Category: Exploring Second Life

I’m going to kick this off by saying up front that Grace McDunnough is someone I admire greatly for a number of reasons: I love her music in SL (although I don’t get to as many of her performances as I should), her writing is thought-provoking and has often been a leaping-off point for many of my own meandering pontificating on SL; and I’m flattered she considers me a friend through SL.

I mention all this because Grace has been one of the minds behind the focus of this review – The Garden. As such, some might feel I’m being overly effusive in this article simply because Grace and I are friends. Not so. The Garden is an incredibly immersive experience, both as a puzzle game and as a place to visit, and any enthusiasm this article exudes towards simply reflects that fact.

Essentially, the idea behind The Garden is that of a clue-based puzzle which incorporates a mixture of exploring, gathering and logic. The aim is to seek the seven Guardians and / or to find their artefacts and, by doing so, gather clues which enable the player to identify which sin each Guardian committed, and the penance they suffered as a result. Then, having correctly identified the sin committed and penance paid be each Guardian, the player can offer forgiveness to one of the Guardians.

The Garden, and the vision behind it, is the brainchild of Salome Strangelove. She developed the concept of the puzzle and also defined and landscaped the sim. In developing the concept, she has been joined by Trav Rexen, who has developed the scripts used throughout The Garden, and  Grace McDunnough, who has provided motivation and sponsorship, and who is working with Salome on other elements yet to be introduced into The Garden.

The Puzzle

Teleporting to The Garden delivers you to the arrival point. Here you can opt to participate in the puzzle or immerse yourself in other aspects of The Garden.

To take part in the puzzle, you will need to make use of the Patron’s HUD. This comes in two forms: a free version will be delivered to you on your arrival (use the redelivery terminal if it fails to reach your inventory, and a purchasable version. The free version of the HUD is feature-limited, but which allows a player to complete one round of the puzzle. The purchasable version of the HUD costs L$299, which allows an unlimited number of rounds of the puzzle. The purchase price of the HUD goes directly into the upkeep of the region.

The full version of the Patron’s HUD is a multi-faceted tool which allows a player to:

• Start a new game – either on their own or with one or more friends
• Mark their progress in solving the puzzle
• Save progress between game sessions – the HUD will retain progress made if removed or if the player leaves The Garden before solving all the clues
• Review their achievements
• See information on other players.

While exploring, the HUD can be reduced to a single button (labelled SHOW), providing players with an uninterrupted in-world view, and then expanded again when updating the puzzle grid with clues received.

Another nice touch with the HUD is that once purchased, a player need never return to the arrivals area when revisiting The Garden. Instead, they can attach the HUD wherever they are in-world, click the HOME button and be instantly teleported to a part of the game area called Forgiveness. This does not play a role in the puzzle-solving itself, but acts as a “home” location for players, allowing them to remain immersed in the game through successive visits to The Garden.

Once a player has attached their chosen HUD, they follow the cobble path to the threshold. This includes an outline of the game’s objectives and both pictures of the Guardians and copies of their artefacts, a handy overview for those who do not request a help card from their HUD. Crossing the shimmering blue threshold moves a player from the non-immersive arrivals area and into the immersive element of The Garden.

Continue reading “The Garden: an immersive, absorbing and creative puzzle to delight the eye and engage the brain” →

Captain’s personal log, voyage date: 061112.09. We set out on the first leg of exploring the Sea of Fables today. Captain Caliburn Susanto had passed on information about ancient ruins on the sea which he believed to be the lost Labyrinth of Daedalus. While we had far to sail, we decided that his findings had to be investigated, and so we held over in port and risked the tide in order to obtain additional air tanks and equipment we might meet on a dive….

As regular readers will know, I’m getting quite into sailing and have recently taken time out to explore places like Second Norway and parts of the Blake Sea. I also have an invitation from Indigo Mertel to visit the East River Community, which lies on the coast of the Sea of Fables. Both of these being the case, I decided it was high time to start my explorations around the region – spurred on by Caliburn’s post on the maze of Daedalus.

I’ve commented elsewhere in this blog that I enjoy mazes in SL, so the idea of exploring an underwater recreation of Daedalus’ maze – and the specter of finding a Minotaur – intrigued me. So off we set aboard the Exotix,on the first leg of a new adventure…

The maze itself covers the bottom of the entire watery region of Baltic, with the entrance on the north side of the region, just waiting to be found….

The maze itself is cunningly designed to prevent camera trickery; the roof forms the seabed for Baltic, and is thick enough to discourage attempt to cam up. It is also made of multiple prims (unsurprisingly, given it is a full region maze), so trying to position the camera in the ceiling and then camming around to check the lie of the corridors isn’t going to get you far.

There is a means to get some assistance, however. Near the maze entrance is a large ball of twine. Touch it, and you can purchase a twine HUD; when you reach certain intersections in the maze, you can touch the HUD and receive a novel form of assistance…

While the maze is underwater, the best way to get around it is actually on foot – not swimming, which can lead to camera issues as your avatar rises and your view becomes blocked by the ceiling sections. In fact – as Caliburn himself suggests – running (CTRL-R) might actually be preferable as some of the corridors are looonng…

Getting to the heart of the maze isn’t actually overly taxing. There are the occasional maps on the floor and there is also your viewer’s maps, which help determine your position in the region, as well as your X.Y,Z region coordinates. Given the chamber at the heart of the maze is actually at the centre of the region, working out where you are and where you need to go isn’t something that will drive you to despair. And when you do reach it, you might want to give Theseus’ sword a click or two..

There is a quick way out of the maze once you reach the Minotaur’s chamber – a hole in the roof. For those who simply want to get to the centre of things quickly, this also provide a quick and cheerful way to discover the Minotaur’s remains. But to echo Caliburn’s thoughts on doing it this way: where’s the fun if you do?

Related Links

• Labyrinth of Daedalus SLurl (Rated: General)
• SL Destinations in this blog

I’ve been a member of English Heritage for a very long time, and have used my membership to visit some fantastic historical sites around the country – particularly Yorkshire and Northumberland (wherein sit my favourite castles such as Norham, Warkworth, Ford, and (of course) Alnwick.

While it is not operated by English Heritage, I’ve also had many a visit to Warwick Castle in the Midlands, where my English Heritage membership has eased the pain of the entrance fee (which amounts to over £100 for a family of four) as well (although I tend to prefer its great rival, Kenilworth, just down the road, and which is an English Heritage site).

Anyway, I mention this because I recently paid a visit to Fourmile Castle in Second Life. The work of Ee Maculate (a name I just love, and which is now sitting as my second favourite SL avatar name after (the now departed) Slightly Offcourse), Fourmile Castle was apparently inspired by a visit to Warwick Castle by Dr. David Wood, the man behind Ee Maculate. Not that Fourmile is intended to be a direct representation of Warwick Castle (although there are some common points between the two). Rather, the visit to Warwick served to inspire Dr. Wood to start ian in-world project for 11-16 year-olds to show how castles tended to grow over time and become not only a strategic centre, but also a commercial one as well, sometimes growing to encompass an entire small town or large village within its walls.

In this, Ee Macluate has succeeded very well. Starting from a single Mainland region, Fourmile Castle now covers a goodly acreage of both the neighbouring Maceday and Cavenaugh regions, with the castle walls encompassing houses and places of business, with more – in keeping with how things often were – beyond the walls. With Cavenaugh bordering the Sea of Fables (itself a place I recently forayed into by boat), the castle even boasts its own modest harbour.

When you arrive at the castle, you do so at one of the main entranceways. Take heed of the signage when you do – there are no info notecards, but the signs provide a wealth of information – such as the castle being both open to the public and a residential area, with many of the houses in and around it available for private rent. The sign also advises you to be on the lookout for tiny Anywhere Doors, which can help teleport you more easily from one point of interest to another in the same location.

Where you go after arrival is up to you – there are footpaths to follow both inside the walls and outside, and there is much to see whether you keep to them or not. As with many a real castle, Fourmile appears to have grown organically over time, with new walls appearing, new walkways, houses, places of business….alleyways, stairs and so on being added over time to create quite a warren of places to tour on foot. Like Warwick, the castle boasts elements from a range of historical periods; the chapel features the tomb of a Cavalier alongside that of a Norman knight. Also like Warwick, Fourmile has its own watermill and sits on the bank of a river which forms a natural defensive point.

Most of the rental houses lie either just outside the castle grounds or within the outer curtain wall, but outside of the castle proper. Many are already rented, so visitors are asked to respect the privacy of those living in Fourmile. Unrented homes are signed as such, and the castle store includes information on rent. All homes are within their own parcels and parcel privacy can be enabled for tenants.

The castle itself is reached either over drawbridge or through double portcullis entranceways (which had me looking up for signs of murder holes as I passed through). Here you’ll find towers, a chapel, a throne room, dungeons, stables, stairs, secret rooms, tunnels – there really is a lot to discover. For the particularly hardy, there is a 3D maze (with the recommendation you tackle it in Mouselook), and there is also the castle store, as mentioned above.

All of the rental properties appear to offer reasonable space, with the houses outside the castle walls being models by Maxwell Graf, which give the castle surrounds a unique feel.

Also outside the walls are a couple of henges, complete with fires burning in their centres as well; whether for warmth or ritual is hard to tell! Whatever their purpose, they are not out-of-keeping with the castle as a whole, and add further points of interest to any visit.

If there is anything at all to be regretted about a visit to the castle, it is in the fact that it really does bring home one’s regret that Mainland regions don’t have the kind of covenants (or some form of estate control) to limit the placement of stonking great (and perennially ugly) skyboxes within spitting distance of the ground. It’s almost impossible to get a snapshot which encapsulates the size of the build without also ending up with someone else’s eyesore in the frame. Even a couple of the images here have been somewhat judiciously “edited” by means of tight control over draw distance…

This aside, the only minor problem I had during my visit was that some of the Anywhere Doors were non-responsive. Whether this was due to lag (a rolling restart was in operation across the grid at the time of my visit) or other reasons, I’ve no idea. Either way, it did little to spoil my enjoyment and appreciation for the castle and Ee’s work in bringing it together.

Fourmile is very much worth a visit and a wander – and can be reached by teleport, road, air or water (the latter thanks to the Fourmile harbour in Cavenaugh, and arrival by air made possible by a neighbouring airstrip!).

Related Links

• Fourmile Castle, Fourmile (Rated Moderate)
• Fourmile Castle on Dave Wood’s website
• SL Destinations in this blog

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(Click here to see slideshow full-screen)

Update: Rati dAlliez is now largely residential in nature.

Rati dAlliez is a Homestead region operated as a part of dAlliez Estates. It is home to Wizardhat Studios and the creation of Karencreek Melson and WizardHat Mornington. It is open to the public for visits, and offers plenty to see and do, from dancing with a partner, through admiring the work of the artists, to taking a trip out in a small sailboat.

It is a region which has both atmosphere and whimsy, mixing reality with a dose of fantasy. There is no windlight preset on the estate, but given the design, complete with a storm threatening, I felt that the Fine Day windlight preset helped give the region an additional depth, with deep blue skies which (to me) blended more smoothly with the offshore storm to the north than the default SL blue sky. Which is not to say other presets don’t also work.

Sweeping vistas of sky, land, and ocean together as one. Tranquility reigns over a land of dreams. Wander, dance, sooth the eye and soul, magic happens here. A living painting and a work of art where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

So states the Destination Guide write-up for the region, and truth be told, Rati dAlliez is a living painting, one which encourages your participation, whether it be wandering through the flowers, dancing across a meadow or in a floating tower, swinging under the boughs of a tree or sunning yourself with the polar bears enjoying the beach – themselves very much the mark of an artist’s touch of humour.

It’s a place I’ve been spending a bit of time at of late, sitting and pondering on matters such as the question of my premium membership, as well as on Second Life and my place within it as a whole.

When it comes to thoughts about Second Life, the island might be seen as something of a metaphor when it comes to the bleaker outlook some ascribe to SL’s future (and which I do sometimes feel myself). On the one hand, we have the wonderful build of the island itself, yet looming on the horizon are roiling storm cloud split by lightning, almost personifying the issues SL does face is terms of falling region numbers, high tier, retention issues, all of which present a potentially stormy future for the platform.

Yet walk just a short distance across the island, and it all does become much brighter and calmer, and a reminder that Second Life has weathered many a storm without the sky falling in completely; and while it cannot be denied that some things will have to change over time, all is not yet lost.

I love the eclectic mix of expression the region offers, from the storm-crowded horizon to the north through the mountains to the east and south-east to the little habour itself, nestled between the two tall towers. It is a place where thoughts do come easy, whether high in the mountains or lying on a hammock.

Of the two towers on the coast, one offers places for couples to enjoy a dance. The climb to the top might require a little patience as the ramp is a little tight, but the seat and the top offers coupled the opportunity to just sit and chat or enjoy the view. The second, slightly larger tower (castle?) forms a studio for Wizardhat Mornington’s artwork as well as also offering places to sit or to dance with a friend or loved one.

This is perhaps the beauty of Rati dAlliez; whether you want to enjoy a little romance, have a little fun exploring, share a swing with a friend or just sit and contemplate the world (or worlds), there is something here which is likely to appeal. If you visit, you may well bump into one of the Wizardhat Studios group members; if so, don’t forget to say hello; they may not all be as they seem, but messages do reach the right people!

And if you find me sitting atop a mountain and I don’t reply to your call; it’s not because I’m ignoring you, it’s probably because I’m wrapped in thoughts I can’t always articulate very well on these pages.

Related Links

• Rati dAlliez SLurl (Rated Moderate)
• Wizardhat Studios Facebook page
• SL Destinations in this blog