By Bixyl Shuftan
Nance Clowes, noted for being the head of the "Fun Rides and Amusement Parks" group, recently introduced me to someone known by some residents in Second Life not so much by her name but by her creations: Celeste Cazenove, "Meet CC, teh great amusement park ride maker," Nance had been testing out her latest rides, Celeste saying "It's not all completed yet, well mostly, maybe a little fine tuning."
"I sell them to park owners on marketplace mostly," Celeste told me, "I've been making rides for awhile now, and this is my thirtieth ride, so it's kinda special. It's also my first hanging coaster ride with Euro-Style sound." Nance giggled, " I laughed so hard when that sound came on. totally did not expect that."
Celeste went on to say, "I have a carnival I will put this out in when I am sure its done. I can give you (the) landmark to carnival if you wanna check out some of my other stuff. I recommend the Splash Falls and Crazy Birds especially. ... My next one will be a haunted one for Nance' sim." In the conversation that followed, Nace told us, "They recently re-opened the spookhouse ride at Coney Island. it was under 6 feet of water from storms. ... the irony of a spook house, being six feet under."
"Building rides was a natural outgrowth of my toy making days when I first started," Celeste told me, "I started making toys and fishing custom catches." "Celeste is kinda big in the fishing circles, I'm told," Nance spoke, "I still have fishing areas for 7Seas with over 1200 custom made catches people can fish up for free. Then I started making toys and selling them on Marketplace. " I asked her when she first started. She answered, "Eight years ago I started building, first making gestures, then building simple little fish that people could fish up. Then my catches got more elaborate and I learned to script them with new functions and abilities and animations."
Of the rides, "I started making carnival rides about two years ago, with smaller ones like a Pigs-Go-Round, a barnyard merry-go-round with piggies, and a swinging ship that is still my best seller, Ships Ahoy, which is a classing swinging ship ride, but has pirate sounds and dead ghost pirates that pop out." I asked how popular the rides are. Nance told me, "most parks buy them on day one. the whole Fun Amusements Park group of 1100 love her stuff."
Celeste then offered, "Wanna see the ride before this one, last released? This one is for sale now and is in a lot of the major parks already." She then rezzed a ride over forty meters tall, "This one is called Splash Falls ,,, go up and touch that leaf in the air." This was a compact flume ride with a giant leaf instead of a log, which appeared in the water by touching a leaf near the entrance, "now sit on the leaf boat down there in the canal." After ten seconds, the leaf went a short distance, then was taken to the top of the ride. It then went down the flume, curving around every so often. It was a fun ride down to the ground, if a bit wet with the sprays of water here and there.
Another ride she showed me was "Crazy Birds." This ride was clearly inspired by the computer app game "Angry Birds." "All three of us can ride this one," Celeste told me. "It seats three," Nance told me, "but not all together, you'll see, tis *unique.*" The ride had three rezzers that when clicked on, a mechanical bird resembling the red bird in the game the attraction was based on appeared. All three of us rezzed a bird, hopped on it, and off we flew around for a minute, doing loops and other maneuvers. "It's a *trackless* coaster (laughter)!" Celeste commented. Nance joked, "Whats the count on this one again? 74% survival rate?"
Once we were done flipping the birds, Nance asked Celeste, "show him the Fun Squared one." Celeste did, "This one is a 'wild mouse' type of coaster, if you have tried those in real-life." As the ride took shape, I saw a familiar sight, the "lego" roller-coaster in the "Happiness Giant Rooms" when I dropped by in late June (
link). Celeste told me yes, she did sell the owner one of these rides. Both Nance and I took a ride on this one. Unlike the previous rides, the car animated out avatars a bit, Celeste laughing and Nance a bit, "Haha, I love that animation with the arms up at the end (laughter)."
Of the next attraction, Celeste told us, "It's Halloween soon so I will let you ride this one." This was similar to the spinning teacup rides in some parts, but with an October 31st twist: cauldrons. It was the "Witches Brew." Celeste told us, "I made this for last Halloween, but I am gonna make one for Nance." "For ME?!" Nance asked. Celest giggled, "To put in your sim ... you know it will, eventually." "You best be gettin to it. The Dark Park only holds so many Halloween rides."
Once the Witches Brew was put away, Celeste offered, "I have some funny ones like the Ferret Wheel I could show him, I like funny ones. ... a lot of people *only* buy my funny stuff." Celeste rezzed a kind ferris wheel, but with what resembled six hamster wheels instead of cars. Nance grinned, "Oh this *will* look cute if you get Bixyl in it." And getting in, I was running around in the wheel on all fours like a ferret, of which my furry form with a snout and bushy tail had quite a reaction from Nance, "BWAHHWAWHHSAHAhahaaaa!"
After the Ferret Wheel was taken down, Nance told us she had to get back to her Haunted Mansion. Celeste told me, "Okay this is the last one, I promise, hee-hee!" She rezzed a one story building that took a few moments to take shape, with the words "Aqua Scape" on the side, with another one inside saying, "Holographic Sea Tour." "This one is a totally emersive one. People love this one. Some people like this one and hate everything else I make, ha-ha!" Sitting on the car, it was like going through a public aquarium, with sea grass, coral, fish, dolphins, and a giant squid and a killer whale. It was quite the ride.
After I got out from the Aqua Scape, Celeste told me, "I better run for now but feel free to visit my carnival at that landmark I gave ya if ya want!" She left and I made a brief visit to her park, which had a *lot* of rides. No doubt Celeste has been very busy and creative, and no doubt she will continue to be.
CC's Compact Carnival is located at Thorstar (
163/94/1507).
Bixyl Shuftan
I had a few words with the owner of Furry Fashion, Amethysia (Amethyst Crystal), about their display. She told me, "Albright and I are both pagan and adore Halloween, witchcraft, etc. And we went to the occult shopping event a few months back and got the idea from buying way too much there, heh. Then she managed to get hold of a rare DRD mansion from a gacha that was just perfect as a witch house. And we just built around the house using it as the centrepiece. Over the years we've done everything fr a sim wide maze to a zombie game map to a asylum so we wanted something we hadn't done before. It's getting quite difficult to come up with new ideas after so many years. 
