Man Crates' Horror Survival Challenge

MAN. CRATE. OPEN. RRRRRRRRR.

Today is a big day for me, dear readers. I have been asked very nicely by the people of at Man Crates, specialists in spectacularly extravagant, testosterone-fuelled gifts for men (or women/snake beasts, let's not be discriminatory here) who like unvarnished wood and sharp things, to partake in a little challenge. They have asked me, in my infinite mind-bending wisdom, to come up with my choice for the perfect horror movie survival crate full of the shit any zombie-bursting, serial-killer-thwarting badass might need to make it out the other end of the night. They maaaay have asked me to do this in time for Halloween, but I didn't notice their email until this week; I'm kind of shitty like that.

Now obviously this is a publicity thing for them, but it's all in good fun and I assure you that you're getting the same old me without any external influence/editing; I'm just handing out a free name-drop seeing as they asked nicely and gave me an idea for a post. So with that little disclaimer out of the way, let's fill our crate.

"Doo-do-do-dooo-do-do-doo-do-do-dooo!" - Me when packing anything.

Hold on. Crates? Crowbars? Undiluted manliness? Where do I know of these things...?

Thaaaat's the ticket.

Many of the other blogs who have taken part in this challenge have noted that there are myriad horror movie scenarios that could play out, and have thus chosen one or a range of them to attempt to narrow down their means of survival. The only choice, however, is to make a crate that would help with getting through the invasion of Earth by an army of inter-dimensional hell-beings. It's what Gordon would want. So without further ado, here's what you'll need to survive Half-Life:

A Pickelhaube 

My lovely assistant Bismarck modelling the latest in
modern headcrab-proofing.

The main danger in a world ravaged by nightmarish aliens is, unsurprisingly, the nightmarish aliens, getting up in your grill and trying to slurp on your precious brain juice and stuff. As such, you'll need something to protect your squishy head bits from what happens when you mix a facehugger with Christmas dinner. 

Friends knew! They tried to warn us!

The Pickelhaube is not only dashingly fashionable in our polite modern society but also acts as an automatic headcrab skewer, making your epic quest across a warn-torn radioactive wasteland that little bit easier. If you've got a weird shaped head or are worried about losing your helmet when a Prussian antiques store isn't handy to get replacements, you could always opt for a more permanent solution: the Hellraiser puzzle box!

Light and easy to use, all you need to do is solve the box and ask the consent-friendly sadomasochistic demigods very nicely if they'll drive hundreds of nails through your skull. Voilà! Instant protection from any face hungry creatures that you might encounter. Plus, if you end up travelling through a wormhole to visit your alien invaders, you can finally answer the age-old question: what happens if you summon murderous inter-dimensional creatures while in the homeworld of other murderous inter-dimensional creatures?

"There is no way this could not be a good idea!"

Suitable Shoes

The world is big, real big, and you're going to need to traverse pretty much all of it via an unnecessarily convoluted route if you're to save the human race. As such, a sturdy pair of hiking boots will make the long, hard slog a little easier on your wee tootsies. However, big, heavy boots are a tad stompy and won't do for those moments when sneakiness is paramount. You don't want to be shuffling through a dark corridor and have your steel toecaps clanging off handrails or be trying to pick your way lightly across a beach only to have your flat-footedness attract swathes of giant, blind bug monsters from deep underground.

Antlions gave me nightmares.

For these occasions, might I suggest a pair of heavy duty water shoes? Not only are they lightweight and hug your feet to make for easier climbing, but they're also great for those times when you've got to get your wade one and want to keep those boots dry for later. Wet shoes equals blisters, remember. Oh, and on that note, spare socks too. They can even double as makeshift mittens if it gets cold or to store antlion grubs (they have surprisingly efficacious natural healing properties) for later use.

If you're feeling cheap, just get a pair of slippers and carpet-shuffle your way to victory.

A Garden Gnome

Take it everywhere you go and don't ask questions.

Water Sterilisation

It's common knowledge that any invasion of the Earth by alien life-forms will inevitably result in lots of unexplained leakage of radioactive material in places where radioactive material would otherwise not have any reason to be. This means huge amounts of our drinking water is likely to be contaminated by the effects of radiation and human/alien corpses; very soon that'll make safe, clean water a commodity of great value.

Bottle caps as currency is soooo 2277.

If you've got yourself a means of producing clean water, you've got a lot of leverage when it comes to trading. To do that, though, you're going to have to find a means of distillation, ion exchange, or reverse osmosis; all three of which are useful ways of removing bad stuff from water, although they have varying effectiveness depending on what the radioactive isotope is. You can get portable distillers and reverse osmosis systems that are a reasonable size whereas ion exchange is somewhat chunkier, so the former is a better shout. Once you get you system working with a plentiful source of water nearby, you could curtail your world-saving activities in lieu of a career selling water to the masses for a sickeningly high price. Hey, gotta make the most of it, right?

Three cheers for creating a capitalist dystopia!

Books

Mankind is in ruins, society completely broken down. All anyone can spare the time to think about is how to stay alive for another day. Once worldly possessions have become fuel, a means for survival; and as a result, much of our history is lost. That doesn't sound great... How about helping keep humanity's rich heritage alive (and maybe preventing past mistakes being repeated) by bringing along a few good books. Some classic literature, engineering manuals, philosophy; anything you like that might be useful or entertaining. A war-torn future can be a depressing and occasionally boring place to be, particularly when you've got your feet up and pickelhaube/slippers on manning your water shop all day, so crack out some good reads to make the time fly by while you wait for events to hurry up and conclude themselves already!

They're also great for stacking on stuff to solve annoyingly obtuse physics puzzles.

That's my crate all filled up! Please let me know in the comments what you might add to your own survival crate and be sure to have a look at these other blogs who joined me in taking up the survival crate challenge.