Thursday 20 December 2007

Privateer Space

With Christmas not far away it seems like a good time to take a break from the pursuit of worthy business sims in Second Life and have a bit of fun instead. My huge thanks go to my chum, Lem Skall, for suggesting I have a look at Privateer Space. This has to be one of the most beautifully rendered and absorbing sites I've seen in SL - and I would say now that you should stop reading at this point and just go and explore it for yourself.

Ah... you're still here? OK then...

When you search the Second Life Map for Privateer Space you could be forgiven for giving it a miss. It appears on the map as a brand new type 2 island, from the outset hiding its many little gems. Just ignore this new island camouflage and teleport across anyway. You will find yourself not on the surface of a barren sim, but rather in the dining and shopping zone of a deep space mining vessel. If you are familiar with Red Dwarf you will have some idea of what I mean. Beyond that I will not reveal much more to you, other than to say that the sim has multiple levels, and in at least one case, multiple zones in a level - so do explore. You can figure out how to get about easily enough.

To whet your appetite I have an unfeasibly large slideshow for your perusal:


I love the textures, the objects, the ideas and the humour of this sim. It seems to exist purely as an exercise in what is possible in SL. As Aley Arai, the sim's owner describes it in her profile: "I just got the sim, what do you want me to say? ok it's going to be developed into a huge super emersion silly sci-fi playland for everyone. a non commercial venture."

Oh... a rather more comprehensive (and amusing) walkthru' can be found here.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've watched Aley put together some of the component parts for this sim over several months. She's a tremendous talent with a unique vision, she's very generous and has a wicked sense of humor.

Even her model for the sim was a thing of beauty in my estimation.

- Corman

Lem Skall said...

It is a great sim indeed. It's well built and great fun to explore. What I think is the most amazing about Privateer Space is that it is really three sims in one, stacked upon each other. And even so, last time I checked, Aley had used only a little over 3,000 prims out of the 15,000 supported by the sim. Just imagine how much more there will be on that sim over the next few months.

I think that the look on the map may be only temporary and not a deliberate camouflage. The sim is only about one week old (Aley did the building on other sims) and it's possible that the map is just not up-to-date.

Timbo said...

Awww... I hope it is camouflage... that just makes it more witty to me!