JasX Games Part 2

By Locke Esgal

    In the previous segment, we took a look at how Jasdac Stockholm of JasX Games got his start in creating his different games. Jas had created a game called Fable of the Unknown that took SL by storm, setting the framework that helped create Tentacles in Space. However, it wasn't his first game.

     “Somewhere there I also made a Halloween game. I think that might have actually preceded all of those. Well before all that tentacle stuff, I do remember making a Halloween puzzle game. Basically just a big haunted house (like Fright). I got permission to rez it and play in one of the sandboxes during Halloween and a bunch of people had a lot of fun with it. Even though it was VERY crude, that game kinda spawned a running gag. In the game you'd first find a shovel, then you'd find a frying pan and pitchfork to tie to the shovel to remove spider webs, then you'd find a key holder to add to it to keep your keys in one place. Then finally, you'd be able to add a bolt launcher to it. The 'shovelnator' made it's way into TiS. I think there might still be a shovelnator poster somewhere in Fright. It's not in BARE though.”


    References to Jas's other games do occasionally pop up in the background of BARE maps, but they weren't the only inspirations for some of the games.  “Anyways, moving ahead to 2010. A friend and I play Borderlands a lot. I decide I want to make a similar thing in Second Life. Thusly, TiS is born. A new function has been added, llSetLinkPrimitiveParamsFast(), which lets you reduce lag by a lot. Also by implementing a sort of "LOD" which makes monsters only animate when players are near. So TiS is still laggy, but at least it's better than FotU.”

    Even with TiS' success, Linden Scripting Language is notoriously limited for such large-scale complex projects. “Some time a few years ago, I stopped selling and took down the remnants of FotU, because it was a security hole. Right now, TiS is the security hole in by back. Going back, it's awfully scripted.  But TiS is nonetheless where I got my first popularity, if you can call it that, in SL. It's a really good learning experience, if I see something I like, I tried implementing it. It was fun all around to make, even if it's a pain now.”

    “TiS today has 4500 registered users. That sort of game is really not meant for SL, though. It does have some major issues, most of them stemming from it's size and age. High lag, high prim cost, and a steep learning curve makes it not a game for everyone. But it did get some very dedicated fans, and I made enough money to keep going at least.”

    Not all of JasX games were the successes we know today. In the next part, we'll take a look at a game that didn't do so well, as well as some more of the well known games. See you next time for Part 3 of the Jasdac interview!

Locke Esgal

A Visit to Linden Endowment for the Arts 17

The Greatest Story Ever Told—The History of Second Life™ 1999-2015

By DrFran Babock

Perception is Everything

Over the years there have been numerous displays that covered the history of Second Life. It’s hard to deny that SL was and is something new and different and completely different. A lot of the past has been destroyed and built over, but the facts remain, and they chronology of this virtual can be laid out. What differs in each presentation that has been created is perspective and viewpoint. Different displays have focused on different aspects of the evolution. This is perfectly understandable. At the risk of getting too philosophical, it has to be said: The way in which a person sees things is clearly their truth and their reality.

Marianne McCann’s Second Life Tenth Anniversary (SL10B) build (http://slnewserpeople.blogspot.com/2013/06/sl10b-interview-marianne-mccann.html ) focused a lot on the early days. There is hardly anyone around who has a bigger collection of SL memorabilia than Marianne, nor anyone who can speak to it with as much eloquence.

That said, there is yet another display now that focuses on the history of Second Life™, and it opened February 8^th on the LEA 17 sim. It is the work of Sniper Siemens, who had attempted this challenging task once before on very short notice in LEA6 last year and was determined to try again.

I ran into Sniper, perched on an interesting armchair at the entrance to the installation, and she told me that she was very pleased with how this year’s version had turned out.

What about perception? Well, I found that a lot of the time, as I walked through this amazing installation, that I thought I might not have covered things the same way. Everyone loved the Greenies, but Sniper spent a lot of space covering them. It could have been that she had a lot of content from that time, but I can’t really know.

From 1995 to 2015

I loved the intelligent design of this exhibition. There is a definite path (a beautiful stone walkway that has outstanding specularity, created by Kriss Lehman of Botanical) that meanders from 1995 to 2015. The specularity is important, because it adds to the overall look of the build. As I wandered from year to year, the gleam on the ground and the trees that surrounded the paths created a sense of unity that was artistic at the same time that it decreased some of the confusion that often occurs when trying to get the sense of a large installation.

I won’t spend a lot of time covering the individual exhibits, because I just noticed that genius writer and blogger Canary Beck has discovered this gem of a build, and will focus on the history details and the quiz contained on the sim. (http://canarybeck.com/2015/02/08/take-the-second-life-history-quiz/ )

What I Noted

The installation is a knockout for those of us who love and appreciate the history of this virtual world. One thing of note: If you don’t like to read a lot when visiting, you will miss a lot. There are many signs with a lot of writing on them. I don’t know how to get around this, when there is a detailed story to tell, but I am not sure many will stop to read unless they want to complete the History Quiz.

The only other comment I have is that Sniper is a good builder. Her mesh seemed to add a lot to the build, especially when there is not a lot of 3D content about the early days. 

For anyone who has ever built a history build (as I did for SL10B and SLL11B) the big problem is always how to represent residents, because the human/furry, etc. form has a high land impact. Sniper’s solution was to use these bean type cartoon characters along the paths to represent the human aspect of SL. They added color, and another level of uniformity to the build, but they didn’t really seem to be part of SL history, so they struck an incongruent note to me.

What I Loved

It is clear that this build is a labor of love, and that Sniper poured her soul, and her time into its creation. I especially loved the Linden Lab San Francisco build, and the silliness around the Zindra build.

This build is a must for anyone who wants to learn about the history of Second Life™. Sniper had a vision for creating this history, and it is accessible and understandable.

The build focuses a lot on the financial aspects of the history, and for me, it provided a revelation. I never knew that the “haptics” equipment that is now becoming so popular with the current virtual reality craze, was actually the catalyst for Phillip Rosedale to create Second Life™. The Rig, as its called, supposedly still sits in boxes in Linden Lab.

There is a great display for those of you who don’t remember a time when Burning Life was very much a part of the culture. I have always thought, along with many others, that Phillip Rosedale was trying to create a virtual Burning Man when he first envisioned Second Life™.

The Greatest Story Ever Told—the History of Second Life™ 1999-2015 will run through the end of May of this year on LEA 17, allowing you plenty of time to learn about what came before, and what might come in the future.

LEA 17: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/LEA17/26/237/22

DrFran Babcock

Two Artists in Exhibits

By Gemma Cleanslate

 

Sorry to say I missed the opening of Giovanna Cerise " Retrospective" over at Gay Island Resort Saturday the 31st . In November I did an article on her “Chaos” at LEA  http://slnewserdesign.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-chaos-at-lea21.html   I made it over to the gallery the next day however and was so impressed with her many pieces from all years . The entrance I believe is from her Chaos exhibit . Inside the art on the walls and the sculptures ts are so impressive.  Her first piece ‘Obelisco a spresa’ from 2009 is amazing. 

 

I was lucky to see Giovanna while I was there as people were coming in to see the exhibit. She told me that most of her works are in prim but lately has added mesh to the newer ones. I had a hard time deciding which I like best as did another visitor . Her latest, The Ballerina , I believe is almost all mesh. It is entrancing. Giovanna also will have an exhibit at the 1Billion Rising so I will be looking for her works there too.

 

This Retrospective will be on display for the month of February . I hope you will be able to visit to see the full range of her past years all in one place. This is an adult sim and I am not sure if you need to be age verified but try..

 

GAY ISLAND Resort (127,157,1504)

 

Another exhibit that I visited this past weekend was the new SL Photography exhibit that opened at the Seaside  Gallery owned by  JMB Balogh. My friend Slatan Dryke .with whom I have worked on several sl birthday events and Burn2,  is showing his varied pieces. Again I missed the opening event but went over to see what he was displaying. Slatan likes to explore Second Life and finds sites that intrigue hims. I asked him what windlights he uses, and he told me that he plays with the setting until he finds one that he likes that will achieve the image he wants. 

 

The pieces on two floors are eclectic . He says of his work "Photography... My Photography is not an Art Expression.  It's only a way to bust from myself... however, being closer to my Kernel."  There is a biography note card with more information about his works in the gallery.

 

I would say my favorites are the ones with a foggy , smokey look that are so intriguing. He does some in bright splashes of vibrant color and some in subtle hues .  He also has set some of his scuplts around the gallery. Make time to visit both during February . 

 

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Nestor/184/191/96

 

Gemma Cleanslate

JasX Games

by Locke Esgal

Second Life has always been a beacon of creativity in online sandbox gaming, predating games like Minecraft by years. People have been able to make avatars for people to use, clothing to wear, places to live, and even games to play. One company, JasX, has taken a spin on the usual card games and has managed to create exciting games like BARE, a card-based fighting game, TiS, a first person shooter similar to the Borderlands series and Fright, a Halloween themed scavenger hunt. However, many have wondered about the man behind the JasX logo. Well, I've been fortunate enough to grab an interview with Jasdac Stockholm and got to ask him the big question: How did you get started in creating games in Second Life?

    I came across him coding for his next new game, a branch off from a pen and paper game, "Dungeons and Pandas." After a little persuasion, I got Jasdac to spill the beans on his rise to Second Life fame and his history creating games for the virtual sandbox.

    Jas wrote, “Well, it started off with a flash game someone made. I liked the idea of a furry game with tentacles and went like, 'Wait with my scripting knowledge in SL, maybe I could make something'. So I made a prototype...To position the player, I made a little invisible vehicle the user would have to rez and sit on called a 'walkpad'. My first prototype was just an obstacle course and it was laggy, as well, because sculpt swapping (sculpts had just been introduced) was laggy as s**t, and still is. I just had the little thing as a test. Then I made FotU.”

    "Fable of the Unknown," while not on his current list of playable games, is recognizable to many long time fans as the predecessor to his first person role playing game, Tentacles in Space.

    Jas continued, “FotU was kinda like my previous game except it had very rudimentary combat. You got to pick between 3 classes, I think. You still had a walkpad which would cause people to fall over and it had achievements...But the monsters were now mobile! It was still laggy, but not as bad.”

    Back in 2007-2008, many functions in the Linden Scripting Language didn't exist, so it made certain aspects of coding difficult at best, lag-inducing at worst. Despite this, FotU did rather well.

    “...FotU was my first 'success'; I was so happy when I made 10k Linden Dollars (around 50 USD) from it. It was heavily focused on puzzle solving. It got popular enough to warrant an expansion. The coding was terrible, but it did pave the way for TiS.”

    Ten thousand Lindens is nothing to sneeze at for a first game, especially when you consider most of the JasX games available these days are free to start, save for the 300L TiS. While FotU was a rousing success, Jas moved on to create even more games. We'll move even farther down the path that led us here, along with a glance into Jasdac's current projects in Part 2!

Locke Esgal

Club Eclipse

By Wesley Regenbogen

Club Eclipse is a special club in open air that plays EDM ( electronic dance music ) and allows DJs from all over Second Life to play their tunes in the club. A friend of mine, DJ Robina Ewing, plays often in this club. A while back she invited me over to the club to listen to her set and it was a good one, I might add.

The club opened on Wednesday October 17, 2014 and was bought by Ɗل-ƊãՐԌØ (kardargo.adamczyk). It was a package that he bought from the previous owner and they managed to make the club in three days. The fact that it’s a “prefab” club doesn’t mean it’s easy to manage things. It’s not easy to keep a 177 man club crew and the DJs satisfied at all times, sadly. Communication is everything for them, so that’s why they have a Facebook page and a VIP group. The group  has 335 members.

When you enter the club it will ask you to adjust your windings settings, or something like that. I always accept it, although I don’t know what that means. The pumping beats are always awesome and I like them very much. As I’m a house/techno/trance music fan. Their music is always nice to hear. Furthermore this club is nicely decorated. The decorations were done by Igz Dragostino. At the moment of writing this article they were open 17 weeks.  They  had a New Years Eve party recently, but no further special events are planned at this moment.

The VIP group has put in 590,000 L$ of tips into the club.

Club Eclipse's current design is not the permanent one, but there is a new one under construction.

The builder of the current Club Eclipse is DCL ( Digital Cult Lifestyle ). The new club is built by DJ Dargo himself. A third design will be worked on next month.

In my personal opinion : This is a great club, because it’s in open air and also because I’m a dance music lover in real life too *smiles* I can add this club to my list of favorite clubs in Second Life. It’s a long list if you read my other club articles, but hey, I like clubs here, so, I hope you all have fun when you visit Club Eclipse and I hope to meet you there soon.

They have a Facebook page at : https://www.facebook.com/eclipseinsecondlife. The club doesn’t have a website yet, but the owner is working on it, so the site is “under construction” at this moment. More information about EDM ( electronic dance music ) can be found at : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_electronic_music_genres .

You can find the current Club Eclipse at this location :

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Magical%20Bay/60/191/30

Wesley Regenbogen

DJ Micah's Club Culture

By Grease Coakes

DJ Micah hasn't been in Second Life long but he's well known as a DJ around Furnication which is Nemoen Magne's club. And now as a blue tiger from the UK he's taken the next step from DJ to club owner. Micah has made a graphically pleasing club with a vision all his own. In 2013 he created the club however money issues forced him to close it down. When I talked to him on Jan 14^th this year he said it only just opened the previous Friday.

 Unlike some other furry clubs, Micah's new club is centered on the music and not so much nudity and sexual hijinks that a few have been noted for. One of the rules is no sexual conduct in the club. It's also welcoming to humans who are looking for a new place to hang out. Also he has put a lot of blood sweat and tears to make sure his club looks like a real life club. The only exception is that no security searches you for weapons or drugs like in the real world. You can warp in at Nocturnal Chaos (200/220/4001) and just walk in.

Like Shadowquine Maltz's Ark it's like a lounge environment where you can hang out if you like or dance to either the radio stream or the live DJ throwing down tracks for the crowd. I also noticed he had a very realistic light system. Another rule he stated was “no excessive glowy things”.He wouldn't want his club to be lagged to all heck if 20 people had script intensive glow add-ons. There was also a couple statues that look very realistic and not cartoony. When I tried an laugh emote I was surprised that it didn't make any sound. It made sense that DJ Micah didn't want any sound spam like in some human clubs. Also there's a very realistic looking bar for bartenders (Like when I was a bartender for the old BAY club.)

For such a young club he already put a lot of pizazz as he has a website explaining club rules here at http://www.indigofuzz.co.uk/culture/opguide/. Also never seen before in Second Life is a there's also an option to fill the club with foam just like a real life foam party in a club. Already it shows a video with DJ Micah djing live on their facebook page here at https://www.facebook.com/cultureonline

Micah being a DJ in real life his SL club is being sponsored by his own record label Tantrem records. The record label itself is also young. So if you have written a song you really want heard, talk to DJ Micah he might choose your song to add it to 700 retailers in the real world like Sony music Amazon Beatport and much more. Feel free to read it here https://www.dropbox.com/s/xo5jo02qunzxxua/Tantrem%20Distribution.txt?dl=0

Club CULTURE being a new club is looking for bartenders hosts and of course DJs! However Micah warned that his club sets a high standard for high quality so you have to have excellent skills or at least above average to represent the ethos of the club which is all about the music. Rock music or jazz DJs need not apply. DJ Micah made it clear that he wants to have it as an edm club. Remixes of rock or pop songs into house music or any other edm genre is ok.

If you're looking for a new place to work at or just to hang out and have a good time Club CULTURE is the place for you.

Grease Coakes

Gacha Market and The Arcade

By Wesley Regenbogen

Imagine a shop where you get items from so-named "fruitmachines" of which you make a purchase, and you're not a hundred percent sure what you might get. But if you're not truly happy with what you got, you can trade it with someone else who made a purchase whom had gotten something you like. This is "Gacha," a concept that's apparently been in Second Life for a while, but it's new and innovative to me as I haven't seen it around yet.

I took a look at two Gacha shopping locations. The newer one was the Gacha Market. The owners of the Market and its residential area are Erick Miles and Marc Bing, both are Dutch residents. You can also rent a home and a shop basement there too. They made the homes first, and then built everything around it. The decorations at the sim were done by both as well.

The older, better known Gacha area is The Arcade. It was co-founded by Octagons Yazimoto, Katharine McGinnis, and Emery Milneaux. The idea behind it started as a joke, but eventually the owners decided to put the project in action. The Arcade sim was created five years ago. You can buy items from the “fruitmachines” for L$ 50 or L$ 75 and you don’t quite know what you will get. It’s possible you get an item that you don't really care for, but it can also be that you get a rare item. So, it’s basically a “I buy something, but I don’t know what I will get” thing, which is quite original in my opinion. Different creators make stuff and they put it in the "fruitmachines," which can be totally different with every creator. If you don’t like the item that you bought, you can resell it on the “Gacha Market.” 

Of the team behind The Arcade, some might know Katharine McGinnis for her work on the "Fennux" breedable pet. Marianne McCann, listed as a chat moderator, is noted for helping organize events at Bay City and other places.

On the Arcade location there is a radio station that is played, with different styles of music. It has events four times a year at March, June, September, and December.

The music which is played in the Gacha Dream location is from the 1950's and 60's. There are no events planned in the near future yet, because the sim has just recently opened. But they promise that they will give an “extra twist” to things down the road. 

The Gacha Market shops and sim is a realistically designed place with homes and shops that you can rent. The homes are photorealistic and very well made.

The Arcade is a circle path where the shops are at both sides of the path. The path is formed by a brick pattern and it’s beautifully made. It's website describes it as "set in a seaside build that evokes the whimsical feel of the penny arcades of early 1900’s Coney Island and Brighton Pier."

More information about Gacha Shop and Sim can be found at this website :

http://www.gachadream.com/

More information about The Arcade can be found here :

http://thearcadesl.com/

You can find the Gacha Shops and Sim at this location :

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Dreaming/104/127/24

The Arcade can be found here :

http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Acerbus%20Silva/57/80/52 

image credit: thearcadesl.com

Addition: Scratch the part about Gacha Market being part residential, they don't do it any more.

Wesley Regenbogen