jack-o-lantern
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Holy Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Tetris ported to a jack-o'-lantern (video)
What happens when you gut a pumpkin and replace its insides with heat-shrink tubing, solder, 128 LEDs, eight AA batteries, an Arduino board and clever programming? You get what self-proclaimed tinkerer Nathan Pryor calls "Pumpktris." Over the years we've seen the classic puzzle game Tetris ported to some amazing things, but a piece of fruit? Just in time for Halloween, this high-tech spin on the jack-o'-lantern features a fully playable Tetris game controlled from the pumpkin's joystick stem. Whether you're a hardcore do-it-yourselfer, or a diehard Tetris fan hoping to top the system's high score (9,800 points), you can build your very own Pumpktris. Of course, its creator estimates it'll take around 12 hours or longer to build the custom LED matrix and joystem and carve up the gourd of your choice. If you're up to the challenge, you can find a complete walkthrough of the project at the source link below. However, if you'd just like to see this quasi-organic gaming rig in action, check out the groovy video after the break.
The Secret World unveils new horrific creatures
More creepy-crawlies are emerging from the shadows to join the ranks of Funcom's upcoming horror-inspired title, The Secret World. The studio revealed today three new creatures that players will face in-game: the Bogeyman, Jack O'Lantern, and the mud golem. The first of the three, the Bogeyman, should be familiar to anyone who was once a child (if any of you weren't, please let us know). He is "a being of pure evil" who feeds on fear, and considering that terrible visage up there, we doubt he ever goes hungry. Meanwhile, Jack O'Lantern, is some poor sod who fell under a wicked curse, and is now driven only by vengeance and bloodlust. To take advantage of his pumpkin head, Jack O'Lantern tends to bury himself beneath the ground in pumpkin patches in order to take passers-by by surprise. And finally, we have the mud golem, which is pretty much what it says on the tin. A being of pure earth, the mud golem is created for one purpose: to perform the (almost certainly nefarious) will of its master. For the full details on each of these creatures, head on over to the official site.
LED pumpkin would be perfect for your next Sleepy Hollow dance party (video)
We can't all have heads as amazing as Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo, but this holiday season we can have pumpkins that are every bit as blinky. Mike Szczys has posted a detailed walkthrough of how to create the above Jack-o-creation at Hack a Day, which features a 5 x 14 matrix of LEDs on the front that can be programmed to light up in various ways, like the Knight Rider sweep or to simply scroll the message "HAPPY HALLOWEEN." That's shown in the video below, but hopefully version 2.0 can manage the tricks displayed in the second embed that's also waiting for you after the break.
How-to: geek up your pumpkin
BOO! It's Halloween and it's also a Saturday, so let's not hear any pathetic excuses for not carving pumpkins. While we're no experts, we've got a few tips for making your jack-o'-lanterns better looking and more unique.
A very crabby Hallow's End
Yeah, I know, more Ghostcrawler love. We all look like a bunch of fanboys, don't we? Well, what can I say, we love developers that communicate, even if they make mistakes and end up wrong sometimes. We're not the only ones that love him, either.The fabulous crab-o'-lantern above was made by Isana of Lightning's Blade-US. As far as we know, there's no huge story behind it, it's just downright cool. It's made even more cool by the fact that my jack-o'-lantern skills don't go beyond triangle eyes and crescent moon mouths, so this just blows my mind. I think it's about time I pick a quirky mascot so people start carving me pumpkins. I'm cool too, right? ...Right?Guys? Why are you leaving?
Arduino-based pumpkin promises to scare off trick-or-treaters
Pumpkins outfitted with LEDs are certainly all well and good, but the ever-versatile Arduino platform has now upped the Jack O' Lantern modding possibilities considerably, and MAKE's Marc de Vinck looks to have made a decent stab at things with this immodestly dubbed "scariest pumpkin ever." To help it snag that title, de Vinck did away with the usual spooky halloween sound effects and instead opted for a car horn, which lets out a blast whenever someone presses the impossible to resist red button. That, obviously, presents a number of problems, and MAKE warns not to leave the pumpkin unattended, or let someone press their ear up against it. Or, if you're not quite ready to tackle the project yourself, you can simply get a taste of it at a slightly more tolerable level by checking out the video after the break.
New spooky forum avatars
Taking a gander at the official forums tonight will reveal something magically spooky.All the blue posters have been turned into glowing jack-o-lanterns, and all of us normal folks have turned into undead zombies.The conspiracy theorist in me suggests that this is a clue to the next stage of the zombie invasion. Tomorrow we'll all log on and have a strange urge for brains and only brains. Lots and lots of juicy... yummy... braaains. Insert Homer Simpson drool here.Of course this could just be another fancy bit for Halloween, but who knows....There is no indication how long this will last, and also there's no word if there'll be new Wrath of the Lich King avatars after this is done as there were when the Burning Crusade was released.
The voice of the Headless Horseman
It is over, your search is done! Let fate choose now, the righteous one."Over here, you idiot!" ring a bell? We've had a bunch of readers ask us lately just who does the voice for the Headless Horseman -- corny poetry aside, players are really loving the laugh and timbre of the guy who doesn't even have a throat to speak with. The most common guess we've heard is Gerard Butler, star of 300, but that doesn't really compute, as Blizzard usually uses lesser known voice actors and even most of their sound crew and artists (Chris Metzen does quite a few voices, actually, including most of the Orcs in game).We've got two guesses for the Headless Horseman: the first is voice actor Michael McConnohie -- he's done a few other voices for Blizzard before (including Kel'thuzad). While his voice is definitely recognizable (he sounds like the Human male to me), the other strong male voice we know has worked for Blizzard is Mark Graue, who runs a voice studio in LA, and has worked on WoW since the beginning (he did the Undead emotes). Here's Graue's demos -- he sounded to me like the Horseman for sure when I first listened, but a few times in, I'm not so sure any more.You can listen to the voice demos for both those guys and judge for yourself. Again, those are just guesses, based on who's worked with Blizzard in the past -- we don't really know for sure who it is. But we do have a query in to Blizzard on just whose manical laugh that is you hear when you throw a Jack-o-Lantern on your friend's head, so if they get back to us with a name, we'll post it here.
Show and Tell: Early but eerie
In the fine tradition of American retailers, we'd like to get started on Halloween a little early this year. We've got pumpkins, costumes, and parties -- all things just ripe for you to undertake yourself once the holiday rolls around. Doing something gaming-related yourself? Make sure you let us know!Also, hey -- if you're looking to get started early on your spooky plans this year, maybe some of these will help get the (ooshy gooshy layers of) brain cranking out some ideas.%Gallery-31461% Show and Tell is all about fan stuff, so long as it's Nintendo-related. We love to see your collections, your crafts, your frosted creations, your t-shirts and swag of all sorts.Just snap a few pictures, tell us what's up, and send it all to showmeit [at] dsfanboy [dot] com. We'll take care of the rest. Not a handy type, but found something neat? Send us a link instead.
The Mac-O-Lantern really works!
Who doesn't love a clever mod? I still have yet to see a deep-fried Mac, but looks like the Halloween festivities were too much for one warranty-killer, and have yielded the Mac-O-Lantern. It's a Mac mini stuffed inside a medium-size pumkin. Some fun tidbits include a speak in the mouth, a webcam in the eye and a splash of color thanks to those little faux neon cords the kids love these days. The little glowing Apple logo on the side makes me want to do that with all my computers... Clever mod or too much time on someone's hands? You be the judge. And is it just me or does this guy look a little like the original HHGTTG Marvin?[via 123macmini.com]
Pumpkin Emergence Day contest reminder
What better way to spend a Sunday afternoon than carving an Xbox 360-themed Jack-O-Lantern for our 1st Annual Xbox 360 Pumpkin Carving Contest. Readers have submitted a number of quality efforts so far. We're accepting entries until late Monday and since everybody carves a pumpkin for Halloween anyway, there's really no exscuse for not putting blade to squash. Oh yeah -- First prize gets a copy of that under-the-radar sleeper title from Epic that you may have heard about.If you need inspiration, check out these the incredible pumkin art from last year's Halo.Bungie.org contest (Damn. I thought I had an original idea). They're holding the same thing again this year, so there's no reason you couldn't carve one Xbox-O-Lantern and enter it in both contests.
