PARANOIA

Multiple commendation points and the rare, coveted status of Hero of Our Complex are hereby awarded to superfan Duane O'Brien, who has surpassed his earlier achievement of crafting physical Alpha Complex plasticreds. Yes, Duane has now built a prop that will rouse fierce envy from every hardware-hacking Troubleshooter: a genuine, physical, no-kidding PARANOIA laser pistol.

I wrote a series for IBM on putting together an Arduino-based laser tag game called 'Duino Tag. I held off on putting up any info here until the whole series was published. Now all three parts are up. You have to register at IBM developerWorks to read the whole series, but registration is free.

Part One - Gun Basics
Part Two - Firing The Gun
Part Three - Registering Hits

This was a dream project for me. If you read the articles, the rules of the game hinge around the idea that you get six shots before your gun may explode, and you can get hit six times before you’re officially out.

Sound familiar? It should. I built it with PARANOIA in mind. In PARANOIA, you get six clones. And you can fire a barrel six times before it starts to overheat, with potentially disastrous consequences.

Check out the laser pistol photo!

Duane also offers a Duino Tag electronics kit in limited quantities for US$6/kit. "You’ll need to provide your own Arduino and case, as well as some other minor bits (wire, battery, etc)." [Note: Duane is not affiliated with me nor with PARANOIA's owners or publisher. I mention this kit as a public service.]

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Duane O'Brien, the Gamemaster I praised in September for his brilliant electronic PARANOIA props, has now created real, material Alpha Complex plasticreds!

They are stencil-cut red plastic, so the white you see showing is just what shows through when I hold paper up behind it. The small, harder-to-read text on the first line says "For Best Results Use Before Expiration" (presumably that means before you die), and the second line says "This Card Is Legal Tender" followed by a unique number (#98482620).

I was going to use the phrases as stencils, but now I think I need to make EL [electroluminescent] backlights to go behind them. Will (friend of mine) suggested using the "Happiness Is Mandatory" one like an "Applause" sign. I think I have to do that, so that in a game I can make the players applaud on command.

As with his previous efforts, mere commendation points seem somehow unworthy. Duane, you have earned something far more precious than mere commendations: outright visceral envy.

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Loyal citizen Duane O'Brien, a PARANOIA Gamemaster with a fine future in Technical Services or R&D, describes (in mild engineer-speak) two ingenious electronic props he built -- physically! with atoms! -- for a recent convention game:

The Beeping Thing: I pulled the plans for this from an issue of MAKE Magazine. It's a small circuit using a 555 timer, some resistors, and other bits to cause the circuit to beep every minute or so. The parts can be had for a couple dollars, and it was reasonably easy to build. In the end, I stuck it in an Altoids tin and issued it to the Troubleshooters as a piece of R&D equipment. Every time it beeped, I made someone roll, noted the number, and put a Post-It note on them if the roll was a 20. At five rolls of 20, it exploded dramatically. If they had rolled all numbers, 1-20, before five 20s, I would have given them, I dunno, candy.

The E:CHING: This is an Arduino-controlled LED display that gives a 10-digit number in binary (0110100101). Looking up the number in a manual I printed, the team received additional instructions. The top was not labeled, so there was no real way to tell 0110100101 from 1010010110. And most of the instructions were treasonous anyway. The instruction changed after 30, 15, 8, 4, 2, 1, .5 and .25 seconds after the device was activated, making following instructions challenging.

I want to draw up full postings for these, so other players can enjoy them. I have half a dozen Arduino-based props in mind that would be really exciting and fun for people to build. My Big Goal is to build the "Das Bot" control panel [from Flashbacks] for real, and let the players actually interface with it.

Truly there are times when mere commendation points seem pale and insufficient. Congratulations, Duane!

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