do you think?   

Well, that's it for now, but with a little luck & determination, maybe I can keep up the whole "posting every week" thing now that the habit's semi-formed!  I have some cool stuff I've been working on lately, so I should have plenty of fodder for keeping you up to date. :)

Homework Assignment 7.1 - Beta Prototype (aka Final Project!)

Well, here it is...

Throughout development, I have been referring to this project as "The Adventurer's Day Pack," which is I suppose as good as any, and suits the final product very well.  However, that name really describes the category of product it belongs to, rather than the finished product itself.  Somewhere along the line, I also nicknamed it "The Bookshelf," which is very fitting, but not particularly marketable...  Another name up for consideration is "The Mule," which doesn't really tell you what the product is.  At this point, I believe I will stick with calling it the first in my line of Adventurer's Day Pack's (as I do plan to return to some of my other pack designs and develop them further), and use that as a placeholder while I do further market research to choose between the two sub-imprint names (or a possible third that I haven't thought of yet).

So, without further ado... I give you the finished beta of the first Adventurer's Day Pack!

It's lightweight, sturdy, has padded straps and back, one large storage platform for a water jug, two smaller shelves for various odds & ends, and retaining straps and flaps to keep everything in place.
 
I made this backpack because, in the Live Action Role Play community I belong to, we often have events where most of the players are hiking for most of the day and have to carry our own supplies.  Because our clothes and gear have to fit into the medieval setting, we often end up carrying much less water than we need, or have to keep our water jugs in simple tote bags or sacks that are uncomfortable to carry for a long period of time, or get left behind when we have to continue on unexpectedly. So this pack was designed an built to address this problem by providing a cost-effective bag that could not only carry a day's worth of water while leaving one's hands free, but was comfortable enough that people would be less tempted to leave it on the ground after they had gotten what they needed out of it. 

I had hoped to make something that also completely concealed the water vessel, which this version of the pack does not, but with this particular design that's not much of a problem... I can easily add a flap that covers the main storage compartment, or make simple slip covers for plastic bottles, but the main achievement is that the structure of the pack is sturdy and rigid enough that one could easily carry more period-looking glass bottles or jugs without any major risk of breaking them.
 
As I move forward with this design, I plan to experiment with different fabric panel shapes and strategies, so as to eliminate gaps (which will increase utility for carrying small items and reduce risk of tangling in dense foliage).  I may also look into the possibility of making solid shelves, to increase load stability.  My main priority, though, will be seeking a better way to join the corners of the shelves: currently, I'm using stock copper pipe fittings and lashing any additional pieces in place, but ideally I would like to use custom-made fittings on future builds (for which I will need to acquire a TIG welder), as well as generally refining construction methods, especially with an eye to increasing longevity of the product by observing how the pack stands up to more extended wear and addressing any problems that may arise.
 

Homework Assignment 6.1 - Alpha Prototype

Firstly, I was unable to finish my refinement sketch for last week's assignment in time, but since I did finish it, I'm posting it here for reference:

And here is my alpha prototype:

As you can see, I'm using the same frame as I did with the initial prototype.  I chose to use the alpha stage to focus on the padded back and strap placement, as I felt the original CPVC frame got the point across well enough for testing purposes.  The beta version will be much more similar to the refinement sketch, with the additional diagonal supports and a change in construction materials.