Category: Linden Lab

Patterns: updated Genesis release now being sold directly through the Lab’s Patterns website

Posted on by Inara Pey

LL logoUpdate, October 9th, 2014: Linden Lab announced that development work on Patterns has been discontinued.

On Friday December 21st, Linden Lab announced it is now selling Patterns directly through its own website at BuildPatterns.com. Until now, the first of Linden Lab’s new products to be released had only been available via Steam, requiring those wishing to purchase it to set-up an account with Steam prior to being able to download Patterns.

Patterns: development isn't a case of "either/or" with Second Life (image courtesy of Linden Research Inc.)
Patterns: now available directly from Linden Lab at BuildPatterns.com (image courtesy of Linden Research Inc.)

In a press release announcing the move, Linden Labs state:

Today, the updated Patterns ‘genesis release’ is available at BuildPatterns.com at a 50% discount for adventurous early adopters. Since the genesis release of Patterns was first launched in October, updates have expanded the game with new substances you can destroy, build with, bounce, and slide on; new formations you can create to blow things up or cover surfaces with ice; new planets to explore; and more … Buyers of the Patterns genesis release will receive all updates up to and including version 1.0 at no additional cost.

Initial take-up of the product appears to have been strong, with many non-SL users already signed-up to Steam downloading and engaging with the game, leading to a fairly lively Patterns community on the BuildPatterns.com website. Many have also produced their own videos of the game in use and have put forward suggestions and ideas for the development of the game. Feedback has been such that Linden Lab has routinely issues updates and improvements to Patterns, many of which incorporate ideas and feedback obtained about the game and its user interface.

Commenting on the reception and take-up of the game in the press release, Rod Humble says: “Patterns is still in its infancy, but it’s been great to see the early positive reviews and the fantastic things that our founding players have already created … There are lots of exciting developments on the roadmap for Patterns in 2013 as we progress towards version 1.0, and we’re happy to be able to give interested early adopters more ways to get into the game at this early stage.”

The new release of Patterns marks the sixth update to the game and includes:

  • Contact Bomb explodes on contact.
  • Time Bomb goes off after a short while
  • Trigger Bomb and Plunger allows you to set it off remotely
  • Ice Bomb spreads ice all over the blast radius
  • Proxy Bomb build it and it will go off
  • Kiln and Forge that enables you to take a substance and turn it into another substance. Turn clay to brick for example
  • Visual updates to the sky
  • New day night cycle measured by sun and moon
  • An assortment of visual effects for physical substances
  • New character animations.

A video has been produced to provide an overview of the new features.

The video also provides an overview of some of the forthcoming features in 2013. Chief among these will be the ability to share creations and builds with other users of Patterns, and to download and modify builds by others. Whether or not this will see a means for people to monetize their creations in the future remains to be seen; certainly, this has been mentioned in the past where the new products are concerned, and particularly with reference to Creatorverse, so it is not unreasonably to assume Patterns may well also be moving in this direction.

Also coming in 2013 – and which most definitely has been repeatedly requested by Patterns users is multiplayer support.

The caption says it all (courtesy Linden Lab)
The caption says it all (courtesy Linden Lab)

There are no time frames for the delivery of either the capability to share builds or multiplayer support – which is entirely in keeping in the Lab’s philosophy of not assigning dates to feature deliveries. However, that both are going to appear in 2013 is liable to make those already actively engaged with Patterns very happy.

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“Creatorverse Lite” now on Android

Posted on by Inara Pey

LL logoOn Monday 17th December, Linden Lab launched “Creatorverse Lite” for iOS. I commented at the time that we’d likely see the same occur with the Android and Kindle flavours – not that it took any particular insight to work that one out. Really it was a case of “when” rather than “if”.

Well, apparently, it was December 19th, although I swear it must’ve been late-on in the day when the announcement came, as I checked the Lab’s PR page, late yesterday afternoon (UK time) and there was bugger all about it then. Ho hum.

Anyway, “Creatorverse Lite” is indeed now available as a free download on Google Play, As with the “lite” version for iOS:

This free version of Linden Lab’s shared creativity app allows users to explore and play with the entire Creatorverse galaxy – every creation made and shared by users of the full Creatorverse app on any platform. To remix others’ creations or create and share their own, users will continue to need the full, paid version of Creatorverse.

Creatorverse Lite - includes a button to upgrade to the "full" version as the usual price
Creatorverse Lite – includes a button to upgrade to the “full” version as the usual price

Both the iOS and Android versions of the “Lite” product include an on-screen button enabling people to download the “full” version on payment (currently $4.99 / £3.14 / 3.86 Euros).

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Linden Lab release “Creatorverse Lite” on the iOS Platform

Posted on by Inara Pey

LL logoOn Monday 17th December, Linden Lab announced the release of “Creatorverse Lite” on the iOS platform.

The new product is available for through the App Store for the iPad, iPod Touch and the iPhone. The press release announcing the release states:

This free version of Linden Lab’s shared creativity app allows users to explore and play with the entire Creatorverse galaxy – every creation made and shared by users of the full Creatorverse app on any platform. To remix others’ creations or create and share their own, users will continue to need the full, paid version of Creatorverse.

Creatorverse - now available in a free "Lite" for the iPhone and iPod Touch
Creatorverse – now available in a free “Lite” for the iPhone and iPod Touch

The press release doesn’t make mention of the “Lite” version being available for the Android / Kindle platforms, but it would seem likely that whither the iOS version goes, the Android / Kindle offerings will follow. We’ll doubtless find out in the new year.

In the meantime, the full version for both the Android and Kindle platforms has been updated to version 1.1.1 as of the 15th December, placing it once again on a par with the iOS version, with object shadows, etc.

GP-statsWhat is to be made of this move? Clever marketing ploy to encourage more take-up of the application, or indicative that while early interest was strong, things may have waned somewhat in terms of interest / purchases? Figures for sales / downloads aren’t available on either the Apple App Store or Amazon, so the take-up on those platforms is hard to judge. Google Play does provide a graphical indication of downloads; while this is very generic, it does show that after an initial strong interest in the product, installs do appear to have plummeted. However, this may be indicative of nothing more than the fact the application is somewhat less popular on Android devices, the majority of which tend to be mobile phones with small screens rather than tablet-sized devices, and Creatorverse is not so ideally suited to these (although the flip side to that, of course, is the same can be said of the IPhone and iPod Touch).

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Creatorverse reaches the iPhone and iPod Touch

Posted on by Inara Pey

On the 27th November, and again with little fanfare, Linden Lab launched a version of Creatorverse for the iPhone and iPod Touch.

The app is offered through the Apple App Store, with the same version (1.1.1+) running on all three devices.

This rounds-out availability of Creatorverse on iOS mobile / portable devices, and means that with the recent introduction of Creatorverse on Android, together with a version for the Kindle Fire and Kindle Fire HD, the app is now available across the majority of mobile / portable devices with the exception of those running Windows – although versions for both the PC and the Mac were hinted at in an article by Giant Bomb back in October. Whether these are in fact in the works, remains to be seen, but if they are still to come, it’s possible a version for Windows-powered mobile devices may be in the offing.

Creatorverse – now available for the iPhone and iPod Touch

Reception Still Positive

Overall, Creatorverse is receiving a positive reaction both from reviewers and users. On November 23rd, Creatorverse topped-out a list of the 20 Most Popular (New) Android Apps for the week. The iOS version failed to make the Guardian’s list of November 29th, but that could be because the launch was so very low-key (and only two days before), couple with the fact that the iPad version has now been available for around a month.

I’m still fiddling with my copy of Creatorverse on my Galaxy S2 – at times “struggling” might be a better term. I like the application, but find the direct port of the UI to the much smaller screen still to be problematic (and I’ve not used it enough to actually memorise which buttons do what, which obviously doesn’t help). Obviously, there’s little LL can do about this  – they are as constrained in revising the UI as much as I am in using it simply because the screen is so small. It is oddly addictive, in an entirely different way to Patterns (which I’ve almost ceased fiddling with of late, simply because I am mucking around with Creatorverse as and when I can), and I can well understand why running the application on a tablet and sharing the process of creation with a companion (adult or child) can be so appealing.

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Webspace with avatars and inventory – Humble talks dio and Versu

Posted on by Inara Pey

Update, February 19th, 2014: Creatorvers and dio were discontinued by Linden Lab on February 19th, 2014. Links to their websites, etc.,  have therefore been removed from this article.

Details of a kind are starting to slip out about LL’s new product stream. We’re now already very familiar with Patterns and Creatorverse, the latter of which reached the Android platform at the start of the week, coming to it via the Kindle range of tablets.

Creatorverse: iPad, Kindle and Android so far

An article in Techcrunch provides some more insight into the remaining two products of which we’re already aware, Dio and Versu.

The article starts off with a positive comment on Second Life itself:

Linden Lab, the company that created Second Life and grew that online community into one of the most colorful, varied online social networks in the world, is doing some very different things for the first time in many, many years.

Admittedly, this quickly slides into the murkier waters regarding declining user numbers, observing rather interestingly that “passive viewing becoming the dominant interaction method”, before bringing up that beloved subject of many a journo reporting on SL, that of its “sordid past”.

I’m not entirely sure what is meant by “passive viewing”, but I suspect that relates to many of the more populous venues in SL being clubs (of every sort) whereby avatars are dancing but most of the conversation is going on in IM, giving the illusion that everyone is sitting in silence watching avatars gyrate twist and turn individually or in groups, or twirl gracefully around the dance floor like pairs of professional ballroom dancers. While the image is true, I’m not entirely sure how representative of SL it is as a whole.

But I digress.

In the article, Rod Humble confirms the upcoming order of the remaining two initial product releases from the Lab, with Dio coming up next, followed by Versu.

“The next project is a web experience called Dio that’s really hard to explain, which I like. It’s sort of like Second Life without the graphics, or Facebook but trying to be more of a creative space,” Humble is quoted as saying in the Techcrunch article. He goes on, “So it’s a web experience and you create your space, but within the spaces, everyone has their own avatar and avatars carry inventory. The way you navigate from space to space is via doors, and you can make things like a MUSH [multi-user shared hack] or hobby space very easily.”

Dio: “webspace with avatars” (image from an early version of the Dio website, and not necessarily representative of how the finished product will appear)

Continue reading “Webspace with avatars and inventory – Humble talks dio and Versu” →

Creatorverse: Android arrival and playing on my S2

Posted on by Inara Pey

As Daniel Voyager reports, Creatorverse today makes its debut on Android, and is available via Google Play at a (UK) cost of  £3.14 (US: $4.99, approx), and requires Android 2.3.3+. There is yet more to come, with Creatorverse due to debut on the iPhone shortly, and possibly go elsewhere as well.

Creatorverse on my Galaxy S2

Given I have a Samsung Galaxy S2 and time on my hands today, I opted to download Creatorverse and have an initial look. Doubtless there are some out there who would like the short form of my thoughts on the app, so here they are:

Creatorverse is baffling, frustrating, teeth-grinding, innovative, engrossing, and potentially highly addictive.

To be fair, the first three of these issues are as much down to trying to use Creatorverse on the S2’s relative small screen as much as anything else. Simply put, the UI is so small, it’s hard to see the various button icons easily. Well, at least for me; I freely admit, I’m getting older and my eyes aren’t what they used to be (and as I write that, Spike Milligan’s immortal addition to the comment echoes through my head: “they used to be my ears!”). Even so, and despite the relative intuitiveness of the drag-and-drop shape creation options, it is as well that Linden Lab have produced a range of tutorial videos to help people get more to grips with Creatorverse; in today’s “satisfaction in 5 minutes or forget it” society, there is a risk that some might otherwise chuck Creatorverse over their shoulders all to easily. This is a Settings option (device MENU button > Settings) for “Restart Tutorials”, but I’ve yet to find out what this actually does…

Which would actually be a shame – because, as with the latter part of my summary above, Creatorverse is engrossing – and potentially addictive. The basic screen display is easy enough to grasp, comprising a white grid workspace area when shapes can be dragged and dropped, and can be drawn freehand. Anchor points are present in both objects and lines, which can be use to drag / stretch corners, sections of a line or shape, and so on.

The Creatorverse basic workspace

The workspace is also somewhat context-sensitive. Add an object to it, for example, and additional buttons will appear to the left of the screen, such as the PLAY button, which allows you to switch to another screen, wherein anything you’ve created, together with any forces applied to it, will play and allow you to interact with it. Touch an object in the workspace, and a further series of buttons appear along the bottom of the screen, allowing you to do various things with objects your created.

Here’s where the first grumble arises: the buttons all use icons, some of which aren’t terribly clear, such as a sphere with a line either above or below it. Tapping a button does bring up a prompt as to what the button will do, but I’d tend to suggest the prompts themselves aren’t overly intuitive. Or maybe that is just me; I was certainly struggling to make sense between what I was seeing on the screen and what the prompts were attempting to explain….

Say whut? On-screen prompts aren’t always clear to the uninitiated

Continue reading “Creatorverse: Android arrival and playing on my S2” →