SLWTF – A Second Life travelogue by Garth Goode

I’m going to wrap things up (for now) with a visit to Falln Amusements. FallnAngel Creations, purveyors of artwork, furniture, food, decorations… well, a lot of stuff, has a number of regions. As such, they were able to dedicate a surprising amount of space in their twisted little amusement park to pure fun.

That isn’t to say that they don’t try to sell you something at every turn. Just click on things. The Jack-in-the-boxes at the entrance are for sale. The broken “Terror Ride” is merely an excuse to walk through the (admittedly amusing) collection of torture devices, coffins and noses for sale.

But there’s also gobs of rides and amusements in every direction. The rickety-looking roller coaster (best experienced in mouselook mode) may take center stage, but a bit of wandering will turn up bumper cars, a skee-ball game, a carousel, a ship swing, and a scary-fast spinning swing ride. It’s a trip to Heave Central on that one.

Did I miss anything?

Oh, yes, the central lake has a submarine that you can take for a spin. There’s also a fishing spot on the shore.

I said that the amusement park is twisted, but it’s really just a matter of style. Everything looks rusted and rickety, but nothing is going to fall apart on your or do anything surprising (much to my disappointment). I half expected this ride to come crashing down around me, which would have been so cool.

A movie theater is used as a space for selling, among other things, artwork and prim food. Take a moment to say hello to the Eliza-like teller. Scintillating conversation there.

Up on a snowy peak you’ll find a cardboard box you can sit in and slide down the mountain. Amusing Calvin-and-Hobbes-esqe snowmen are worth the walk up the mountain (and they’re for sale, of course). A little Gypsy tent village turns out to be a venue for selling those same tents.

Jam-packed doesn’t begin to describe it. At every turn there’s something new to try out, which keeps you looking around an encountering more things to buy,. Giant trees? For sale. A field of mushrooms? For sale. Flaming pumpkins? For sale. It would feel like overkill if it weren’t for the fact that free carnival rides serve to balance things out. You can’t escape finding something for sale, but really, that’s the point.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Falln%20Amusements/139/247/27

Bonus:A noticed a lot of people in the region according to the map, but I didn’t encounter many during my exploration. Naturally I suspected bots, and went hunting for them. Instead I found a decidedly complex labyrinth 750 meters in the air. It seems that there’s at treasure hunt going on.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Falln%20Amusements/135/166/747

As I said, I’m wrapping up this series for now, but keep your eye open for new adventures under this same tag sometime in the future.

Plunder Airship Outpost is brought to you by the same folks who brought you The Block. As such, there isn’t much here in terms of entertainment and oddities… except for the fact that it’s a work of stunning imagination.

Where does one get the idea for an post-apocalyptic steampunk pirate aerial outpost held aloft by all manner of balloons, propellers, and jets, anyway? Seemingly mobile stores have “docked” at the outpost, each floating in the air by it’s own unique method. A giganticblue robot keeps FORM in place, while Gear Shift is suspended from a dirigible. DaVinci-esqe screw rotors keep another store in the air. It gives the illusion that each store was uniquely designed by it’s owner, though in reality they were all created by the same (very talented) individual.

The mix of stores is very similar to that of The Block. That said, I go to Plunder more often. Mainly this is because the theme makes for a brighter, happier shopping experience, but I also find that the “central platform with stores attached” is easier to navigate than a maze of streets. (Maybe that’s a function of male shopping. Look around, locate the store you want, zip in, zip across  to the next one. Or maybe it’s a lesson for the real life malls).

If you look around the platform you’ll find a teleporter that will send you to the Plunder Lounge, located in the airship hovering you It’s a great design, and of course it’s empty… but the views are dandy. Actually, from the windows you can see other stores hovering near Plunder, testaments to it’s success.

Look inside the airship for the log describing how history of Plunder. Whether the stores really joined in the order shown here, who can say? But it’s a fine detail and the kind of thing that helps illuminate the rationale for such a place.

As I look at an area like this and I think about “theme shopping,” I’m beginning to wonder if it would work for a real life mall. Appeal to the broadest range of people is bread and butter to a mall, and the themes we’ve explored are very niche. We can afford to do that in Second Life. The stakes are low and rebuilding is relatively cheap. In real life construction and real estate are expensive, so they can’t afford to take a big risk. Is there a mall theme with broad appeal that would be less banal than a set of generic corridors and fountains?

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Maggiore/127/128/601

The first thing you notice about the Starlust Motel and its environs is the building shaped like a giant hamburger. Well, that’s not true. It depends on the direction in which you’re looking. Quirky, funny, and strange, thy name is Starlust.

There’s a lot to see, and the region (Lloyd) encourages exploring. Everything is spread out, but there’s enough stuff (and impressive stuff at that) to keep you occupied for an extended visit. I’ll start with a tour of some of the buildings. Not all of them, or this would be a very, very long post.

Off in one corner is a building shaped like a dinosaur. It’s a kind of dinosaur museum (kind of, sort of, not really) but mainly its a store with some unusual and inexpensive ladies clothing. At one end ofthe store a curtain with “AND THE RIVERS RAN RED WITH THE BLOOD OF DINOSAURS” scrawled on it just begs you to walk through.

Why is the dinosaur smiling? Because the entrance to the building is right where his.. anus would be, that’s why.

On the other side of island, there’s a building shaped like an elephant. It’s more of a 19th century carnival vehicle than an animal, complete with pillowed velour interior. The entrance is just under the tail. Do I sense a theme here?

If you take the time to explore the elephant’s feet you’ll find some freebies.

Yes, an animal-shaped building where you don’t enter through the poop chute. On this duck you enter through the breast. Now they’re speaking my language. Hey, after entering a few buildings through the back door, even duck breast starts to look good.

Next up, a building shaped like a flowerpot, in which they don’t sell flowers. Niether do they sell ducks in the duck-shaped building. It’s just that way because.. well, I don’t know, except that it does encourage one to look inside.

I’m focusing on the buildings a lot here, but there are fun details all around. A tire swing. A jungle gym. A scenic view. And poseballs. Poseballs randomly scattered here and there for individuals and couples, both tasteful and tasteless. At one point I was surprised to see myself humping a doorway. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you want to teleport in your friends to say, “Hey, check this out!” Not that I teleported anyone in to watch me hump a doorway, because that would just be wrong in so many ways.

The Starlust Motel itself takes the form of a rundown old joint that’s been converted to a mall. The shops are rental shops, but the personality of the region seems to have encouraged purveyors of unusualwares. Unflattering (maybe too realistic) shapes. Quirky stuffed animals. Lots of women’s clothes, but not the usual stuff. And the oddest set of freebies you may ever encounter. I’m looking forward to modeling the back hair freebie for my friends. (Hopefully they’ll stay friends after that).

No motel would be complete without a pool, though at Starlust it needs a twist, of course. Who knew that a blow-up sex doll could be used as a flotation device? Unpleasant as that prospect may be, at least it will keep you away from the sharks…

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Lloyd/85/78/23

Update: They also have a blog.

When I first landed in Silent I thought something was wrong with my monitor. Everything was black and white, even the ubiquitous VOTE pillar. Except everything wasn’t black and white. I wasn’t. And I could see flashes of color in the distant store interiors.

I’d stepped into a film noirworld (at least visually). It’s jarring and beautiful and leaves the impression of an eerie quiet (hence the name of the region, I guess). The store interiors stick wih this aesthetic, with only the product displays in color. This actually makes the products pop out in interesting ways. The stores range from the usual suspects (one of my favorite stores, Civvies, but with some special Silent products) to Coif, a store that sells quirky hair… displayed on skulls. There’s a nice variety of clothing and non-clothing establishments.

The main shopping area of Silent looks like a New Orleans French Quarter stree (albiet quite a bit wider than the real thing). Explore slowly… there are all kinds of details to enjoy if you take the time. There’s a rooftop covered with white scrawls, and KATRINA, YOU BITE painted on the adjoining building. In front of one store a ghostly doodle appears out of thin air, but only if you happen to approach from the right angle.

From the map, Silent is shaped like a skull and crossbones, and it’s at ends of the bones that you find the most interesting stuff. Walk down a quiet moonlit path and you’ll find yourself in a flowing garden of flower doodles.

Follow a winding path down to a dock, and you’ll enter a little realm of color. In this case it seems to be the cabin of someone practicing voodoo — complete with dead chickens.

On the other side of the island there’s a creepy graveyard. Except when you enter the mausoleum it turns out to be a living love letter to swirly. As you approach the colorful shrine a disco loop starts to play softly. It’s an odd kind of tribute, but perfectly in keeping with the quirkiness of the region.

The region is anchored at one end by the store Kyoot. In fact, when you land on the island there are scrawls on the ground, pointing to Kyoot in one direction and “Everything else” in the other. Kyoot is housed in an interesting old mansion, and even in here there are pleasant surprises, such as the horde of dress forms in the attic.

You might think that all of this is a distraction from the stores, but far from it. It actually encourages poking around all the nooks and crannies of the region, including the stores. There’s more to find than what I’ve mentioned here (I don’t want to spoil all your fun). And wouldn’t you know it, I came away with a couple pairs of boots.

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Silent/128/204/41

I’m one of those strange guys that actually likes shopping. Chalk it up to the primal urge to hunt, only in my case the great white hunter has bagged a new t-shirt. As such, I’ve been to a lot of different shopping venues. Oh, I’ve seen my share of ugly kiosk rental tenements, but I’ve also seen beautifully constructed open-air malls that make you feel special just because you’re there.

And then, I noticed a new trend developing over the past year.  New shopping areas have popped up that don’t merely mimic real-life shopping malls. They’re imaginitive, surreal, even entertaining. Sometimes they overwhelm their retail raison d’etre.

Over the next few posts I’ll be exploring some of these retail areas. Just how entertaining are they? Does the entertainment factor help to sell stuff? Are we witnessing the evolution of retail, unbounded by physical constraints? And can real-life retailers learn anything from this?

Recharge your $L balance and follow me. We’re going shopping.