step into your wake with your blood on my shirt

Many years ago, Bobby and I were playing Axis and Allies on one warm afternoon. We started joking about Germany’s terrible chances. Inspired by the board game in front of us, I commented, “Wouldn’t it be terrible if some Germany game company made a ‘Concentration Camp Management’ game while the Reich was in power? Like Puerto Rico or one of those other city-builders, only you have to manage an extermination camp?”

Bobby shook his head, chuckling. “You’d have to make sure your railroad depot wasn’t too far from the gas showers or you’d lose turnaround time.”

We both agreed that that would be uniformly twisted.

Flash forward about five years. Browsing through one of the transient dollar stores in the Arsenal Mall, I found the following gem in the Discount Software section: Prison Tycoon 3: Lockdown. If the title didn’t make it clear, I’ll spell it out: the cheery folks who gave you Roller Coaster Tycoon and Zoo Tycoon developed a game where you run your own prison.

Actually: they developed three of them.

What makes Prison Tycoon 3: Lockdown such a comically monstrous game? If I had to make a list:

• “Begin with a low security prison and build it up to a SuperMax.” I don’t know if I’d consider a SuperMax prison an “upgrade” from a minimum-security facility. They serve two entirely different functions - one to house non-violent offenders, the other to provide rigorous supervision and restriction. This is like buying a flight simulator for your computer that boasts “start out with a prop plane and build it up to a C-47.”

• “Hire trust-worthy prison guards and arm them with weapons, riot shields and guard dogs to maintain peace and control, but keep your eye on your budget.” Per the advertisements, budget is the only restraint on how brutal you can be with your prison population. Not your innate concern for civil liberties. Not the inherent dignity of the human. No, the only thing that’ll stop you from giving every guard on the block an autofire shotgun with rubber shells and full Kevlar is a lack of funds. Fortunately, you can augment your budget by building factories onsite - auto shops, print shops, metal shops, etc - so even that limit can be overcome. It’s a circle of some kind … begins with a “v” … I want to say “virtuous,” but I don’t think that’s it …

• “You determine whether to release your prisoners on parole or keep them locked down tight to protect society.” Rehabilitating prisoners gives you a cash bonus and (I suspect, can’t confirm this) improves your overall prison score. Releasing someone who goes out to commit another crime? No real downside. Don’t worry about rehabilitating too many prisoners, though - you’ll get another busload tomorrow morning!

• “Manage gangs and prisoner morale to avoid riots.” Like in the other Tycoon games, each individual visitor to your theme park prison facility has his own mood. Happy prisoners work eagerly in your shops. Angry prisoners start fights, which can escalate into riots through a cascading effect (one angry prisoner makes the prisoners around him angry, which makes their neighbors angry, etc). Managing prisoner morale doesn’t take much effort - simply dispatch a prison guard over to an angry prisoner. The guard will beat the prisoner with a nightstick until his mood improves to “passive.” No, I’m serious; that’s how you do it.

• “Interrogate military prisoners for vital intel. Earn extra bonuses by getting prisoners to provide crucial information.” … so.

Disclaimer: some of my intel came from an FAQ for the first Prison Tycoon game. My prior experience with the Tycoon series indicates that later games in the series don’t deviate significantly from earlier ones - they just add more gameplay options. If anyone who’s actually played this gem of a game wants to correct me, leave a comment.

why you at the bar if you ain’t popping the bottles?

So what did this past weekend hold?

I finished up some revisions for a Neutrino video project on Friday. Then, at the last minute, I drove to Central Square to catch an IB Show. Serpico, Michelle McN., Manny R., Paul K. and others did a series of Boston-related sketches. They hit all the important notes for some good Boston satire - drunken college girls, rowdy Red Sox fans, the mumblings of Mayor Menino - and kept me laughing.

I ran into Jacey and grabbed dinner with her at Tavern on the Square. For some reason the bar hosted a live DJ mixing some generic top 40 pop at too loud of a volume to allow for easy conversation. Dance music’s apparently a regular fixture at the Tavern but not a popular one - we were there until 11:00 and nobody started moving.

Saturday, Dennis Hurley asked me to play an extra in a sketch video he was shooting at IB. I showed up, held a notebook, and chatted with Matt McG. and Aaron C. about Obama during downtime.

Immediately after, I met up with Shannon and Brian P. for that aforementioned Neutrino project. Watching Dennis’s pals mess around with shot placement and multiple takes infected me with the video bug once more, leading me to volunteer to direct a project I had just helped write. I have been infected. I expect a two month convalescence.

I hung out with Lisa C. at B-Side Lounge on Saturday night. The nice server at B-Side introduced me to the wonders of the Manhattan - all the taste and power of whiskey, but without the indelible stigma of ordering a shot of Canadian Club. It is now my favorite drink. We compared notes on the Cambridge dating scene and agreed that it’s fraught with traps.

Sunday I stayed in my bathrobe all day. Every now and then I need a day where I don’t speak to another human being. It scours the palate, like one of those water diets that drops you two dress sizes in a weekend at a slight cost to kidney health. It leaves me eager for human contact by sundown. My introversion rules me but doesn’t rule me, if you value the distinction.

Also of note: Star Wars Battlefront has some of the highest replay value of any video game I’ve ever bought. If I’m in the mood for violence, I don’t need to load up a game and start some highbrow, ivory-tower “mission.” I don’t need to begin a quest and speak to the city fathers. I just say, “Put me in the gas refineries on Bespin and let me shoot stormtroopers” and forty seconds later I’m doing it. It has a beautiful purity I almost fear to touch.

Those last two paragraphs are probably the most interesting. Once again I have buried the lede.