Carnival of Souls 2009: Pirates!

For 2009, we wanted to do something a little different than the previous years, and many of our volunteers wanted to do a pirate-themed haunt, so who were we to object? (Even better, we had plenty of piratical celebration to do thanks to the release of our educational game Science Pirates.) So the theme for 2009 was "Pirates!".

Even better, we had a lot of volunteers, as you can see below (and not everyone who helped was there for the staff photo, either!).

So, we decided to do another walk-through haunt. We didn't have quite as many resources as the previous year for a full-blown walkthrough haunt, but we did have a really good idea for a finale: a gun battle with a pirate ship under the command of an undead pirate captain! So we set to work.

Madame Sarita Warns the Guests

Madame Sarita is one of our recurring characters here at the Carnival of Souls, and she made another appearance this year. This time, we reimagined her as a darker, voodoo-themed mystic. We devoted our entire backyard ramada into a voodoo parlour for her, and we decorated it to the hilt with creepy voodoo artifacts.

Sarita herself got a makeover, too. Tracy, our Sarita from previous years, wanted to try something different, so her sister Holly stepped into Sarita's shoes and played the spirit guardian this year.

The guide explains that he found a pirate treasure map which may show the location of the treasure of Anne Bonny and Mary Reid. It's located in a ruined French Bastille which the two notorious pirates laid waste to. They died in the battle, and it is said their treasure still remains there where they died. So they go to Madame Sarita to learn more.

Madame Sarita deals out a Tarot-like spirit card in front of each visitor, and tells them to put their hand down on the card. She then calls on the spirits to give their guidance. "Hear me, bayou spirits! Tell us the fate of these explorers who seek the cursed treasure of Anne Bonny and Mary Reid!"

Suddenly, the lights go out, Madame Sarita is possessed by an evil spirit! Madame Sarita's face has been replaced by a glowing skull! The spirit admonishes the group: "Ha ha ha! Fools! Already ye be cursed! Look to your cards and see the BLACK SPOT!" Visitors lift their hands and see a glowing skull on their cards. Yikes! "I tell ye true, enjoy what's left o' yer livin' hours, 'cause when the church bell tolls midnight, ye'll be shanghai'd and pressed into service under Anne Bonny or Mary Reid! I guess the only question is: do ye wish to be a zombie or a ghost? Ha ha ha ha ha!"

(To achieve this effect, we just switched back and forth between normal light and black light. By painting Holly's face with laundry detergent, which has blueing in it, her face would fluoresce in a skull shape whenever the black lights were on. A similar trick created the "black spots" on the cards. We found some paper which did not fluoresce (a parchment print), and painted them with blueing, too - all except a big dark spot in the middle. Once that dried, we could draw on the cards in black ink to create the card design; when put under black light, the card would fluoresce everywhere except for a big black dot in the center of the card.)

Madame Sarita returns to normal and looks exhausted. "What happened? I've never felt such evil before!" The guide explains what happened, and Sarita goes pale. "Then you are cursed! You must break the curse by midnight, or you'll turn into a ghost and join Anne Bonny's ghostly crew, or Mary Reid's zombie ship."

(In the original plan, we were going to have a separate, amplified voice for Madame Sarita's possessed state. Luckily, Holly's acting ability made this extra technical work unnecessary; her ability to change her voice considerably from the friendly Sarita to the frightening possessing spirit meant we could skip a complicated audio setup and deliver a more believable possession, too.)

The guide asks how to break the curse. "You must find their treasure. That's the source of their spirits' rage. Break its hold over their spirits, and the curse shall be lifted. But be warned! They'll be sending their undead pirates to try to stop you!"

Entering the Bastille

Leaving Madame Sarita's parlour, the adventurers turn to enter the bastille, a large stone fortress lit up with an eerie blue light. All is quiet as they creep silently into the bastille.

All of a sudden, pirates are attacking from every side! The guide tells the guests to head for an archway further on into the bastille, draws his sword, and begins fighting the pirates.

The Flying Dutchman

Beyond the archway, the group enters a dark, creepy grotto, where the wreckage of the Flying Dutchman lies. Walking onto its deck, they are accosted by a skeletal pirate captain, a restless spirit sent to Davy Jones' Locker by Anne Bonny and Mary Reid.

He proposes an accord: since he cannot rest until he gets his revenge, and the group will be doomed if they cannot break the curse, their interests are aligned. He needs a crew to man the guns of the Flying Dutchman, and go fight the two sinister pirates before the stroke of midnight!

The captain cackles in glee at the prospect of finally enacting his revenge, and shouts, "Man the cannons, ye scurvy dogs! We set sail for Skull Island!"

(The pirate captain was a black light puppet manned behind the foam ship's rails facade. He consisted of, basically, a floating pirate skull and a floating sword. Our puppeteer, Nick, did an excellent job spouting off angry piratical diatribes and waving the sword around to great effect.)

The Cannonades

In front of the crew are a set of four cannons, each mounted to the deck of the ship and sporting a wooden plunger on top. Each cannon was on casters, allowing it to be swiveled to face different targets. Smacking the plunger on top of the cannon would cause a cannonball to fire out towards the pirate ships in the distance.

The cannons were custom-built for this haunt by my brother, and they looked awesome:

Each cannon was a wooden box inside which was mounted an upside-down USB steering wheel game controller. As the cannon was turned on its casters, a wooden shaft attached to the deck of the ship held the steering wheel in place, effectively turning the base instead of the wheel. These rotations were read over USB and used to determine the trajectory for the cannonballs fired into the virtual sea battle game. The plungers on top of the cannons were just long dowels aligned with the accelerator pedal for the controllers. When the accelerator pedal for a cannon was hit, a cannonball was fired.

The Sea Battle

What follows is a savage sea battle, the Flying Dutchman against the ghost ship of Anne Bonny and the zombie ship of Mary Reid!

This virtual 3D world was modeled and animated in Adobe Director (if we were to do it today, we'd use Unity), and then hooked up with the USB controllers from the cannons to allow the visitors to fire the cannons into the virtual world.

Two ships would attack the players - a ghost ship and a zombie ship. Each ship had a series of minions that would fly out and attack, which, if shot with cannonballs, explode in a puff of mystical energy. Striking the ships themselves with the cannons would blacken and char the sides of the ships.

After fighting their way to skull island, the island would rise up out of the water, revealing a passage into the rock through the skull's mouth, which led to a grotto where the final battle with Anne Bonny and Mary Reid took place. Once the two pirates were defeated, a "Happy Halloween" message would appear, plus a score ranking.

After the guests break the curse, the pirate captain thanked them for their service, and for setting him free, and his floating bones would vanish into darkness. They were then ushered out. Many cries of "THAT WAS AWESOME!" were heard that night.

Pirate Midway

Beyond the core attractions, we had a lot of improvements to the midway area. Two new games were introduced: Walk the Plank and Pirate Plinko. We also had Dr. Richman, an entomologist from New Mexico State University, come out and bring his "Creepy Crawly Emporium", an insect petting zoo where kids could get up close and personal with hissing cockroaches, spiders, scorpions, and other bugs.

We had many piratical character actors going about interacting with the kids. Unlike previous years, the midway games did not give out candy but instead Spanish gold doubloons! If the kids wanted candy, they had to barter with the pirates to get it, a simple concept, but one which really made the pirate theme come alive for a lot of our visitors.

All in all, 2009 was another huge success here at Carnival of Souls!