Location Location Location

So why did we chose the Chase Mill?

Besides the obvious financial reasons, it and the surrounding mills have a unique and storied history, which we felt was something we wanted to be immersed in while creating the modern medium of Video games.

The Chase mill, also known as the Colchester Mill, was constructed in 1880 by the Burlington Mill Co as a cotton production plant. This photograph was taken by the esteemed Louise Hine of the mill sometime between 1908 and 1912 and was part of his series dedicated to exposing the dangerous working conditions of children during his era.

The Mill was partially destroyed in the Floor of ’27 when nearly eight inches of rain fell for 45 hours straight, right after a considerable storm that had already oversaturated the soil. Nearly all of that water was pushed into the riverway and both the Chase Mill and the Champlain Mill, across the way, were flooded.

While the mills were rebuilt and reopened for work, they only stayed in production until 1956. History seems to get a little hazy after that, but the mill was later repurposed into office spaces for small local business.

Bibliography:

1. "Frametemplate." The Winooski Mills. St. Michael's College. Web. 31 May 2012. <http://academics.smcvt.edu/winooskimills/millshistory/homeframe.htm>.


2. Wargo, William E. "HISTORICAL LOOK AT WINOOSKI." HISTORICAL LOOK AT WINOOSKI. The Historical Society of Winooski. Web. 31 May 2012. <http://onioncity.com/htm/historical_look.htm>.


3. "The History Place - Child Labor in America: Investigative Photos of Lewis Hine." The History Place - Child Labor in America: Investigative Photos of Lewis Hine. The History Place. Web. 31 May 2012. <http://www.historyplace.com/unitedstates/childlabor/>.

Introductions

So who are these people crazy enough to try to start their own company?

Well, my name is Zach Bohn, the thin on the right, and I am the lone Designer, QA Lead, and acting IT staff for our team. My job is to make systems which become the ground work for game mechanics, i.e. what the player is actually doing, but most importantly I try to ensure that what the player is doing, is fun.

Then we have Mike Hopke, who is standing next to me. Mike holds the title of programmer, audio guy, and most recently our guru on Iphone & Android development. He is ½ the reason that anything we build actually works.

Marguerite Dibble is our original founder and the one who had the guts to ask us all if we were interested in starting a company in the first place. She is our Artist, Business Woman, UI designer and Website Designer. The reason why everything we do has a clean and aesthetically pleasing feel to it is because of her work and influence.

Last, but certainly not least we have Matt Brand who is on the left side of this picture. Matt is the other ½ of the reason our stuff actually compiles, runs, and does not crash your system. He is a Programmer, UI guy, Server Admin, and the one who made our website actually function correctly.

So that’s us! A team of four recently graduated (YAY!) students from Champlain College and the staff at Birnam Wood Games.

The lights are on at Birnam Wood Games!

We have officially moved into our location at the Chace Mill in Burlington VT (YAY)! We will be starting our first work day the following week on Tuesday, but never the less it’s exciting! We got the keys at around 11 and spent a good portion of the afternoon setting up our desks and equipment.

We went out scavenging for furniture and Mike, Matt and I all purchased our desks from Recycle, while Marguerite brought hers from home.



 

 

 

 

 

 

The view from our doorway! Mike and I can see our house from here!



 

 

 

 

 

 

So here is where we actually be working. Its an old half brick room that has these awesome barrel ceilings. We have a good sized space for the four of us.



 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Equipment everywhere as we move in and Matt is just sitting there watching us do all the hard work.

Group Picture Time!