Binemist – click any image for full size
There are certain places in Second Life to which I always enjoy making a return. One of these is Binemist, Biné Rodenberger’s Homestead region, which changes as the mood or season takes her, and which has long been a particular favourite of mine. I was therefore surprised to realise that it is actually more than a years since I last blogged about it, and almost a year since I last dropped in.
Those familiar with the region (you can also read about it here, here and here if not) will know it has traditionally been a water region – one of the reasons it has always endeared itself to me. However, in its new iteration for the start of 2016, this is no longer the case: Binemist has become a desert landscape.
“I love the colours, and I love the early morning sun,” Biné say of the new design, and I have to admit it is dramatic: an iron flat expanse of sand bounded by mountains on two sides, and across which are scattered a series of scenes visitors are invited to explore as crab-like robots skitter across its sandy surface.
Two of these, located south of the landing point, are dwellings: a stone-built house with its own lush garden, complete with an attempt to cultivate a carpet of grass beyond its high walls, and a converted shipping container sitting among a collection of its peers (which also features a most unusual and adult take on a playground ride!). It is alongside these two homes that the otherwise flat expanse of the land is broken by a rocky upthrust of rock offering two plateaus linked by a stone span.
Northwards, across the sands from these, sits a little vignette visitors to Binemists Past will likely find familiar: the Buddha and floating eye, a gathering of pink flamingos, a grouping of mystic stones with an ethereal floating spire nearby and, standing at the very edge of the region while staring off to a distant horizon snuggled between the mountains, Bryn Oh’s White Balloon. Also, Just off sim to the east sits the familiar form of the wrecked Viking ship which has always been a motif got the region, while over in the north-west corner of the region sits Haveit Neox’s Ship of Fools.
In addition to the ground level layout, the landing point offers two teleport portals to skyborne locations. The first of these is the sky rock which used to be the landing point for the region, where sits a rural scene reached by a teleport hole set in the ground. The second is a skybox set out as the interior of a house, where Biné experiments with interior design, and which is reached via a teleport door.
The new Binemist is very different to past iterations, and even though I perhaps miss the water and what could be found beneath it, there is a wonderful, desolate beauty about the new design which is equally as attractive and photogenic. And for the adventurous, there’s also the opportunity to ride around the sand in a novel little “bubble car”!
SLurl Details
- Binemist (Rated: Adult)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 
This was one of the first sims I re-visited when I returned and I was both happy to have done so “in time” and shocked/saddened when I learned it was shutting down. So glad that all of the creativity that was going on hasn’t ended but merely switched directions. Look forward to visiting this one again soon.
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