How to make a killer haunted house
Aside from the paper mache, the polyester spiderwebs, and the watered-down punch, what can you do to make a really kickin' haunted house? As usual, computers come to the rescue. Don't settle for cheap parlor tricks like these... Put together a high-tech haunted house with some of the tips and apps mentioned below.Why not have a haunted arcade, with all your old favorites? Don't forget some modern hits like dressing up your Sims, or you're own virtual asylum. Grab an old PC and load up any old web browser to show the machine infested with spiders. SpookyFX has a light controller, which you could hook up to a MAME cabinet, and flash the lights with gameplay.
It's pretty easy to scare up a virtual haunted house. Rolling your own spook shack in meatspace requires a little more effort though. There's the Haunted House in a Box, just begging to be hacked. Pepakura Designer can help you print and build spooky 3d critters, like the ones this guy made. Boopack has four little apps for building Halloween equipment: one for testing a four-bar linkage, one for designing wings, one to use the Triangle Grid System to layout a haunt, and a sound board app for playback of spooky noises. While you're at it, see my previous post on creating a robot army for building your own robot zombie army... Plus, check out my picks for free 3d apps to visualize your masterpiece before you build it.
If you get really lazy, use GooGhoul to look up Halloween stuff in your area. And if you want to scare your Linux-loving friends, read the Halloween documents by the fire... Just don't forget, this time of year Hacker often means something else.
