The Queens of the Castle

               Imagine walking along a beach. Alone, or with a friend.  

Beaches are nice, but they can be awfully samey, same ole trees, and sun, and sky, and sand. 

That's why you often see people on beach holidays reading a book under the ombrellone. 

Now imagine that, instead of bringing your own book to the beach, you could go to a beach littered with books that you could jump inside of, where you will discover action, adventure, humor, and even the meaning of life... is that too much to ask? 

Not at the Nook.         

Third Life's A Charm

 It opened its doors in July 2016, and now, it seems, this week it will be closed for good. Not to be confused with 3rdRock Grid, or the Brazilian 3D Life, we're talking about  DJTommy Seetan's grid, 3rdLife Grid. 

It was really only luck that this weekend I heard about the closure from Safari regular Lite House, and it felt like a chance not to be missed - a final tour. It really was a charming grid, and my visits have never been frequent enough, much to my chagrin.

At one time, you may recall, the grid was home to HG Visionz magazine, the brainchild of Sunbeam Magic and Minetheree Anthanaios, with writerly support over the years by  Jessie Campbell, Reyn Softly, Serene Jewell, Virtual Christine, Zinnia Frenzy, and Chopsy Bode.

Lessons in... Making it in Opensim

The following is a Guest Post by My Virtual Beach grid owner Trizaria Hunter, and  her 20 year career as a content creator in virtual worlds.

The best place to start is at the beginning, and that goes back to 2002/2003 and a game put out by Blue Fang Games and Microsoft Game Studios called Zoo Tycoon. While the creation differed greatly from what I do today, it was the beginnings of it all. If any of you have ever played

Safari SGT: Sauce by Maya Paris

 Personal:   are you flipped, gobby, arch, or tricky?
Would you like to be beckoned with an indistinct finger of mildness? 
  Where do you stand on soup?

A darkened room, 1800m up in the air. Red phone boxes. And immediately you're being asked to choose. Who are you? What do you like? What's your number? Should you jump? 
And you wonder - what is all this sauce?

Think about it. That camp yet classy British look. Having all your own teeth, or not.  Brewing. Fish eating chips. Being tempted to cross the line marked 'Do Not Cross'. Surprising sounds with poses and particles. 

What else could it be but a Maya Paris build?

This is where the inner joy of OpenSim becomes replete. 

Chester and the portals

 Chester and me have been pretty busy jumping around the hypergloop looking for destinations for the latest HG Safari project, the Self Guided tours, and we are pretty close to being done. We have nc blindness now, hopefully some wine will fix that. 

Lessons from a Hypergrid Honeypot

The following is a Guest Article by Nara Malone of Nara's Nook. 

You can visit her grid at world.narasnook.com:8900 

Follow Nara's writing blog at naramalone.com 

The Nara's Nook Grid blog is at narasnook.com

The backstory: Nara and two writer friends, Siobhan Muir and  Tina Glasneck, founded their own grid 'Nara's Nook' in OpenSim about ten years ago. After several years of experiments in digital storytelling on the hypergrid, the resident authors branched off into other projects, leaving the grid online, but unattended. That was not good - their distraction was exploited by bad actors, who damaged the Nook. Here's Nara's take on this experience.

Nara’s Nook grid was an intentional hypergrid honeypot, not originally with intent to lure troublemakers so we could learn to secure things better. We left the grid portal unguarded to empower potential users to slip in, watch shyly from the shadows if they needed to, and eventually to experiment with the various elements of 3D storytelling on their own or by joining our projects. There was always a pot of stone soup simmering on the back burner, a fresh baked something or other to go with it, and plenty of wild honey or wild spirits to spike brewing creativity. Our doors and windows were left wide open. We left the porch light on, and NPC powers enabled for curious wandering souls.