Braving The Arctic in Inouk

Another sim that's been open a few months, but I've only just stumbled upon is: Inouk. The word has a distinctly Arctic ring to it, and the sim itself is indeed decked out in sub-zero fashion, with igloos, ice floes, snowballs and all the trimmings. The mystery of the sim's name is soon resolved - if I told you it belonged to a well-known tour company, would you be any the wiser? Howzabout if I suggested you reverse the name?

Kuoni has been providing holidays to the discerning for over 100 years now. Although headquartered in the UK, the founder of the company, Alfred Kuoni, was actually Swiss - which is suitably apt, since this sim is, in fact, owned by Kuoni Switzerland. Kuoni's first package trips, in May 1906, were journeys by mountain railway up the Uetliberg on Zurich's western side and the Dolder on itd eastern side. A year later he was offering package tours of Egypt! Since then the company he created has gone on to offer high-end holidays around the globe.

The sim itself is quite good fun, and not overly pushy about Kuoni holiday offerings. You can pick up a "Travel Book" - a heads up display that will compare and contrast RL and SL locations, offering you brochure page links for the former and teleports for the latter - and there are other freebies, like an animal rug (choose the fur you want). The most complex element of the build is the Ice Labyrinth. Enter and find the six keys (while in theory absorbing messages about holiday locations), locate the treasure and win some money! I got 20L$ - which is more than I had when I went in. You are also invited to complete a questionnaire and get another 40L$. For those wanting free money, it beats camping.

The sim is mainly aimed at "doing stuff" - like the Labyrinth - or the Snowball Battlefield: pick up a pile of snowballs, and over the course of a week, see how many people you can hit - within the designated battle zone. A rather elegant and sinuous bridge leads you across the freezing inlet that nearly splits the sim in two. On the far side is a large globe, with map pins suggesting the location of Kuoni holidays; a bar and ice piano (nice touch, that); a dance floor; a video area and an explanation of the Travel Book.

In construction and ambience, it reminded me of a refrigerated version of the TUI tour company site in Second Life - you can read my post about that here. I didn't see much sign of events - which is regrettable. However, if you wanted, you could perhaps fix that since you can rent one of the large igloos for your own shop. I don't know if the Planning Regs allow events and parties - but it would be one way of livening up the place.

And here's what it looks like: