The Irrational audio department is hiding a secret—trying to keep the details of a certain incident hidden from the rest of the team. What they didn’t count on was the public release of a telling sound recording.

The story begins with a bizarre, arcane device: the Master Violet Ray. Marketed in the early 20th century as a miracle device cure for just about any ailment, the Violet Ray is little more than a handle that powers a glass tube attachment filled with neon, argon, or helium. Touching a powered Violet Ray creates a tingling sensation whose intensity can be increased with a power dial.

Audio team members Jeff Seamster and Pat Balthrop acquired the device from senior designer Forrest Dowling. They were hoping simply to record some unique electrical sounds for BioShock Infinite, but the evidence shows they got more than they bargained for:

If the audio player doesn’t work, please refresh the page.

The following interview was conducted following the incident to shine further light on the matter:

Sarah Rosa: What were your impressions of the device?

Jeff Seamster: There’s a manual that tells you what it’s supposed to be for, but when you pull it out of the box it looks like an implement of torture or something meant to hurt a cow.

Chris Remo: It’s definitely a machine that does something to another thing. It is definitely an active verb.

Jeff: Electricity is such a difficult sound effect to get real material for, so every time we get the opportunity to record some electricity, we say, “Yes, get that!”

Chris: So before you recorded it, you had never turned it up that high?

Jeff: No. We were totally noob about this device. We had no idea what we were doing and yes it had a manual and no we did not read that manual.

Sarah: Kristina [Drzaic, narrative designer] told me she warned you to wear rubber gloves.

Pat Balthrop: Lies.

Sarah: And she said she told you guys to keep it turned down.

Jeff: No way.

Sarah: Are you lying to me?

Jeff: Obviously the first thing we’re going to do is turn it up to the max and see how much juice we can get out of it.

Pat: Scott [Haraldsen, audio lead] was smart. He wouldn’t even go into the booth. He ran the recording session.

Jeff: It’s not very high-tech. It’s just got a two-prong plug. Important: not grounded.  There’s a knob with no indicator; you don’t know how high you’re turning it. You can keep turning it and you have no idea what’s happening. It’s just a weird thing with a black handle and something is happening with electricity on the inside.

The attachments were very exciting, because they have the cool purple light inside the glass like one of those plasma balls you put your hands on.

Pat: And it hurt a bit.

Chris: So you did start to get a warning of what it could do.

Jeff: We heard you could put it right up to the skin, but it was just a low hissy buzz, so we decided, “Let’s pump up the jams!” Then we were getting some nice arcs. You could hold your finger a couple inches away from it and get some good “zot!” sounds.

So we were like, “What else can we shock? Let’s shock the mic stand, let’s shock the back of your hand, let’s shock everything! There’s a piece of sheet metal in here! Maybe we can do something with that!”

Pat picked up the sheet metal, and I think my knee was resting against Pat’s leg at the time…

Sarah: So you were both conducting.

Jeff: …Yes. We got the mic really close to the sheet metal, then there was a huge spark. It must have been a four-inch long spark. Then it arcs over to the metal, I feel a huge jolt, and my leg seizes up. Pat flings back because he’s been completely electrocuted. We’re both yelling and trying to see if we have any burns or permanent damage, we can hear Scott laughing at us through the headphones, and Pat is still sitting there with this sheet metal going, “Get this shit away from me, man!”

At that point we pulled the plug.

Pat: But it was worth it, because it sounded awesome.

Chris: Are you going to use the sound? It’s a pretty amazing sound.

Jeff: Of course we are.

Splicers invaded the Irrational Games offices this week, accompanied by a somewhat more motley assortment of characters including a knight Templar, a few pirates, and Dr. McNinja. Oh, and The Giving Tree.

That’s all thanks to last night’s Fall Spooktacular event here at Irrational. There was food, pumpkin carving, scary movies, and of course the costume contest, which saw a three-way tie for first place awarded to our disturbingly convincing Splicers: Sarah Rosa, Kayla Belmore, and Phil Frechette. Don Norbury and Josh Davis tied as runners-up with their elaborate Joust knight getups.

Kayla and Sarah, seen above, were dressed as the BioShock Splicers known internally as “Lady Smith” and “Baby Jane.” Sarah, whose costume-making prowess is well documented, sewed both of their costumes herself. Kayla was responsible for the gore makeup. The pair then distressed the clothing using tea, fake blood, paint, sandpaper, razors, and–of course–fire.

In addition to contributing massively to organizing the Spooktacular, Phil came dressed as “Waders.” He put his own costume together, including the fleshy mask grafted to his face. Then he severely startled everyone who ran into him for the first time yesterday.

This closeup shows some of the impressive costume and makeup effects Sarah and Kayla achieved.

Around 20 Irrational staffers made the effort to put Halloween costumes together for this year’s Spooktacular, valiantly spending a near-full work day all dressed up before the event itself began.

Remember Joust? Don and Josh do.

The rest of us weren’t industrious enough (or were too self-conscious) too dress up, as you can see, but there were was plenty of food and fun nonetheless.

Head over to our Halloween 2010 Flickr gallery for more shots of the event and its many costumed attendees.

And finally, to cap off our Spooktacular and get you in the proper state of mind for Halloween, please bear witness to this nightmarish image of Phil “Waders” Frechette. It will haunt your dreams:

In this episode of Irrational Behavior we let you look behind the scenes of the creation at the BioShock Infinite trailer.  Some of the people responsible for directing and creating the trailer discuss the constant evolution of the material as well as the hurdles that had to be overcome along the way in order to get to what you see released.

WARNING: This episode of Irrational Behavior is filled with spoilers.  Watch the trailer at http://www.BioshockInfinite.com before listening to the podcast.

• Part 1: The Creative Vita-Chamber
• Part 2: Infinite’s Horizon
• Part 3: Listen Up!
• Part 4: Days in the Dark

This completes the first season of Irrational Behavior.  The show will be going on a break but stay tuned to IrrationalGames.com for the latest news and content on BioShock Infinite as well as the return of Irrational Interviews starting September 1st.  Continue to discuss this episode of Irrational Behavior and BioShock Infinite in our forums.

iTunes Link

Direct Download Episode 7: Part 2

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Podcast music provided by:

• Signal Hill
• Taxpayer
• Cathode Rays

Ten Things, as the name implies, gives you ten opinions from ten different Irrational employees, each time on a new topic.  It could be cookies, or albums you should own, or things to do at a picnic… any and every subject is fair game.

With E3 behind us, we’re kicking off Ten Things with the topic:  “Impressive products at E3 in 2010.”

Stephen Alexander – Senior FX Artist: Portal 2. Looked very pretty, gameplay seemed like what made the first great with lots of new ideas, writing seemed to have maintained its really high bar.

Dan Johnson – Quality Assurance Tester: Dance Central, using Kinect and creating a real game that has the same infectiousness that pervades Guitar Hero and Rock Band.

Kristina Drzaic – Designer: Epic Mickey blew me away, more over Disney’s decision to play with Mickey’s brand image in an interesting way than actual demonstrated gameplay, which still looked great.  I’m looking forward to that one.

Sarah Rosa – Assistant to the Creative Director: There was a lot of awesome at E3.  I must say that the 3DS is definitely worth molesting and worked as described!

Mike Syrnyk – Associate Producer: I was impressed by Bulletstorm just because I love the idea of literally booting the crap out of every enemy in sight.

Chad LaClair – Level Designer: RAGE.  Best looking game I’ve seen on the 360.

Adrian Murphy – Associate Producer: Ghost Recon.  I didn’t pay too much attention before E3, but after watching the videos, I was pleasantly surprised.  It doesn’t seem to be taking the Modern Warfare/ Battlefield route of “ZOMG everything is exploding all the time I am Rambo.”  The cloaking looked cool, and the joint takedown sequence was rad.

Ben Lo – Concept Artist: The most impressive one was Gran Turismo 5 to me. Even though I’m not a big racing gamer, the in-game graphics alone will be able to get me going at it for hours and hours. It is just gorgeous.

Joe Faulstick – Producer: Civilization 5 has me excited. They seem to be finding the perfect balance between keeping what worked well and improving upon the original core experience.

Jorge Lacera – Concept Artist: Metal Gear Solid: Rising fucking blew my mind. I’m ready to slice some shit up!

Sharks, spiders, the dark, and chemistry exams.  These are just a couple of the things that we are scared of.  In this episode of Irrational Behavior we look at the things we are scared of and how it affects the way we make games.  Guest Andrew Weaver of Indiana University explains why we enjoy fun and the staff shed light on the challenges of making a game scary.

• Part 1: What Are We Afraid Of
• Part 2: Why Fear is Fun
• Part 3: The Art of Fear
• Part 4: The Feel of Fear
• Part 5: The Sound of Fear

Stay tuned to IrrationalGames.com for more content related to this month’s podcast.

Discuss this episode of Irrational Behavior over in the forum.

iTunes Link

Direct Download Episode 5

Irrational Podcasts RSS Feed

Podcast music provided by:

• Signal Hill
• Walking Sleep
• Geoff Graves
• The Happy Hollows

What do the dorky things that we do say about ourselves? More importantly, do they give game developers an edge? This month’s episode of Irrational Behavior explores some of our secret pastimes: dollhouse construction, action figure hoarding, cosplay, and live-action role-playing included.

• Part 1: Guys and Dolls
• Part 2: Tired of Sleep
• Part 3: Off Kilter
• Part 4: Cosplay Confession
• Part 5: WE LOVE LARPING
• Part 6: Roasted

Stay tuned to IrrationalGames.com for more content related to this month’s podcast.

Discuss this episode of Irrational Behavior over in the forum.

iTunes Link

Direct Download Episode 4

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Podcast music provided by:

• Signal Hill
• Frederik Kaupang
• Geoff Graves
• Filippo Beck Peccoz
• Rich Vreeland/DisasterPeace
• Justin Schwenk

Telemarketer Ken Levine. Playboy illustrator Scott Sinclair.  This month’s episode of Irrational Behavior explores what we did before we began developing videogames.  This months episode highlights include the commiserations of former game store clerks, an artist who accidentally concealed a Satanic message in a Christian comic for children, and a confession from the man who claims to have created the deer in Golden Tee Golf.

Stay tuned to IrrationalGames.com for more content related to this month’s podcast.

Discuss this episode of Irrational Behavior over in the forum.

iTunes Link

Direct Download Episode 3

Irrational Podcasts RSS Feed

Podcast music provided by:

• Signal Hill
• Josh Rathbun
• Patrick Balthrop
• Justin Schwenk
• Fillipo Beck Peccoz
• Giancarlo Feltrin