As you may have noticed, we were mysteriously gone for 20 days.
Here's what REALLY happened.
On September 9th, the HBGames Staff were rehearsing for an off-broadway production of United 93: The Opera (a stage adaptation based on the hit 2006 movie). Opening night was set for September 11th, so we had very little time left to get everything right.
It was a poor decision, but at the time, Dadevster was still working on the papier mâché props of the Twin Towers, so we decided to just use a few servers in their place. They were made out of metal and internet: indestructible! What could go wrong?
But it went very wrong, very quickly. Bacon designed costumes that looked like airplanes for Wyatt, Peri, and I (Peri was Flight 93, while me & Wyatt were the ones to hit the towers). The costumes seemed as if they were simply made out of duct tape and plaster, but apparently, so that the explosions would seem extra real, Bacon filled the inside of the engine compartments with cola and a secret deposit of Mentos ...
We were playing through the infamous scene in New York. Everything was going fine ... Moog was dressed up to look like Osama bin Laden, and he gave a magnificent performance during his soliloquy about his plans. Tomas, conducting the orchestra of Mawk's Magical Musical Robots, picked up the music into a dramatic crescendo. Regi shouted out "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's ... TWO PLANES!", right on cue. Sophist, playing a businessman, took his daring leap off the top of one of the servers. Wyatt and I performed our intensely-choreographed dance routine, all the while, making jet noises as we moved. Finally, at the end of the score, Brew, the director, gave us the cue to collide with the "towers".
As we did, the secret packs of Mentos, stashed just inside the "engine compartments", burst, and released into the several gallons of volatile Coca Cola. Our duct tape and plaster plane molds didn't just pop, they EXPLODED, in a massive tidal wave of brown, fizzy horror. The scene, and the mess, were spectacular. Wyatt was actually hospitalized for a week, from the sheer force of the explosion releasing thousands of pounds of soda pressure's force. I was not so lucky. The gushing torrent of foaming brown corn syrup caused me to be heaved upward like a giant bottle rocket, into some sandbags being suspended from the ceiling. I flailed pitifully and grabbed onto them, but then noticed too late that one of the ropes had been sabotaged, cut down to only a single, precarious thread.
Peri, who was off stage and awaiting her go as Flight 93, scrambled up the scaffolding, and leapt daringly to my rescue. Moog watched intently, eating a gigantic slice of watermelon that was being saved for the afterparty. Regi managed to pull Wyatt out of harm's way, and the rest of the staff screamed and ran around in terror (though a few of them were just screaming and running around because it seemed like the popular thing to do at the time). Mid-leap, Peri seemed to realize her lack of forethought in jumping through the air to save someone dangling, and grappled onto the rope just above the cut. She threw out her hand, and I reached for it. The fingers just missed, in that way that Hollywood likes to portray in similar situations. Tomas, sensing the tension, conducted the orchestra to play a thrilling refrain.
At the last second, it all worked out. I somehow managed temporarily to grow my arm an additional 4-6 inches in length, thereby making it possible to grab onto Peri's extended hand. The thread snapped, and the sandbags fell to the stage. When everyone stopped to look at what had happened, Peri and I had teleported, movie-style, without any context as to how we got off that rope, back onto the stage, and we all smiled in relief.
That's when we all realized that we had unplugged the servers from the wall to perform this asinine play, so the site was taken offline.
Also the server was covered in fizz and goo and plaster and some of Wyatt's blood. Also moog had somehow gotten Kool-Aid all over it, and we hadn't even seen him bring any Kool-Aid.
So, for the last 20 days, we've been diligently cleaning all the sticky mess off of the server. Sorry about that.
On the bright side, we're back, and opening night of Flight 93: The Opera was scored relatively well by critics (though it did poorly in ticket sales). We won a Tony, but it was in Set Design so who cares.
Here's what REALLY happened.
On September 9th, the HBGames Staff were rehearsing for an off-broadway production of United 93: The Opera (a stage adaptation based on the hit 2006 movie). Opening night was set for September 11th, so we had very little time left to get everything right.
It was a poor decision, but at the time, Dadevster was still working on the papier mâché props of the Twin Towers, so we decided to just use a few servers in their place. They were made out of metal and internet: indestructible! What could go wrong?
But it went very wrong, very quickly. Bacon designed costumes that looked like airplanes for Wyatt, Peri, and I (Peri was Flight 93, while me & Wyatt were the ones to hit the towers). The costumes seemed as if they were simply made out of duct tape and plaster, but apparently, so that the explosions would seem extra real, Bacon filled the inside of the engine compartments with cola and a secret deposit of Mentos ...
We were playing through the infamous scene in New York. Everything was going fine ... Moog was dressed up to look like Osama bin Laden, and he gave a magnificent performance during his soliloquy about his plans. Tomas, conducting the orchestra of Mawk's Magical Musical Robots, picked up the music into a dramatic crescendo. Regi shouted out "Look! Up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! It's ... TWO PLANES!", right on cue. Sophist, playing a businessman, took his daring leap off the top of one of the servers. Wyatt and I performed our intensely-choreographed dance routine, all the while, making jet noises as we moved. Finally, at the end of the score, Brew, the director, gave us the cue to collide with the "towers".
As we did, the secret packs of Mentos, stashed just inside the "engine compartments", burst, and released into the several gallons of volatile Coca Cola. Our duct tape and plaster plane molds didn't just pop, they EXPLODED, in a massive tidal wave of brown, fizzy horror. The scene, and the mess, were spectacular. Wyatt was actually hospitalized for a week, from the sheer force of the explosion releasing thousands of pounds of soda pressure's force. I was not so lucky. The gushing torrent of foaming brown corn syrup caused me to be heaved upward like a giant bottle rocket, into some sandbags being suspended from the ceiling. I flailed pitifully and grabbed onto them, but then noticed too late that one of the ropes had been sabotaged, cut down to only a single, precarious thread.
Peri, who was off stage and awaiting her go as Flight 93, scrambled up the scaffolding, and leapt daringly to my rescue. Moog watched intently, eating a gigantic slice of watermelon that was being saved for the afterparty. Regi managed to pull Wyatt out of harm's way, and the rest of the staff screamed and ran around in terror (though a few of them were just screaming and running around because it seemed like the popular thing to do at the time). Mid-leap, Peri seemed to realize her lack of forethought in jumping through the air to save someone dangling, and grappled onto the rope just above the cut. She threw out her hand, and I reached for it. The fingers just missed, in that way that Hollywood likes to portray in similar situations. Tomas, sensing the tension, conducted the orchestra to play a thrilling refrain.
At the last second, it all worked out. I somehow managed temporarily to grow my arm an additional 4-6 inches in length, thereby making it possible to grab onto Peri's extended hand. The thread snapped, and the sandbags fell to the stage. When everyone stopped to look at what had happened, Peri and I had teleported, movie-style, without any context as to how we got off that rope, back onto the stage, and we all smiled in relief.
That's when we all realized that we had unplugged the servers from the wall to perform this asinine play, so the site was taken offline.
Also the server was covered in fizz and goo and plaster and some of Wyatt's blood. Also moog had somehow gotten Kool-Aid all over it, and we hadn't even seen him bring any Kool-Aid.
So, for the last 20 days, we've been diligently cleaning all the sticky mess off of the server. Sorry about that.
On the bright side, we're back, and opening night of Flight 93: The Opera was scored relatively well by critics (though it did poorly in ticket sales). We won a Tony, but it was in Set Design so who cares.
