I was handed a bloggers pack for The Garden, I beg your pardon, thought I, but thought I’d take a look anyway. The Garden is an interactive puzzle game brought to Second Life by Grace McDunnough, Trav Rexen and Salome Strangelove.
The basic aim of the game is to collect clues from Guardians and Artifacts and work out what sins they were guilty of and what penance they served for it. This sounds more complicated written down than it actually is, you get a Hud with which you can elimiate certain guardians from sins and penance until you’re left with the only suitable answers, well as long as you’ve paid attention to the clues that is!
As I’m an evil Drow Wizard Lord Of Dee, I was handed a patron Hud, which means I can play the game over and over. Mere mortals have to pay L$299 for such a Hud … oh wait maybe it’s because I’m a blogger. I’ll stick with the evil Drow Wizard Lord Of Dee angle. Anyway, mere mortals can participate for free.via the demo Hud, this allows you to play a game and if you enjoy it, buy a patron Hud with which you can earn achievements and play over and over. Sims like this can only really exist via donations or sales of items. I won’t get into a tier rant, other than to say tier is the big barrier to sims like this being more widespread.
A few things to note, this build uses Mesh in parts so you’ll need a Mesh enabled viewer to be able to enjoy it fully. If puzzle games aren’t your thing, the sim is worth visiting because visually it’s pretty damn stunning and the sounds make it feel very atmospheric. This is a fun game and definitely worth a look. However, I didn’t promise you a Rose Garden.
SLURL: http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Seven%20Veils/228/218/8
For a more in depth look, see Inara Pey’s post.
Alternatively you can go to the developers site: http://thegardenwhispers.com where you can see the tutorial video .. I’ll embed that here too:
Is anyone – other than the 1.23.5 die-hards still not using a “mesh-enabled viewer”? I’ve long since given-up giving such warnings (although they do still hold ture for Radegast and lumiya (for the present) admittedly).
I was fortunate enough to get into the Garden ahead of most and have been fully engaged in several rounds of the puzzle and using various different techniques. Will be interesting to see what people come up with in order to gain all the achievements :).
I’m also fascinated by the concept of the forthcoming narrative. I have a slight heads-up on what it involves from Salome, but I’m not saying a word. Suffice it to say that what (little) I do know does have me pausing rather a lot to consider the various statues and other items (not just the Guardians) in The Garden.
Well now that Phoenix are saying they really really mean it this time, there will be no further development of the old viewer, maybe the last through stragglers will move on, but I thought I’d mention it as the developers mention it in their notes.
I lost a photo somewhere along the line, it was by a pool with a very nice statue, but for some reason it doesn’t seem to have made it to my PC, the sim is visually stunning.
It’s also good to hear that they are going to further develop the narrative, it’s nice to see forward planning like that.
Thanks for giving us a change. There was no disrespect intended with the dropping of the blogger invites, sorry if the unsolicited drop was something outside your comfort zone.
I’m glad that didn’t turn you off to giving us a look.
Hi Salome, it was a tongue in cheek comment.I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden … it’s a song from the seventies, actually I misquote the lyric at the end of my post.
I was happy to receive the pack, all is good.
Forgive her Ciaran – she has a mental block on the 70s. It makes us all nuts.
Hehe I should know better, the younger folk at work go blank when we talk about the 80’s, let alone the 70’s!
Hey! I got the reference. I just thought mentioning that song was punishment for dropping unsolicited stuffage!
No the punishment was when I went and listened to it on YouTube! For that, I may not be able to forgive you!
Aww cheer up. It can’t rain all the time. Oh wait…