Adventures at the Arcade

This week's first stop on Safari was Winxtropia where Bloom Peters continues to perfect her inworld arcade game, Primmy's Adventure. The giant retro Gameboy machines awaited our group, each one set up with places for two players. This was the first time so many people had come to the region to play, so it was not guaranteed that we'd all be able to play without drowning in lag... Safari is always an adventure! Even experienced Safari hosts have a little bit of butterflies in their stomachs when waiting for the crowd to arrive, and it's in those moments when you suddenly have a thought.... 

Bloom Peters: I am a criminal for not building the sim in the game style with the blocks!  HAHAHA... 

Thirza Ember: hehehe !!! the perfectionist...

Bloom Peters: yup!

Bloom Peters: welcome!

Forest Azure: hello bloom

Cherry Manga: aloha Bloom!

Nara Nook: Hey Bloom :)

Boujee GamerGirl: welcome everyone

Forest Azure: friend of yours, cherry?

Thirza Ember: lol cherry  has to pay for 2 tickets

Bloom Peters: haha nice avatar Cherry

Cherry Manga: Always dreamed about being a plumber going through pipes

Cherry showed up with a friend, dressed for the occasion

Bloom Peters: while you are here make sure to set max bandwidth, on your viewer - slide it all the way right... might not be required but it will help

The Inworld...

 Inworld Review is a talk show on Youtube about Openism. The show started over a decade ago, and was the brainchild of Mal Burns who produced and presented the program right up to his death in July of last year. His idea was to bring together interesting people from around the metaverse and have them tell their stories, share their experiences, and explain their latest projects. The show began in SL and eventually came to Opensim, and if you go to Mal's Metaworld Youtube channel you will find dozens of  episodes featuring famous names from both platforms, as well as less well-known but equally interesting and creative  people talking about tech, about their grids, about music and art.

When Mal unexpectedly passed away, his co-hosts Tosha Tyran and James Atlloud naturally suspended the show, not only out of respect, but because Mal was, as James likes to say, the 'wind in the sails' of the production. 

Inworld Review has moved from Mal's Youtube channel  to the new Inworld Review channel

However, Inworld Review was one of those rare assets in Opensim - a point of contact for everyone in the hyperverse, a central point for conversation and news, in an environment that is by its very nature decentralized and complicated to navigate. The show was never political, or terribly technical, and had at its heart the hypergrid, never trying to promote one grid over all the others. 

 After Mal died, James and Tosha teamed up with Petlove Petshop, who had been cameraperson in the early days of Inworld Review, and me, Thirza, a previous Inworld Review co-host, to revive the show.

Neverworld's Niagara

Fifty meters deep at its deepest, and 35 km wide at its widest, the Niagara River and its famous Falls are without doubt one of the great natural wonders of the world. Sacred to the Iroquois and forming the border between the USA and Canada, the Falls sprawl over the history of the continent, in so many fields - natural history, geology, engineering, spirituality, tourism, bravado, ecology, brewing, and so many more.

If, for you, the idea of traveling to see Niagara is kind of pie in the sky, then you can do the next best thing and experience them virtually by going over to Neverworld. The NWG team led by grid owner Govega Sachertorte have done a wonderful job in suggesting the nearby towns and giving a really wonderful sense of the vastness of the river and the drama of the two falls.

People are often tempted to ruin a rl build by throwing in a random Stonehenge or Eiffel tower just to zhuzh it up a bit, which of course it doesn't. Long before the rise of computers the best kind of AI - Authentic Intelligence - the intelligence to let the place speak for itself. The sounds and sights here will transport you right into the spray.

ISM's 20th

It's a common belief - you could even call it a truism - that pixel creations in virtual worlds don't last long. Builds come and go, as do the people who make them. This week we made a return visit to a sim on Kitely that has proved this is not always the case. It's the International Spaceflight Museum which these days is an 8x8 VAR region, having grown quite a bit since our group toured it in 2017. 

The HG Address is as always at the end of the post. 

The museum, called ISM for short, was founded just over twenty years ago in SL and moved to opensim in search of more ... space (no pun intended) for way less money. Also for the building opportunities that outperform SL every time. 

Rosa Alekseev

The trip was facilitated by Rosa Alekseev a longtime citizen of the hyperverse, Kitely resident, DJane extraordinaire, community organizer, and member of ISM. To meet us on the day was Kat Lemieux.

Kat Lemieux welcomes us all - with Max and (in the space suit) Forest 

Legendary Mobius

Our first stop this week was on an unforgettable region on Mobius Grid, one of the most unusual and colorful grids in Opensim, run by the unparalleled Royale Mobian. It's a great place to visit any time, by yourself, but to be there with Royale, standing in for the region's creator, was a real treat. 

Not only is the storyline of the Legend of Zelda an epic, the video game's history is also of legendary proportions - beginning in the eighties, the game continues to be popular and has grown with the technology - the latest version is Hyrule Warriors, Age of Imprisonment. 

However for most of the Safarians on this trip, it's associated with early gaming, with their youth and the wonderful sense of adventure and agency that Zelda supplied. This post about the Zelda 'back in the day' captures the vibe.

Zelda has interesting parallel with opensim in that there are opportunities to go out exploring and do side quests within the game and if you do, you will often pick up useful items, or gain experience that will come in handy as you progress from level to level. Just like the HG, but with less hair loss, and more sword-and-shield action. 

The sim and majority of the model work is brought to us by Diana Dismantled, says the Notecard you get when you arrive, which also credits Meme Resident with some of the extra model work, with a nod to the resident builder, Geminai Resident. 

A large landing area awaited the crew of the Safari, and while waiting for them I can't lie, I played with the Chaos while waiting, they are just too cute.

A Night at the Museo

Our second stop was on the great grid Craft, one of Opensim's oldest grids. We visited the MdM, with owner Rosanna Galvani.
 Rosanna Galvani: The Metaverse Museum (Museo del Metaverso) is a virtual institution that replicates a real museum, featuring exclusive content and collections designed specifically for the Metaverse environment. It combines elements of virtual reality, interactivity and global accessibility, offering virtual exhibitions, art galleries, digital replicas of artworks and cultural objects, learning labs, event spaces and more.

Rosanna Galvani: The Metaverse Museum project was created in Second Life for the enhancement of the artwork present in that virtual world. It was founded on December 5, 2007.

 Over the years the Museo del Metaverso has been quite successful, creating permanent and temporary exhibitions. The Museum has participated in many valuable art/cultural events in the physical world, has helped many students of Fine Arts Academies who were coming to Second Life to make their theses and has collaborated with the Academy of Fine Arts of Macerata, participating in several meetings, with the aim of presenting the project of the Metaverse Museum, which was very innovative for those years.

Rosanna Galvani: Today the main Museum resides in Craft-world (a virtual world based on OpenSimulator) and preserves and exhibits purely digital works, i.e., works made on computers, replicas of works made in the physical world, and most recently also images generated by programs using Artificial Intelligence. It continues to work on different platforms, Second Life, Craft-world and Spatial, organizing exhibitions , lectures and discussions. 

Tosha Tyran: but tell me Rosanna, what was the reason to transfer the Museum to Opensim/Craft?

Playing the Market

Our first visit this week was to Neverworld Grid and as usual the group assembled at the clubhouse on HG Safari to pick up the travel pack by clicking on the Giant Prim, which is super low tech and includes a very brief Notecard, and the necessary LMs. I love low tech, it rarely breaks.

People begin showing up about 10 minutes before Go time, (12 noon Pacific) and that gives them a chance to read the notecard and say hello to all. Many arrive last minute, oor even after we've started, so they just rush along to find us at Destination 1. It all works!  Anyone can join us, we are not an exclusive club, but I can't promise Forest won't gently tease you though.

Taarna Welles: Hello peeps

Tosha Tyran: hello, hello

Taarna Welles: Hoi Forest

Forest Azure: and yay, tosha! finally I get to tease you again!

Ange Menges: Bonsoir a tous

Forest Azure: hi Ange... wow, the tour this week includes a marketplace!

Thirza Ember: there will be a video explainer i think, and dancing... the first hour quite peaceful, the second will be more manic

Tosha Tyran: good, I love videos and have the popcorn ready here

Taarna Welles: Hi Nara

George Equus: Evening all

Tosha Tyran: uff... finished eating and hands free for typing again :)

Forest Azure: virtual life is tiring

Thirza Ember: It's 12:00 so when you're ready, TIME TO GO the Neverworld people are waiting for you

Tosha Tyran: oki, seems good

Dolma Dollinger: Hello Am I intruding?

Thirza Ember: of course not dolma you are always welcome!

Dings Digital: Hello, guten Abend

Tina Bey: Hola a Todos

Thirza Ember: OK we are all here