Occupying a Full private region leveraging the additional Land Capacity bonus, Kuroshima is a group-build led by Yuki Ayashi, and offering multiple areas to visit and / or explore. This includes a ground-level environment mixing public and private spaces, multiple sky locations – including two stores – and more. Set out with a strong Sino-Japanese look and feel in terms of presentation and architecture, the region also has some unexpected touches, such as the presence of African Elephants on one of the island.
The Landing Point, sitting towards the west side of the region, can be found in the lee of a Shogun-style pavilion repurposed as a restaurant. It is here within the arms of three Torii gates that some of the secrets of the region are revealed.
The first of these is a sign offering free housing for those wishing to be an active part of the Kuroshima estate. Touching the sign will furnish interested parties with folder with multi-language note cards which cover what is on offer, what is expected and how to apply for a unit. Participation in this case means things like blogging the estate, promoting it through social media / Flickr, offering DJ services, and more.
These homes are offered to you free of charge. They are privately parcelled. You can pay with your choice of donation or work. If we do well, we can expand. If we door poorly, well you still have a private place to rest your head.
We are looking for designers, creators, artists, bloggers, photographers, scripters, DJ’s and other awesome people with talent that have great potential, but lack opportunity … You must produce something or contribute in some way to the region and show proof of it. Your progress will be monitored bi-monthly or monthly as our time allows.
Let’s work together. Let’s be creative. Let’s have fun!
– Extracts from the Kuroshima rentals cards
Flanking this information board are two smaller Torii gates, each home to a teleport system. One of these provides a route up to the main teleport hub which connects to the locations in the sky. The second uses an Experience to (literally) cannonball visitors around the ground-level locations within the region. However, when it comes to exploring the ground level it is best to do so on foot in order to fully appreciate it.
A walk around or through the restaurant will bring visitors to a bridge spanning a cleft opened by waterfalls dropping from the rocks – although it has been converted into something of an open bath-house, the waters no doubt startlingly fresh and cold as that are caught from the falls, a (presumably) subterranean exit allowing the unused water to reach the surrounding bay.
On the far side of the bridge, a path winds through a garden before descending to reach a shale-like beach to provide access to the bath-house. As it does so, it runs between cliffs shadowed by trees and a small public house sitting just above the open waters on a low table of rock. From here, it is possible to start a partial circumnavigation of this island – one of a number making up the setting -, passing around the south to where a narrow channel can be waded across to reach a shingle sandbar of the next. This is home to a open-sided house sitting as a quite retreat and the beach stretches away from it as a tongue of land separated from two further islands by narrow channels.
From here it is possible to reach the large central island, home to an impressive Japanese house of traditional design, beautifully furnished and offering multiple places in which to pass the time. This in turn offers a further shallow wade to the north-east to where a beach reaches back to the uplands where the landing point and restaurant sits. It is from this beach that the rentals might be reached; or for those who prefer, the eastern end of the low-lying island presents a bridge spanning the water to its much taller neighbour and the last of the islands in the group.
Rising cone-like from the sands which almost completely around it, this island has two routes up its steep, hardened lava-like slopes. One of these passes up the southern slopes alongside a set of human-made and natural-looking pools fed by waterfalls sourced from springs at the top of island. However, this route does go all the way to the top. For that, climbers must travel to the northern end of the island, where winding stone stairs pass by way of giant banyan and a vertiginous drop to end at the bridge spanning the island’s waterfalls and access a hilltop lookout point / hideaway.
All of which sounds straightforward, but actually (and intentionally) skates over a lot. As noted, there are multiple points of interest to be found throughout the islands. While the major points of interest can be reached via the experience-led teleport, the keen-eyed should spot them whilst exploring on foot. For example, those descending from the landing point to pass along the beach to the bath-house mentioned earlier can hardly fail to miss the stone doors set within the cliffs under the shade of cliff-side trees. Touch these doors and they will part to reveal a hidden pool guarded by exotic plants and giant flame sconces held aloft by two mer statues.
It looks a simple, hidden space, a cosy cavern – if one devoid of places to sit, leading to the temptation to turn and walk out again. But the wiser traveller will wade into the pool and allow themselves to be swallowed by the waters. In doing so, they will enter one of the region’s hidden worlds; a place sitting beneath the waves, reach via a descending tunnel and chambers off-shots to reach a place of ruins and a drowned dome ideal for dancing (if perhaps lacking a a dance machine) and, beyond it, an garden perhaps inspired by a song.
Those taking the teleport arrow up to the sky hub will find yet more to explore – the region’s futuristic club venue, a room devoted to magic, Persian baths, a way back to the undersea world, a games world, the local stores and a suite of rooms which would not look out of place on the set of Blade Runner, and more. But rather than prattle on about all of these, I’ll instead just say each is worth a visit and / or offers more opportunities for photos – and this obviously, Kuroshima makes for a more than engaging visit.
My thanks to Morganacarter and Shawn Shakespeare for the pointers.
SLurl Details
- Kuroshima (rated Moderate)
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 