As I work to catch up on a backlog of invitations, I pulled up one from Myrdin Sommer, inviting me to visit his Full region build of Planet M – Tula.
The invite actually came in mid-February with a note that it would likely only be around “for a few more weeks”. This being the case, my apologies to Myrdin for not having been able to visit sooner, and my hopes that this article finds its way to readers with sufficient time for them to visit the build before it vanishes.
Planet M’s Tula is a surreal red-earth valley shaped by organic forms, roaming animals, and a ceramic studio at its heart. Tula invites visitors to wander, pause, and look — offering a calm, dreamlike environment with Room to Dream, and perhaps make a picture or two. Tula welcomes you with open arms.
– A description of Planet M – Tula
As might be gleaned from the description above, this is a strange, alien environment – albeit with many touches of Earthly familiarity. The undulating landscape is marked by strange tubular-like extrusions and rising tendrils of clay ground, some of which are bent and bulb-headed, almost as if they are organic in nature whilst others end in lightbulb forms that provide local illumination together with some of the horizonal tubulars extending outwards from hillsides. In addition, flat-topped, mushroom-like islands rise on stout stalks to provide raised platforms, and honeycombed humps provide another form of illumination for their surroundings.
Amidst all of this water flows and pools and animals from Earth graze and roam: horses, cows, elephants, cats, birds, goats – even a couple of sauropods. Some of these can be found on the ground, others keep themselves to the island-like tops of the “mushroom” islands.
Also waiting to be found are signs of human habitation. These are located in several of the caves found below the hills (and one of which sits behind a curtain, so to speak!). These are both primitive in form let cosy in nature, with human seating, furniture and so on. One of these is also the home to an artist’s studio.
The Landing Point sits towards the middle of the region, watched over by flamingos, a nearby signpost pointing the way to various attractions. These include the Octopit (find out for yourself!), and a memorial to director David Lynch. Note that the Landing Point is on a small island of its own, but the waters surrounding it are shallow enough to wade through.
Getting around the ground level is easy enough. However, exploring the “floating” islands without resorting to flying up to them is a matter of finding the rope ladder to the first and then using the interconnecting bridges and rope ladders to work your way around the rest. Exploration of these will also allow you a view of a group of dogs happily gathered on a white cloud complete with its own waterfall and a rope ladder to climb up to it.
With Earthly trees, grasses and lily pads making up the majority of the setting’s flora, Planet M – Tula is, as its description states, a surreal place, complete with a Moon floating just off the ground between two horns of rock, and a series of tiny floating “suns” to add to the illumination. It is also engaging in design and discovering all there is to see does cause you to travel its length and breadth, while the habitation spaces in the caves present places to rest awhile.
In all, an interesting visit with a fair amount to see and do. My apologies again to Myrdin for taking a while to make a visit.
SLurl Details
- Planet M – Tula (Planet M, rated Moderate)
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