Category: Exploring Second Life

Earlier in September 2021, I took a tour of Oxygen: The Rock, Justice Vought’s homage to the island of Alcatraz and its famous former federal prison (see: A trip to The Rock in Second Life). Whilst I didn’t come across Nicolas Cage and Sean Connery trying to stop Ed Harris in his evil plans, much less Clint Eastwood planning his escape or Burt Lancaster (slightly apocryphally in historic terms) keeping his birds – it was an engaging visit, and one I encourage those who haven’t done so to also partake.

At the time, I noted that the start of a tour of Justice’s Alcatraz starts on wharf abutting his main region (co-held and designed with Six Vought (SixDigital)) of Oxygen, and that it was high time I took another look around it to see how things are. particularly as it is now some two years since my first visit. And I’m delighted to say – albeit without any surprise, given Justice’s eye for region design and detail – it remains as engaging as ever, offering a setting that carries forward the design first seen during my October 2019 visit, but with a number of small changes and touches that make a re-visit worthwhile.

While it is not enforced, the landing point is given as the railway station that sits to the east of the region. and which contains one of those little anachronistic juxtapositions I like finding within region designs, this one in the form of a very British red telephone box facing off against a very US Postal Service mail box sitting across the narrow street that splits the station buildings.

From here, steps lead the way down a flat-topped ridge running along the region’s south side, the home to a little parade of shops fronted by a cobbled street marked by a fountain. A similar parade, complete with the Justice League Comics shop was present in the October 2019 version of Oxygen, but overall offered a slightly different mix of businesses.

Two further elements retained within this iteration of the setting are the harbour and The Mystic. Facing north, the harbour sits directly behind (and separate from the wharf that marks the start of a visit to The Rock. On the landward side of the harbour, the ground rises upwards to the plateau that is home to The Mystic, the regions hilltop lodge. Wooden stairs climb the rocky face of the hill from the Harbour Master’s building with its arched sign, to reach the lodge by way of passing pelican and seagulls at the steps rise upwards.

Offering a place to relax or enjoy music events at the outdoor deck stage, The Mystic still offers a commanding view over the west side of the region as it falls away to the beach, which appears to be perhaps a little narrower than I recall from 2019. Getting down to it remains a choice of zipline or wooden steps, the latter leading both down the lower slopes of the hill and also presenting a route to Six Vought’s photo gallery as it sits tucked into the region’s gorge.

The major shift in emphasis within the region’s design is that where it once included a number of rental properties, these have now been reduced to just a single property, tucked away into one corner of the region. This gives explorers more room for wandering along the lowland areas inland, and along the western beachfront.

The lack of additional rentals gives the impression the beach and its surrounds are a little more open than previously, although the drive in theatre remains. Similarly, the hills rising towards The Mystic seem a little more wooded and perhaps have some additional points of interest to find, such as the old bathtub watched over by a pair of peacocks or the sculptures sitting in the shade of trees.

With the subtle changes made to its design, Oxygen remains an engaging visit; the kind of place you can visit and catch your breath, take a few photos and enjoy the ambient sounds and just be.

SLurl Details

• :oxygen: (Oxygen O2 rated Moderate)

It’s only a month since I wrote about Hera’s Shadezar and Venesha (see: Sharing in Hera’s dreams and visions in Second Life), so returning to a build by Hera (Zee9) so soon after that might seem a little too eager, but both settings were recently closed for a time which gave rise to thoughts that as Hera had indicated they would both only be available for a limiter period, they may have permanently closed. However, nothing could be further from the truth; the period of closure was to allow Hera to take down the skyborne Venesha and replace it with a new build, Drune Gotham. This being the case I accepted an invitation Hera extended to I might hop over to have a look around and offer what is really a “part 2” for the article mentioned above.

Accessed via the Neverworld X (as Hera calls the world in which her creations reside) landing point, which has also undergone its own redesign, Drune Gotham – as is likely to have already been spotted by fans of Hera’s work – returns to her fabled and always engaging city of Drune to offer a further twist on that design, based upon a recent iteration of that city.  Back at the start of the year, Hera offered a design that – for me – stood as one of the first regions to attempt to delve into the world of dieselpunk and its sub-genre of decopunk; genres I outlined in Drune’s diesel-deco delight in Second Life:

For other unfamiliar with the genre, dieselpunk (and it’s sub-genre of decopunk) is based on the aesthetics popular in the interwar period of the 1920s/30s and extending through to the end of World War II, with some exponents also including the early 1950s.  It is broadly defined as the era in which the diesel engine replaced the steam engine as the focus of technology. Within it, decopunk centres the aesthetic of art deco and streamline moderne art styles particularly prevalent to design and architecture in the same overall period. 

Within that setting, Hera included a model of a Batmobile from the Michael Keaton era of Batman films. As she notes. it was added on a whim, but seemed to fit the overall aesthetic of that build – something Hera notes she found surprising. I’ll have to state that at the time, I was not: there has tended to be a strong decopunk aesthetic to be found within most of the Batman films such that a Batmobile should feel and look at home in a dieselpunk / decopunk setting.

Drune Diesel was, sadly, relatively short-lived; it also encompassed multiple influences – Blade Runner, hints of dieselpunk films such as Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, references to Karel Čapek’s 1921 film Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum’s Universal Robots) and even the Sirius Cybernetics Corporation from The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. With Drune Gotham, which Hera also notes was perhaps inevitable once she had set down the Batmobile within Drune Diesel, is more focused on the Gotham City / Dark Knight vibe, including touches from both the films and the Gotham TV series – although the regions should not be taken to be purely as reflective of the Batman / Dark Knight mythos as presented on screen.

One of the first things I noticed with this build is that it includes several elements from Drune Diesel: awaiting (re)discovery are both the Shanghai Dragon restaurant and the marvellously deco Black Pussy nightclub, both of which deserve a further breath of life given how brief a time Drune Diesel sadly had to breathe. There’s also a noticeable difference between this and earlier versions of Drune in that this does not have any “outer” / “coastal” elements, instead it  is enclosed, with a backdrop of densely packed tall buildings to give the impression of being in the heart of a massive metropolis like Gotham.

But it is in the Dark Knight references in which this setting really shines. From the elevated tracks along which trams, rather than speeding trains, clank bump, to the gates of Arkham Asylum, there are multiple motifs from the films and the TV series (and touches from the comics) awaiting discovery.  These trams rumble past the tall finger of the Wayne Enterprises HQ, for example, a place you can enter through the street-level lobby  and then ride the elevator to the CEO’s office, a place that has the sense of being the workspace of Wayne Senior rather than Bruce – although the scribblings on the desk tend to suggest the sometimes distracted mind of Michael Keaton’s Bruce Wayne. There is also a secret to be found within this office, of which more in a moment.

The aforementioned Black Pussy can be found across the street from Wayne Enterprises, as can the lobby of Drune Diesel’s Hotel, reached via the stairs that sit between the Wayne building and the diner next door (there’s an alternate route via a far escape that overlooks Gotham Park on the other side of the Wayne Enterprises building, but I’ll leave you to discover that). The hotel appears to have been expanded  since its Drune Diesel days, now offering a deco spa as well as rooms above its lobby.

Across another road from the hotel entrance and diner is the headquarters of the GCPD. On stepping through the front doors of this, it is hard not to expect Ben McKenzie’s Jim Gordon and Donal Logue’s Harvey Bullock from the Gotham TV series turn towards the doors in response to your arrival. Elsewhere in the city, the Arkham Asylum carries within it the Gothic menace that marked its appearance in the films, whilst the Apex Chemical Plant also awaits discovery. Whilst this appeared in the comics (the Case of the Chemical Syndicate), Apex was actually combined with Ace Chemicals (from Man Behind the Red Hood!) to form Axis Chemicals in the first Keaton Batman outing, the place where Jack Napier was transformed into The Joker.

In continuing a walk around Drune Gotham’s streets, visitors might also come across the Gotham City College (from the TV series), with interior spaces to explore, the Gotham City bank (complete with vault) and a new burlesque club (which I have no idea as to whether it is tied to the Batman mythos) and which again offers interior spaces. These, with the likes of the plant, Wayne Enterprises, the hotel, etc., serve to give Drune Gotham a greater depth than perhaps has been present in other Drune iterations. Also, as a Brit I couldn’t help but smile at the English lean towards things: adverts for Cadbury’s chocolate, Fry’s Chocolate Cream (which had me wanting to rush up to the local shop and buy a bar or two, it’s been so long wince I’ve enjoyed it!) and more, all of why give this Gotham an slightly anglophile feel to it which simply didn’t feel out-of-place.

Nor is this all: look hard enough and you’ll find Bane’s office and, perhaps more interestingly, the Batcave, that sits with the Batmobile parked at the ready on its turntable (despite also being parked outside the Wayne Enterprises offices!) and various consoles providing assorted information as well as the expected bats circling around it. However, the closet for the batsuit is empty, suggesting Bruce is out and about as his alter ego! While this can be found by camming, the “proper” way into it might be a little harder to discover; all I’ll say is that it is to be found back within the Wayne office, and that bookcases may not always simply be for books (or posing).

Offered under an environment setting which really should be used when visiting (as I have for the pictures here), and finished with a truly fitting sound scape, Drune Gotham really does make for a an engaging visit, one that carries within it a wonderful noir-esque feel that also carries over from Drune Diesel, and which is even more suited to the core theme of this build. In this respect, Hera additional offers a noir-style story in the setting’s introductory note card for those who grab it.

In closing, I would add that a major part of the magic of Hera’s builds  – along with her imagination – is that Hera creates many of the elements and textures found in her builds herself, rather than using available kits, etc., available through the Marketplace. This adds up to an incredible amount of work on her part, all for our benefit; so if you could offer the bat bears to be found within the setting some Linden Dollar love to further Hera’s efforts, they would very much be appreciated.

SLurl Details

• NeverworldX main landing point (The Attic) (Cloud Lake, rated Adult)
• Hera’s (Zee9) builds in this blog

It was back to Nelipot for me this week, after Shawn Shakespeare (SkinnyNilla) informed me he and Lien (Lien Lowe) had redressed their region for autumn.

This time forming a cluster of islands of varying sizes, the region continues to offer a delightfully rural setting, the islands linked by bridges to make moving between them easier.

Once again Lien and Shawn have created a uniquely attractive setting, offering much to see. However, it also contains elements that help link it to past iterations of Nelipot and builds Shawn has created, giving it that thread of continuity that I do like finding within regions as they develop and change.

In this case, Nelipot once again features a windmill, one that carried me back to 2016, and The Mill, the first setting by Shawn I ever visited, and which offered me an opportunity to test one of the 360° panoramic camera HUDs that have been available on the SL Marketplace. Also to be found is the little “home-made” racing car that has been a frequent touch for Shawn’s region settings; and while a tram now sits on the lengths of railways lines, it nevertheless presented echoes of a past iteration of Nelipot itself that had a train sitting on the rails.

The landing point sits to the west of the region, on one of the smaller of the islands, a place that is little more than a table of rock poking its head above waters laden with fallen leaves. A single bridge reaches the nearest neighbouring island to the south, starting an anti-clockwise route around the outer islands, and a way to reach the centre isle.

Along the way, this route around the outer islands will take visitors through a little farm-like setting with fenced meadow, cabin and a little thatched barn, then onwards to where the windmill.

The latter sits on a spur of land that forms part of the largest island, open water to one side and a fast-flowing stream that falls from the island’s hills to reach the open sea, the headland beyond the windmill offering a place for sheep to graze. A choice of routes for exploration open from the windmill and its little wine cellar like setting with its gazebo and outdoor café.

One of these paths leads up and over the hills, the second along a board walk raised on stilts reaching around the rocky foot of one of the hills to winds its way onwards to where it re-joins the landward path as it continues over the island. A high deck awaits those who follow the board walk, again built out over the water, a smaller deck for mooring boast below it, home to the terminus of a zipline that reaches across the channel of water diving the large island from the the central isle.

Forming a low hump, this middle island is home to a large forest cabin – well, a cabin that is large in comparison to the cabin and barn to the south. Cosily furnished, it straddles the brow of the hill to offer a welcoming retreat, the zipline sitting alongside it. To the west, the island is low-lying, a tongue of land that points to the smallest island in the group, and presents a rough bridge by which to reach it. This little isle, little more than circle of rock and grass that may have at one time been subject to flooding given the tumbledown hut that sits on its own rough wooden platform that has seen better days.

Throughout all of this is a wealth of detail awaiting discovery, from the wildlife to the the vehicles and passing by way of the campsite at the landing point (with its art-appreciating cat!), to the swings and decks and more. All of this – quite obviously – makes this latest iteration of Nelipot highly photogenic, as well as offering a quiet, gentle retreat for people to take a little rest within.

But rather than wibble on about this, I’ll leave you with images and encourage you to pay a visit for yourself.

SLurl Details

• Nelipot (Safe Haven, rated Moderate)

Update, January 3rd: Wo Qui Non Coin has a new home.

Shawn Shakespeare recently passed on a landmark to me for a Homestead region design by Maasya entitled Wo Qui Non Coin. Given my interest in the orient (and parts of Asia!), the region’s About Land description – simply “Japan” – had me intrigued enough to hop over and take a look to get a start to the week – although admittedly, I was already curious about the name given to the setting.

While I’m very far from an expert in should matters, I gather the name Wo Qui Non Coin belongs to song from Cowboy Bebop, an animated Japanese franchise covering television, movies and assorted media cantered on the adventures of a gang of bounty hunters in space. In particular, the song is sung by Radical Edward (aka Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivruski IV as she likes to call herself), originally from Earth and who hacked her way aboard the show’s titular spaceship, the Bebop.

Whether or not the setting is designed as a reflection of the song or Edward’s earthbound origins or because Maasya is a fan of the series or simply likes the term, I have no idea – but the name is certainly catches one’s attention!

Although it sits within its own Homestead region, the setting actually takes up perhaps half of the available landmass, forming a central island separated from a surrounding ring of off-region mountains by water. Caught under a default night-time sky, the island forms a long finger pointing west to east, with the landing point – although not enforced – sitting at the western end.

Two routes across the island extend outwards from the landing point. The first runs pretty much due east along a busy street lit by lamps and signs; the second arcs around the northern coast, a paved footpath that follows the line of the land under lights that float in the air like drifting pollen, its waterside edge marked by vertical light posts formed from hollow bamboo.

The latter ends in a small shrine – although reaching it to light incense might need a little care, as a small field of katana has been planets on the path and just to either side of it, and a couple of stone cats look like they might make an objection or two should you try to move the blades!

The path though the rows of shops and businesses, however, has no such obstacle blocking it as it proceeds eastward, lit by more of the bamboo posts as well as the lanterns strung overhead and the neon signs on walls and over doorways. Most of the buildings are simple façades, but they do carry a sense of place: seats stand or are folded outside of some, suggesting that when business is slack during the day, the owners might take to sitting outdoors. Others remain tightly shuttered or gated – which is not surprising, given the setting is caught under a night-time sky, suggesting business hours are over for the day.

Towards the eastern end of the street the path rises by way of steps to pass between two businesses one might reasonably expect to be open at night. The first of these is a small open-air bar which faces the, second, the local cinema. Going by the posters outside and the wording on the awning over the entrance, the latter is showing a series of films showcasing action movie stars, although the most notable film on offer (or at least featured on a poster) is 1983’s Blow the Night! (more fully: Blow the Night! Let’s Spend the Night Together), a docu-drama exploring the youth street gang culture of Japan in the late 1970s / early 1980s.

Beyond the bar and cinema, further steps lead up to a walled garden, the way barred by a gate (touch the left side to slide it open).  The garden is caught in the colours of autumn (colours that can be found beyond the garden walls as well), the ground carpeted in fallen leaves. A small, lightly-furnished house sits within this garden to offer a reasonably comfortable living space, although the cats in residence might have a say in where you sit and what you do when visiting :). Behind the house, the garden drops quickly to a small beach.

The island is a cosy, inviting setting that encourages exploration, and while it is by default sitting under a night sky, it does allow itself to be imaged under different environment settings – as I hope one of the images here shows. There is also a a local sound scape, but it is not the usual sounds of birds, waves and the like. Rather, it is a low hum mixed with a repeatedly whistling sound that fades in and out of hearing. It’s an unnatural sound that sits at odds with the rest of the setting. Whether it is intended to represent power humming along the overhead power lines or give a sense of alienness to the setting (or indeed has something to do with Cowboy Bebop, I’ve no idea; what I will say is that for me, it was the one distraction in a setting I enjoyed visiting – but one easily solved by turning off local sounds, and not something that should deter a visit.

SLurl Details

• Wo Qui Non Coin (Bohemian Rhapsody, rated: Moderate)

There are likely very few of us who have not heard of Alcatraz, the sitting within San Francisco Bay, just 2 km from the nearest shore. As well as being the home of the legendary prison of the same name that operated from 1934 through until early 1963, the island also served as the location of a lighthouse marking the island and the rocks around it and a military fort and barracks that also served as a military prison (notably holding Confederate prisoners of war during the US Civil War). It was in this latter capacity that the island received what is still perhaps its most famous landmark: the great prison block that straddles the island’s spine to this day, construction of which started in 1909.

From the start, the strong currents and cold waters of the Bay were seen as the most effective means of keeping those confined to the island on the island, thus leading in part, to the prison’s reputation when it became a federal prison. Intended to house the those prisoners who repeatedly caused problems in other federal prisons, it quickly gained a reputation for unforgiving firmness – the warders being trained purely in matter of security and control, but on in support and rehabilitation – that eventually lead to the expression that is one of the first things modern day visitors to the island – a US National Historic Landmark since 1986 – read on their arrival:

IF YOU BREAK THE RULES, YOU GO TO PRISON. IF YOU BREAK THE PRISON RULES, YOU GO TO ALCATRAZ

These are also the words Justice Vought uses as a tag for his latest region design, The Rock, which recently opened its gates to visitors in-world, and to which he invited me to pay a visit. And as with all things Justice does with his region designs, it offers mix of reality, art and mystery, whilst being highly photogenic as well as catching much of the spirit of the original.

Like the physical world’s Alcatraz, this La Isla de los Alcatraces (“Island of the gannets”, to use the original name coined by Juan Manuel de Ayala but which is oft given as “The Island of the Pelicans”), this one is reached via a ferry boat ride from the edge of the region as it abuts Justice’s main setting of :Oxygen: – just click on the red block over the water at the wharf landing point, then take a seat on the ferry when it appears.

Chugging away from the wharf, the ferry curves out and across the waters of the region to arrive at The Rock, coming alongside at Building 64, which originally served as a residential building for the military officers and their families living on the island, following its construction in 1905.

Recreating the entire 22 acres of the island  – or  just the 12-ish acres given over the prison – is not really feasible within a single region of 65,536 square metres total area, But what Justice has produced more than captures the core essence of the island: Building 64, the main prison block (sans mess / dining hall), the parade / exercise area, the lighthouse, the power generation building and its chimney and the water tower that forms one of the three major vertical structures on the island visible from the shore (alongside the aforementioned chimney and lighthouse).

Both Building 64 and the prison block have interior spaces, the former celebrating the legend of the prison and its cinematic history, the latter containing some of the tiny cells in which inmates were confined for the larger portion of their day, and the stark signage used to remind them that beyond food, clothing, shelter and access to medical attention, they had zero right to anything. The are cells made famous by latter-day day and night tours of the island, with visitors getting a brief opportunity to experience what it was like to be within the cells with the doors shut. Within the Rock, we can experience something of the same – and a little more.

Part of the fable of the prison is that, officially, no-one ever escaped alive – but up to three men may have actually done so (Frank Morris and brothers John and Clarence Anglin), although their actual fates remain a mystery. However, like them, Justice offers visitors the means to make their own escape; only in this case, the escape route appears to make use of historical remains only discovered in 2019 by means of ground-penetrating radar – a “bombproof” shelter, tunnels and ventilation shafts under the former parade ground / exercise yard. Find the way into these, and route to a boat on the shore (rather than a raft, as with Morris and the Anglins) might be found, giving a way for people to get back to the “mainland” of :Oxygen:. I’ll leave you to find the way into the escape route, however!

Finished with a sound scape reflective of the physical island, the cry of gulls, the crash of surf on rocks and the plaintive call of a foghorn and caught under a lowering sky, The Rock offers a nicely atmospheric visit, one very different in tone – but no less appreciable – to that of :Oxygen: itself as it sits within its latest iteration.

However, a tour of :Oxygen: is a treat for another day and another article. For now, my thanks to Justice for the invitation and the opportunity to make the visit.

SLurl Details

• The Rock (Element, rated Moderate)

Valarie (Zalindah) is a region designer whose work I have covered on multiple occasions in this blog; working on her own or with with Jayden Mercury, she has created a series of memorable region designs over the last few years, all of which I have enjoyed visiting So I was delighted to visit her most recent design for 2021, which opened in August within a Homestead region.

A solo design by Valerie, LANA presents a rich, and in places quirky, setting. The name she has chosen for the setting is rich in its potential meanings – loyalty, wool, an alternate form of the names Alana or Helen, the name of a village in the Tyrol region, and so on. Here, Valerie offers her own definition for the word for the name of her design:

To be ‘calm as still waters’ or ‘afloat’, holding on and inhaling what the world has to offer despite experiencing loss. Allowing nature to take over, seasons to tease you and animals to be our friends. 

– LANA, About Land description

It’s an interesting introduction to the region, suggesting as it does this is a place of recuperation from loss, together with the idea of renewal and recovery, of giving space. Almost all of this is present within the region, which offers itself for rest, exploration and enjoyment; but whether drawn to it out of a sense of loss or not is really down to personal circumstance, although there is  more than enough within the setting to allow memories free passage as we explore.

This is also place, as the description notes, that teases visitors with the four seasons, from a tropical summer in the south-east, through warmer summer greens around the middle of the setting that rise to a large northern hilltop rich in the sense of spring. These are balanced to the west by an autumnal setting that surrounds a small pair of roads and their buildings and, north of this, an avenue of trees that carry the darker green of later summer days as they skirt the base of the springtime hill to reach a small winter’s headland.

It is on the western side of the region, sitting in the bay between autumn and winter, that the landing point sits. This has the first quirk in the region, a short spur of rail line that extends into the water to end in a photo backdrop and on which a single railcar sits. The latter blocks the walk to shore and must be waded around, although this is not an inconvenience, as it reveals the first hint of the oriental touches to the setting in the form of lanterns floating in the water.

Further oriental touches can be found across the setting – such as in the winter headland, for example, where torii gates lead the way to to the upper part of a pagoda sits on a rocky outcrop or up on the springtime hilltop, ripe in Sakura blossom that surround a koi house and its little garden. Not that the far east is the only influence here. The route from tropical beach to hilltop spring, for example is marked by ruins that might be considered medieval in looks – but could also be from central or southern Asia (as well as having a slight elven lean to that as they reach up to the Japanese-style bridge that spans the hilltop’s bubbling stream.

The animals mentioned within the About Land description take multiple forms, from the familiar to the fantastical. Most seem to be standing guard or observing what is going on close by. For example, a floating market in the central lake that carries echoes of Indonesia is being watched over by tigers, while, the route between beach and hilltop appears guarded at various points by a black panther (bringing forth thoughts of Bagheera, Mowgli and India) within the ruins, an albino lion along the path leading to the Koi house and between them, on the bridge, a flying (if wingless) dragon.

To the west, in the little urban setting with is overgrown streets and tumble-down buildings, deer away discovery, watched over by the statue of a Chinese dragon sat before a torii gate, whilst overhead, a chinthe-like dragon hovers with lazy wing flaps. Even the path from the landing point is watched over by a red panda – albeit it one of the stuffed toy variety (and a little oversized!). More animals await discovery, but I’ll leave them for you to find.

Throughout all of this are places to sit and relax, some in the open, others at the townside cafes or in the Koi house, and one neatly tucked away under a hill that might be missed by the hasty. Needless to say, there are also numerous opportunities for photography.

Finished with a gentle sound-scape, LANA adds-up to an engaging visit rich in detail without feeling crowded, with room to explore without feeling you’re constantly bumping into others.

SLurl Details

• LANA (rated Moderate)