A good riddle versus no frustration

This text is about the Rose riddle in my game "The Bug Boy".

Most of today's players would like to experience a story and not to solve riddles. And looking on the statistics of my game "The Bug Boy after the first 100 players, I discovered that almost 90% of all people who arrived at Rose stopped. There is a pattern behind the art phrases that Rose wants to hear or not. But the solution is not obvious and it takes some trial and error to succeed.

Finally launched: The Bug Boy

After being so frustrated with the amount of work needed to finish my game "The bug boy", I decided to take a hiatus from Second Life. I did not expect it to get that long: 10 Months.
Well, I am back, I finished the game and now you can enjoy it! 😎

"A boy has gone missing. Will you find him alive? And will the inhabitants of the island help you in your quest or place obstacles in your path? In this story based adventure game you will enter a world of wonder, childhood fantasy and comic characters." Click here to find the starting point.

A sign of life: New game coming soon(ish)

I would have never thought that between my first game "Free Wilma" and my the next adventure game for Second Life, three years would pass. Well, I have had a hiatus for one year and a half. But also working on the upcoming game has taken much longer than I thought. In October I was confident that I could publish it by the end of 2017. Now it is February and I am still not ready.

Soon, you will finally be able to go on another "Reveries Quest" and experience an interactive story called "The Bug Boy". The scenes of this point-and-click story will hopefully immerse you into an anarchic fantasy world on Escapades Island featuring a sleep talking racoon, a cheeky faun and three bored birds, called the Bordies. Meet and help the characters on your way and finally find and save the vanished Bug Boy, Nils.

In order to finish my own quest to finalise this game I am looking for six beta testers. I will organise a test run next Saturday, February 10 starting at 1pm SLT. The first six people writing a notecard to Estelle Pienaar will be invited to participate in the beta test. The winners will be notified next Wednesday 7 February. Are you going to be the adventurer who will not only save Nils but also help me to finish this new game?

Play "Ezmerg's Candy Nightmare"

Ezmerg has been abducted from his Goblin village. He is now cooking candy all day. Can you find and help him? 

Come and play this new FREE point and click adventure at Escapades. 

Taxi to Escapades: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Escapades/150/174/24

My experience with creating Free Wilma

A few months after the launch of "Free Wilma", my résumé is mixed. There have been arround 250 players, about 10 per week. It is much less than I thought and I had much less income than I would need in order to cover my land costs. Less than half of the players actually finished the game. I think that the riddles are not too hard and the story is not too long, but quite a lot of players dropped out.

As a result I have now written a complete walkthrough. I want to make sure that people don't stop playing because they get stuck somewhere.

I have also decided to lower the price of the game from 180 LS to 95 LS and see if that  raises the number of players . Customers who have bought the HUD previously will at some point get the chance to receive a 50 LS return, if they fill out a feedback form. Customers will be notified by a message.

There seem to be at least two people where the HUD seems to have produced a show-stopper bug and they were not able to continue at a certain point. What is very frustrating is that I have not been able to reproduce the bug.

I also have some problems with my database scripts. I should have sorted these problems months ago, but I had not time. Let's see when I can get to it.

Walkthrough for the game "Free Wilma"

Before reading the walkthrough, when getting stuck, do first read the tips: http://sl-playinstinct.blogspot.be/2015/03/hints-and-tips-for-playing-free-wilma.html

Walkthrough:

First of all, you need to wear the HUD. Go to the boy “Rick” next to the HUD vendor and click on him. Talk to him and he will give you eventually the task to collect fruits and to bring them to the elephant Wilma for him. He will also give you a notecard that hints to the fruit locations.

Beware: Spoilers below this line

Hints and tips for playing "Free Wilma"

If you like to solve riddles yourself and you don't want to read anything that might oversimplify your gameplay, then beware: there are some spoilers ahead. In this case keep on playing but not reading...   ;)

If you however got stuck somewhere on your way to "Freeing Wilma" and you are looking for some help, you might find additional hints here.

Frida the cat catches a bird?

You'll find help for all the points where people already got stuck and asked for a helping hand. If you don't find a suitable hint here, please do first ask in the in-world group and if no one can help you, then post a comment to this post on my profile feed (you can log-in at that page with your usual SL username and passowrd). I will then contact you in-world or post a hint here. Keep in mind that this is a hobbyist project and I have a very busy "Real Life". So it might take some time, maybe even more than a day, before I might get back to you.

----------------- Spoilers below this line ------------------------------

Free Wilma - an Adventure Game in Second Life

Prepare to embark on an interactive adventure game in Second Life. Situated on Escapades Island, a place of childhood dreams and mayhem, the play scenes of this point and click game will immerse you into the world of an anarchic children fantasy. Solve a series of little quests to finally save the elephant Wilma, who is held hostage by the biggest mouse ever: Modsno the ferret. 

 “Free Wilma” is based on a new game system in second life that breathes life into the NPCs (non player characters). The characters will react differently to the player depending on the game progress. This feature caters to a more immersive experrience than traditional linear Second Life point and click games.

Ressurected

Well, here I am - writing another post almost one year after my last one. You might ask what I have been up to? I didn't want to review SL games and experiences any longer, I wanted to do create games myself. Interactive adventure games that are non linear, that build a real relationship between the player and the non-player characters. 

It is foolish to learn to script with the idea in mind to create something better than all experienced LSL scripters have done so far. But I am someone who really likes trying. And I am not dissapointed with the outcome. Soon the first results will be available to test to you. Then you can make up your mind if the effort was worth it.

Madpea is asking for your help to release Unia

I have been reporting several times about Madpea's latest game Unia. The release of the game has been delayed for over a year and unfortunately it will at least take 2-3 more Months until we can play Unia. Kiana Writer, the mastermind behind Madpea, writes on the Madpea blog:

When we started creating the game in the first place,  we had no idea how long it would take because something like it had never been done in Second Life before. The concept of UNIA goes way beyond Second Life. It is the first in its genre breaking ground and truly pushing the boundaries of what is possible in Second Life. The project is ambitious and challenging. We have a team of nearly 20 incredibly talented people working on it nonstop. Not to mention the best of the best guest artists putting their passion into it. [Madpea blog]

In the meantime Kiana Writer has to cover a lot of costs - the most substantial being tier costs for the two regions - and she is holding a fundraiser event:

Unfortunately, two months into the game development we lost our sponsor and have had to find ways to keep funding the two islands we need for UNIA. Since I am in Finland there is a 24% tax added to the cost of each full island. That is $70.80 in addition to the usual $295.00 tier fee so the monthly cost of our two MadPea islands is $731.60 (US dollars). As Art is sponsored in SL by LEA but game development is not., I'm asking you that if there is any way you are able to donate to help us out with this. [Madpea blog]

Picture taken from the Madpea blog

The donators have helped reaching half of the donation goal of 4.390 dollars so far. This sum would cover six Months of tier for the two game regions in Second Life. If you want to help out too, you can donate here: http://www.gofundme.com/Release-Unia.

One thought that I had was that with more than two reward levels (50$ and 500$) Madpea might receive even greater support. Firstly because there are a lot of people who cannot afford to give 50$, but would like to help out if they see a reward level that they can afford. Secondly people tend to raise their contribution when they see that contributions reach a ceiling - and that is a difficult thing to do with only two reward levels. Here are some ideas how additional reward levels and the prizes could have looked like:

• 5$ "A madpea supporter mesh badge"
• 25$ "A Unia supporter mesh t-shirt for your avatar"
• 50$ "Exclusive Unia avatar"
• 100$ "Exclusive Unia launching party with the Madpea team and exclusive 48 hours access at the start of the game (for up to 50 donators)
• 500$ "Exclusive UNIA tour by me (2 hours), Early Access to the Game, FREE HUD, weapons and outfits."

In any case I very much hope that Madpea will reach their aim with the existing reward levels. They seem to be on a good way. Here are two exciting videos that give a few impressions what to expect from the game and they look great:

The Fantasy Fair hunt

I have been very much enjoying the Fatasy Fair in the last days. Don't miss it as it will continue only for two more days. There are several beautiful sims, there are roleplay events, there is live music, DJ’s, and fantastic shops. And there is a great hunt and its first part will lead you to all the fair locations. 

We begin this year with FIMBLEBY’S WAGER, in which a loud-mouthed drunk bets that he’s smarter than you. Head for Wiggenstead Mooring and find Fimbleby in the Jolly Crocodile to match your wits against his, prove him wrong and win what others have lost before you – and an extra something that might just come in handy later… 

You’ll see the second part of the hunt – THE PALACE OF TEARS – in all its splendour when you arrive at Fairelands Junction, but you’ll have to wait just a little longer to discover what secrets lie within.You’ll find hunt HUD vendors at the landing points of each sim in the Fairelands. Grab one and get going. [Fantasy Fair website]

You really need to hurry though as there are only 48 hours left to play the first part of the hunt: Fimbleby’s Wager lasts until the Fairelands fade away after May 11th. The second part of the hunt Palace of Tears will be available for hunters longer, since it is on a separate sim that will stay on the grid until May 18th. From May 12 onward, the hunt will directly start at the second part in the Palace of Tears.

The first part of the FF fair hunt is based on riddles. On each of the Fantasy Fair regions you will get a riddle which indicates the item that you should be looking for. The HUD and the effects like voice acting are very well done. The difficulty level of the hunt is ok, even if there were two places which gave me headaches because the searched item was an object that existed several dozen times in the region and at least in one case it wasn't obvious that one of them would be the hunt item.

Ciaran Laval has a really neat review of the hunt on his blog. Don't miss his blog post to get more details. And here are some photos he took:

Photo by Ciaran Laval

Photo by Ciaran Laval

Why do high end AMD GPUs and Second Life not match?

I have had too much bad experience with my premium GPU from AMD in the last months. Since 2012 I own a Radeon HD 7970 GHz Edition which sells at the moment for 325$. The Radeon is better performing than a GeForce GTX 680 on Windows DirectX. When it comes to performance, the Radeon HD 7970 generally is a Porsche of the graphics cards.

With my Radeon I can run all the newest 2014 games on ultra mode with all possible gimmicks switched on and they will constantly give me a framerate of 35 frames per second (fps) or higher. It's a delight to play with it. But when I log into Second Life, this "Porsche" graphics card deteriorates to a lower end "compact car". At least it was a "compact car" half a year ago. I was having +/- 20fps with shadows enabled on highly detailed sims like Madcity or Escapades with a draw distance reduced to 128 meters. That was by the way equivalent to the performance of nvidia cards performance that cost around 75$ and that are several categories less powerful than my Radeon HD. 

But the story gets worse! Over the last months the performance has deteriorated from a "compact car" to a "clunker". Where I used to get a framerate of 20 fps, I now get 10fps with the exact same specs. I now either have to switch of shadows or I need to overclock my GPU AND the CPU (an Intel i7-2700K @3,5GHz with 16GB Ram) to the absolut limits and reduce my draw distance to 64 meters. Only with all these measures I am back at +/- 20 fps. And the low draw distance really hurts.

So shouldn't Linden Lab delete AMD graphic cards from their System Requirements page or at least add a phrase saying that those graphics cards will run with a significant lower performance than can be expected? Is it fair to mention both GPU providers equally in the System Requirements?

Let me demonstrate that this by an analogue example: Let's imagine that an ice cream parlor has a sign outside his store saying "We accept cash and credit cards". Only after the order people who paid with cash (AMD) realize that they only get 1/3 of the ice cream of those who pay with credit card (NVIDIA) - for the same money. Would that be acceptable? No! The least thing to do would be to write on the sign: "We accept cash and credit cards. But with cash you will only get 33% of the value for your money." Then people would know what they will get if they only have cash with them. 

Strangely I couldn't find much information on the recent extremely poor AMD performance in the internet. There are a few forum posts (1, 2, 3) and they do not highlight enough how big the performance difference really is. Also Second Life fan boys and girls seem to prefer putting the blame on AMD while gamers in an interesting discussion blame Linden Lab 

for using a legacy OpenGL codebase that is a no longer supported system that neither of the companies work on anymore, and back when it was in development, Nvidia had a better optimized version. SL has a horrible optimizaton as it is still very single thread performance oriented while GPU makers are sacrificing single thread performance for multithread performance. In the discussion it is also said as well, that no user should expect AMD to waste their time optimizing their drivers for that "garbage".

So is it the fault of AMD or Linden Lab that my graphics card is performing so poorly? And why is the performance even deteriorating over the last months? There might be some hope because the OpenGL support has been resumed by AMD due to Valve opening up options for Linux. AMD published OpenGL 4.3 driver in July 2013 but I am not experiencing any positive results so far. I am starting to get very frustrated.

Emerging from "The Lost Mine"

I haven't been playing Second Life for a few months due to lack of spare time. But when I heard that Madpea has ended their hiatus from developing SL hunts, well that was a good reason for me to return and play it.

In the hunt you will have to find the portal of the Lost Mine of Stonehaven, a long lost mine, kept secret by its creators, full of gold, gems, chalices, and other such wonders. A certain Professor Peabody found the Lost Mine, but accidentally ripped up the treasure map, mistaking it for his grocery list. Now he's asking for adventurers to help him reclaim the pieces of the treasure map, put it back together, and enter this story world to find the mine once again.

The hunt differs from traditional Madpea hunts because you won't travel to shopping locations searching for one hidden item. The whole game is placed in two sims: Madcity and the Dwarfins. In Madcity you will search for the map peaces:

The pieces can be anywhere! Inside or outside... and if someone else has picked up the piece right in front of your nose, then it disappears and you must search for a new one. (madpea.blogspot.com)

After having found 20 map pieces, you will learn the location of the portal of the Lost Mine of Stonehaven, however it is necessary to then find 20 crystals that will serve as keys to open the portal. If you find the search of the map pieces and the crystals tiring, you can employ a little helper:

Both MadPea and Dwarfins have some very special companions for your adventure! The Clue Finders give you a huge advantage in the game, as they will point you towards the active items you need to find to be able to move on. They will tell you if you're within 20m, 15m, 10m or right next to the item. Of course they look super cute as well when they walk by your side! (madpea.blogspot.com)

I really loved the clue finder, it's a very helpful new feature. The Lost Mine itself reminded me of the Lost Treasure hunt. The locations are build with great attention to detail, from the particle effects and sounds accompanying animations to the challenging puzzles and riddles. Don't miss the hunt that will be available until the end of this month.

The Lost Mine

Professor Peabody claims he's found the Lost Mine of Stonehammer. This mine, kept secret by its creators, is full of gold, gems, chalices, and other such wonders. Problem is, he lost the map. Now he's asking for adventurers to help find the map and travel to a magical realm and trace his steps back to the mine. The Lost Mine is an interactive and immersive adventure hunt with prizes.

Visit in Second Life

Still feel the need for a scare? Visit Nu'ville Horrors in Second Life!

This year's Helloween brought us a real overkill of horror builds in Second Life. We did see some fantastic games like "The Well Sollicitus" or "System Failure" and many themed events and places. I really hoped that the horror theme is sucked dry for good, but a nicely done latecomer arrived on the scene: the creators and real life sisters, Anya Ohmai (owner of Ohmai) and Suetabulous Yootz (owner of Beetlebones), have released Nuville Horrors - a Second Life experience (running until February 2nd).

Nu'ville Horrors is an immersive experience with a ride to enjoy and a hunt with 50 gifts. "At the spooky town of Nuville your final destination will be the 13th floor, so why don't you take your time and knock on each and every door?" Well, the entry prize for this experience could be an obstacle for some: you can either join the group for 800 lindens and get unlimited access to the sim or pay 100 lindens for a bus ticket (which is valid for 12 hours). Fellow bloggers write that the prizes are of such a great quality that they are well worth the expenses.

System Failure - a fascinating point and click adventure in Second Life

These are great times for people who love to play games based on the Second Life platform. Halloween is the period when a lot of Second Life builders want to present something special. Yesterday I found another Second Life game that is absolutely amazing: System Failure.

What is the secret behind these little robots with chain saw limbs?

System Failure is the seventh "Halloween Survival Game" by Pulse Games and it is open until November 17 - so don't miss it! It is a point and click adventure game in the tradition of LucasArts' Maniac Mension or Monkey Island. It is an completely interactive, story driven Second Life gaming experience with multiple levels across several sims. There are challenging puzzles, some scares and even hidden prizes from dozens of famous designers. And despite this attractive gaming package, the whole experience is for free.

Shield Technologies is one of the largest and most omnipresent corporations of the modern world, researching, developing and producing some of the most advanced products we all use every day to better our lives. But what is happening at their newest and most expensive facility will terrify you! Where did all the workers go and why did they leave all their belongings behind? It's up to YOU to find out and what you uncover, could kill you! [pulsegames.blogspot]

Loki's "THE WELL: Sollicitus" - Second Life as a game engine

One of the bloggers that I follow regularly, Ciaran Laval, has recently asked if LL is working on a new project, making Second Life also a game engine.  He thinks that the TOS change might have an origin in an aim of Linden Lab to enable Second Life to become a game engine as well. 

Desura, the digital distribution platform Linden Lab own lists a number of game engines for devs to get their hands on. There are big players such as Unity 3D , Unreal Development Kit and CryEngine3. However there are also much smaller players such as Ren’PY for visual novels and Adventure Game Studio for those who want to make point and click adventures. These latter ones are the ones where I think opportunity could knock for Linden Lab.

Picture by Uccello Poultry

It is funny that Ciaran's post coincides with one of the best game experiences that I have had so far in Second Life. Loki has just released his newest Second Life game called "The Well: Solicitus" and you shouldn't miss it as it will only accessible for one month. The game is a sequel of a Second Life mini-adventure that people could play last year at Halloween time. 

The story is that a year after the events of 2012, a team of scientific investigators are sent down the well to understand the caves strange geology and maybe find a clue to why the rescue team and a young boy disappeared with no trace. You arrive a day later than the rest of the team to find the make shift lab abandoned. [lokielot.com]

Madpea's Dark Dimension Hunt - too hard for me

If you are a regular reader of my blog, you'll know that I like Madpea hunts a lot and regularly present them here. Their latest hunt "Dark Dimension" started at October 6 and will run until November 10. For the first time ever I started a Madpea hunt, played it for the first few locations and lost my interest. It is now more than three weeks since I have stopped hunting and I couldn't motivate myself to come back.

Well, it's not the fault of the hunt story, which is really good as far as I have seen it. The winner of a MadPea writing contest has had their creation come alive in the hands of the MadPea Crew: Telestoi Weissmann.

An old prison island has been converted into a corporate haven of shops, boutiques and corrupt clubs. From the construction team to the sales force, more and more people are mysteriously vanishing daily. The 'Blue Sky Corporation' is desperate as tales of a 'black monster' are leaking through the rumor mill. They have hired you to get the island back in order - but a secret lurks in the darkness.

I would have really liked to experience the story myself. But two problems stopped me: the lag in some of the hunt locations and the difficulty level of the hunt item hiding places. A lot of Second Life creators seem to ignore the fact that a hudge amount of 1024x1024 textures at one place will bring the Second Life platform to its knees. There are more and more shops that have thousands of such textures creating huge lag in the region and bringing framerates to the bottom end - even with only one or two avatars on the sim. Imagine these places with dozens of hunters... it is lag hell. Madpea really have to consider not only the performance of their own sim but also the performance of the hunting places: can they really take the additional traffic of a hunt? It is not fun crashing all the time at some hunt locations.

HELLOWEEN at the Sound Garden Rock Club

The Sound Garden Rock Club is a rock club in Second Life that branched out a little with a great "HELLOWEEN" themed build. Don't miss the features such as a Zombie Killing Swamp with prizes for highest death count and a themed Hunt with fabulous prizes.

Don't get pulled under the trap door.

The haunted house containing the hunting items has some really well done horror scenes and it is nothing for sensible minds. There is a lot of blood and a quite psychotic imagery. The effects animations and sounds are well done and make an impression. You won't get bored hunting for the little treasure chests.

One of the less bloody places...

There is also a haunted graveyard with little trick or treat ghosts that either trick you or treat you. Most of the time your activities in this great built will be accompanied with some of the best rock DJs and hosts on the grid. The place will be open until the 3rd of November. Enjoy the interactive build  and don't forget to sit and click every where.

Siden, a horror, survival and combat sim in Second Life

This might sound strange but I am actually not spending much time in Second Life playing all those games that I write about. I only have a very limited spare time each day and I need to make a choice if I want to blog or just enjoy playing for myself. The last days I have been immersed in two Second Life shooting games leaving me less time to write texts for this blog.

Is it a picture or an apparition?

One great roleplay and shooting game that I can't stop playing is the so called Siden combat system on the Siden Survival/Horror sim. It has been around for some time, but I only recently discovered it. The Siden combat system has the most detailed combat system that I have seen so far in Second Life and I am still discovering new things. That's why I hopefully will write a full review at a later stage. Here are what some other bloggers wrote about Siden:

Neurolab Z-tronic bikes - the most stylish way to race in Second Life

A Second Life game category that I haven't presented so far on my blog is racing. Racing events are organised with countless vehicles, be it motorcycles, cars, hovercraft, airplanes, boats, snowboards, fantastical crafts, giant snails or even flying breadable dragons.

Some races are organised spontaneously and for fun between SL friends. Some racing groups organize entire racing series with with daily or weekly events. When searching for racing game mods in Second Life I found hundreds of small communities that have their own racing track and leagues.

One rather unique racing community is based on the Neurolab Z-Tronic Bike system. It's the most stylish way to race in Second Life: the bikes and the racing tracks are inspired by the visuals of the Tron movie. The drivers don't race to reach the finish line of a track, they race to