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I present to you:

Hostile Robot Takeover, by The Skill Druids

Hostile Robot Takeover is a musical suite written, performed, recorded, and produced by myself under the Skill Druids moniker (more info on that name can be found here). These songs are permanently located out on HodsAudio, but you can just download them directly here below (don’t miss the lyrics/story a little farther below).

1. Introduction
2. Abducted By Robots
3. We Are Captives
4. Meanwhile, at the recharge dock
5. Fight!
6. Escape!
7. Fight! {reprise}
8. Later, at the recharge dock
9. Slaves Forever
10. Conclusion

These songs are also available here on HodsAudio.net: http://hodsaudio.net/Album/Details/17

Credits

Directly or indirectly, small or large, in some way, shape, or form, this album has been influenced by (in no particular order): me, robots, Keelhaul, Helmet, 311, Melvins, Dr. Richard Lindeke, Lee Sackett, Jason Bock, Neil Iversen, Jake Good, Steve Digre, Nicole Hodnick, Pantera, and Static-X. Yes, I said Pantera. I’m not going to bother explaining, but trust me, there are some specific Pantera influences on Escape.

If it weren’t for Jackie and Greg Gerten, I probably never would have even started this project.

The Plot

You can view the full lyrics here

The lyrics speak for themselves, but here is a more descriptive summary. The story is told in the first person, but I really don’t picture myself when listening to these songs. Anyway, first I’m abducted by robots from my home. I’m taken to some sort of facility where I, along with other human captives, are placed in a crude prison with blue force field walls. Some humans try to overcome the force fields and become injured. In the meantime, two other robots consider the possibility that the humans might rise up and resist their captivity. We secretly talk to each other and plan a resistance. We find our chance to fight and bring it to the robots. We do considerable damage and use the chance to attempt escape. We fight our way to the doors through a robot defense, but ultimately we fail. Meanwhile, two robots consider the damage done and reveal that they have enslaved the humans. We concede that we lost our opportunity to escape and that we must now obey and yield to our robot masters.

Mike’s Take on All This

By far this was one of the most enjoyable solo musical projects I’ve worked on in a long, long time. I think part of it was because four out of the five main tracks have been incubating for some time and I was able to focus just on recording and writing lyrics rather than arranging the music. Tunes like Abducted and Captives have been in the works since about 2002. Wow that’s eight years ago. Tunes like Escape started around 2003 and Fight was probably around 2005. Fight actually appears in a different form on the Skill Druids’ “The Drow”. Slaves Forever was the only “new” song I composed for this collection.

Next, I plan on taking the tracks from this release and slicing them up and remixing them into some ridiculously complex breakcore. Not sure how that is going to go…

Hope you enjoy the music!

Halo 3 is over two years old, but it’s still a fun game. Fun enough that each Monday night there is a small group of us who get together and play it.

A staple of our Monday evenings has become drag racing:

We’ve modified this track and have been playing it for months, but now the excitement is starting to wear off. I think we all love the insanity the drag race map brings to the table, but we’re getting a little bored with it.

I decided to create a similar variant that combines the drag racing insanity with Assault/Capture the Flag. Here are some screen shots and descriptions:

Overhead view of the map. Notice the attacker starting point on the left and the defending base on the right:

Attacking team starting point:

A few goodies along the way for the attackers to pick up:

At the end of the strip, the launch point we’ve all come to know and love:

Attackers have an alternate side route. Vehicles can only leave from the base on these routes - not enter:

Defenders have a chain gun available to spray bullets on attackers as they launch:

Better view of the defensive base:

A big, tall back wall is provided to try and keep the lightweight Mongoose ATV’s from flying out. I’d say it’s about a 50/50 chance they will stay in bounds! During play-testing, I found that the ATV’s just fly super far into the air with the exploding fusion coil plus grav lifts at the launch point. I kind of like the randomness of not knowing if you’ll make it as an attacker. The bigger Warthogs make it in without risk almost every time.

Secret route to rocket launcher. Approximately equi-distant between offense/defense:

Hopefully we’ll play this on the coming Monday. After some play testing with the group - I’ll try and remember to make this map available for download.