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HMX Desks: A Collection of Collections

Filed under: Behind the Scenes / 7 comments

Harmonix web team member Milo easily has the most interesting desk in Ye Olde Webtowne. The eclectic collection of Rubik's cubes, broken and sculpted Rock Band Bandmates, and crocheted characters instantly draws your attention (despite the fact that there's a three-foot-long stuffed tiger toy hanging from the ceiling). Milo is part of the Web QA Team, ensuring that the websites (RockBand.com, TheBeatlesRockBand.com, and HarmonixMusic.com) are bug-free and operating properly. You might have seen him solving problems in the forums as HMXMilo.

HMXMilo in Bandmate form

You might have also seen his work on Kotaku – in his spare time, Milo creates customized crocheted characters. His current specialty is Sackboy (from Little Big Planet) appearing as the zombies from Left 4 Dead. He has also made Sackboy characters of himself and other HMXers (check out our previous HMX Desks feature on Jyllian for her Sackgirl representation). You can see more of Milo's crochet skills at his personal website. Each crocheted creation takes between 8 and 10 hours to complete.

Milo's crocheted zombies, with Sack-Milo on the left

Crochet isn't Milo's only creative ability – he's also a magician with broken Rock Band Bandmates. When production on Rock Band 2 was wrapping up, we were receiving boxes upon boxes of prototype Bandmates to check for errors and problems before launch. As the prototypes made their way onto desks across the company, they inevitably suffered breakages. One would get knocked over and break at the ankles, while another would get hit by a stray Nerf dart and would lose a guitar head. Instead of sweeping these into the trash, HMXers learned that with some craft glue and a lot of patience, Milo was able to fix them up just like new. With the spare broken parts, Milo created a one-of-a-kind Bandmate sculpture (seen below).

Milo's Bandmate sculpture and Rubik's Cube collection

In addition to all his creative exploits, Milo's also an advanced Rubik's Cube solver. There's a collection of 14 on his desk at work – including one he designed himself, two he bought in Japan, the 20th anniversary Rubik's Cube (in grayscale), one with a map of New York City, and a mirrored cube with unevenly-sized squares. It's not unusual to witness timed Rubik's Cube-solving races in Webtowne, with several people each taking a cube and racing to solve it first. Milo and several web teamers are also working together on the Isis Puzzle Sphere – reportedly the hardest puzzle on Earth.

Yet another collection on Milo's desk – one that's actually work-related - is game consoles. Milo joined the Web Team from the Game QA Team, so he has 2 developer kits and 3 retail kits at his desk (yet only one TV screen to connect them to), which he now uses to test game features that interact with the website (account linking, merch booth functionality, and others). That's why Milo's the first to respond when character clothing updates are delayed – he's the one that can actually test it.