Month: September 2025

October is starting to rise over the year’s horizon, bringing with it – inevitably – thoughts of Halloween, pumpkins and all the associated shenanigans associated with this time of year. I think I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a particular fan of the modern hullabaloo around Halloween, but within Second Life it can sometimes be rewarding exploring suitably themed region designs that opt to offer offer something a little different from the usual fare.

One such place is Critterflop Hallowpop, the latest iteration of Alpha Auer’s Alphatribe Island.

Following somewhat is the tradition of Quirklewick Hollow (see my piece here for more) and Gingerbread and the Woodies (again, see my piece here for more), Critterflop takes a jump into a critter-led celebration of all things seen as Halloween related – broomsticks, pointy hats, pies, and more – coupled with a further engaging science fiction-ish twist.

As with the two designs mentioned above, Critterflop Hallowpop focuses on a village setting, one which seems to meander across a misty landscape and between autumnal trees gathered into groves close enough to one another to form a loose woodland. But as this is Alpha, the homes and houses in this village are far from ordinary: their styles are an engaging combination of ideas and looks.

Black roofs rise to points or curves, their looks distinctly hat-like over and around white walls withing which the placement of windows and doors can suggest the idea of a face here and there. In addition, the shapes of some houses are almost organic and / or suggestive of familiar objects – a sailing boat here, a coffee pot lacking its spout there (or perhaps a lighthouse tower with a hat replacing its lantern room), a pumpkin with its oversized stalk draped by a large hat, and so on. One even sits on four sturdy legs with a beak and eyes at one end and a tail at the other, looking like a living creature, the living space with familiar door and windows forming the creature’s body.

On, in, and around these are the village’s inhabitants – cats, crows, bats, rag dolls, a sorcerer, and raccoons. They all share the space with more curious characters. Some of these appear to be little aliens coming for a visit, others – the bird-like cats, for example – suggest some of the locals either have ingenious Halloween costumes or have been tinkering with magic.

Not that any actual dark mischief is going on here; the locals are having too much fun for that. The raccoons, for example, appear to particularly enjoy baking pies. Wander through the woodlands and you’ll find a group of them showing off their baking skills whilst sitting on giant pies. Elsewhere, in a clearing, more raccoons are demonstrating their broomstick riding skills as they circle a bonfire, watched by an appreciative audience of other racoons together with rag dolls.

All of the critters to be found within the village are available for sale and come as huggies. A market stall featuring all of them, together with framed paintings, can be found to the north-east of the setting. Just across from it is a further store area, again offer the current critters together with those from previous builds, together with her superb sculptures and unique flora.

As ever with Alpha’s designs, Critterflop Hallowpop is charming in its engagement, and photogenic in its uniqueness and detail. On arrival, I strongly recommend locating the information giver close by the Landing Point. This will deliver a folder of information and bits – notably an introduction to the setting with ideas for enhancing your visit, and some notes on best viewing.

In short with the latter, please using the local Shared Environment for lighting; if you can, enable shadows and local lighting and push your draw distance as high as s comfortable for your system’s performance). Also included in the folder is a rezzable pack of complimentary poseballs for people to use it they wish (rezzing is open within the region, with a 120-minute return time – but do please pick up anything you might rez out).

But above all, do visit Critterflop Hallowpop and have fun

SLurl Details

• Critterflop Hallowpop (Alphatribe Island, rated Moderate)

In July 2024, I visited Ai-mura, a Japanese-themed sky platform designed by ラパ (Rapa Tone), and occupying roughly a quarter of a Full region in area. At the time, I found the setting engaging and photogenic (see Ai-Mura – a Love Project in Second Life), although it has since closed.

More recently, towards the end of August 2025, I received an invitation from Grayson Ducrot to visit Oyasumi, Rapa’s latest design which, like Ai-mura, is operated under Rapa’s melodic.one Group. Now, to be honest, I had planned to visit Oyasumi a lot sooner after receiving Grayson’s invitation than this; but things being what they’ve been, it took a little longer to get to it than I’d hoped – so my apologies to Grayson and to Rapa for this.

As with Ai-mura, Oyasumi occupies a Full region using the Land Capacity bonus for such regions. However, unlike Ai Mura, Oyasumi occupies the entire ground level area of the region on which it sits. This has allowed Rapa to expand on the design I first witnessed at Ai-mura, folding into it  a couple of small islands to the east of the region, one of which had restricted access and so I treated as off-limits to exploration.

The second of these islands didn’t have an obvious statement of privacy as restricted access, but did appear to be intentionally separated from the rest of the region’s primary land mass by a rocky curtain with no obvious means of navigation to it. As such, rather than risk trespassing on a private area, I kept clear of it.

It is also on the east side of main landmass that the setting’s Landing Point resides, right alongside a little tramway and its terminus platform. This gives the setting a feeling that one has just arrived on one of the trams, which is itself the first of several carry-overs from Ai-mura I found added a further level of attractiveness to Oyasumi.

Another such carry-over lay further south, but still on the eastern side of the region, where coastal decks and a pontoon of buildings and boat moorings, is home to a community of Maru Kado cats by u10 nitta (shiro0822), some of whom had also featured at Ai-mura within their own little village.

The presence of the trams and track, together with the cats and the general ruggedness within Oyasumi mark it clearly as Ai-mura’s spiritual descendant – but this is not to say it is merely an expanded copy; this is a place with a character all its own and its own beauty waiting to be discovered.

An example of this can be found towards the middle of the west side of the main landmass. Here, fed by a broad waterfall, is a pool of water forming an oval open-air osen.

This is actually one of the setting’s two music venues – Rapa herself being a Second Life DJ. It’s a genuinely delightful setting, the DJ stand sitting below the waterfalls, cushions set out atop the basalt columns scattered around the water’s edge for people listening to the music (or watch the local capybara!). A viewing platform on the far side of the water  offers a little hideaway, whilst the bridge passing over the water offers further sitting suspended (or floating!) below it.

The bridge is part of a footpath leading around the land from the Landing point. Illuminated by chochin lanterns, this offers the best way to discover all of the setting’s secrets and points of interests as it winds its way past little shops, and a café, climbing and descending stone steps to pass around the setting’s other live event space in a wide meadow, and from there on down to the broad wooden bridge.

Across the bridge, the path continues on past a little bath-house and shrine before offering steps up to another, larger shrine and passage across a small field to the little neko setting mentioned above.

All of this is set within a lush landscape of trees, water features, places to sit, and lots of little touches which collectively add depth to the setting throughout. Some of the latter – like the small-town supermarket – might be a little unexpected in such a largely rural setting, but it doesn’t look in any way out-of-place.

In all, a rich and photogenic location, a place music lovers and explorers alike cannot help but appreciate; my thanks to Grayson for the suggestion to visit.

SLurl Details

• Oyasumi (rated Moderate)

In the year 2097 an unmanned deep space probe sends startling new photos back to NASA. In them a giant inscribed monolith amidst an asteroid cluster is recorded. Years later a base is established to study this discovery. And learn what it means.

– The Grauland Cluster About Land description

For anyone with a love of good science fiction, the above description is likely going to spark thoughts of Stanley Kubrick’s “perennial good science fiction movie”, 2001: A Space Odyssey, simply because of the reference to a mysterious monolith found in space. Certainly, it was enough to pique my interest on arriving to see JimGarand’s latest Grauland build, The Grauland Cluster.

A further 2001 bell might be rung when looking outside the Landing Point: the setting is that of a large crater, one which might bring to mind thoughts of the Moon’s Tycho crater and Dr. Heywood Floyd’s visit. However, this crater appears to be on an asteroid, and the monolith in question is anything but black and featureless (or buried on the Moon / in orbit around Jupiter (or Saturn, if you prefer Arthur C. Clarke’s equally excellent novel of the story)).

Nor should anyone consider from the above that Jim’s latest build is purely a riff on Kubrick’s film (or Clarke’s novel) – it’s not. What we do have is an engaging future setting into which much has been woven, with a focus on a massive facility within the asteroid base – as per the description above.

Reached via the teleport disk within the crater facility, this asteroid station is impressive. Built using elements from the excellent sci-fi range of kits and build elements by Beth Delaunay (Isilmeriel) – and which are doubtless familiar to many with an interest in science fiction in SL – together with elements from ‘frit (Ifrit Skytower) and scratch-built / kitbashed sections.

Attached to a number of small asteroids (which themselves have been hollowed out, making them interesting points for exploration), the base is extensive with multiple docking facilities, including one for large freighters.

The base is obviously intended for long-term occupancy by a potentially large crew (at least going on the cafeteria / canteen / mess hall), with a large gym and multiple recreation facilities available. The layout suggests that it incorporates artificial gravity and is equipped for self-defence – although from what is up to the imagination.

The monolith is free-floating outside of the station, a roadway / walkway running out to it from two of the station’s airlocks. Glowing symbols and geometric forms hover just above its hewn surface, although what they mean is again up to the imagination. Again, as a totally random thought, I looked at it as perhaps some form of Voyager-style interstellar message – or perhaps a Rosetta Stone in waiting, if you will.

Other little touches I liked within the setting include the current time frame NASA-esque EVA and the novel (given the distance between the Sun and the asteroid belt) use of solar panels. Both of these give the setting a little bit of an anachronistic twist when compared to things like the futuristic space vehicles, the apparent presence of artificial gravity of some form and the advanced hydroponics facilities.

These juxtapositions cleverly avoid pinning the setting down to any particular time frame outside of the About Land description, but the presence of current technology (including in the gym and recreation areas) helps cement the station in the imagination as a human construct. I particularly liked the images being cycled on the large screens of the command centre, one of which appears to be a take on a vessel using the (in)famous Alcubierre drive. I don’t know if this was intentionally selected – but for me, it added another little cause to smile.

Because so much is left open within the setting, it naturally lends itself to casual RP for those so-minded; perhaps even something on the sinister side, given the aforementioned external gun mounts and the “big Brother” array of screens within the command centre which appears to be keeping an eye on everything within the station…

But even without any notions of RP, The Grauland Cluster is – as with all of Jim’s builds – visually impressive and very photogenic. In all a delightfully crafted and presented build.

SLurl Details

• The Grauland Cluster (Liberia Isle, rated Adult)