Emily Short has a teaser on her blog for a new Versu title : Coming To Versu. All the teaser contains is an image and the word “Rome“. Now as we all know, Rome wasn’t built in a day, nor was the Versu port to Android. On that blog post someone asks:
“How’s the Android port coming along by the way? =)”
Emily replies: “I’m afraid I’m not in a position to announce a date on that. I hear you, though.”
Versu, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is Linden Lab’s interactive fiction product. There are plans to allow user generated content on the platform so it’s definitely worth keeping an eye on.
Linden Lab don’t seem to advertise Versu that well, which is not going to surprise long term Second Life users. There’s surely scope for an official Versu blog of sorts to keep people updated. I’m also surprised that Linden Lab don’t use Second Life to promote Versu.
I’m sure versions of Versu products could be ported to LSL to work in Second Life, this would have potential to allow people to create better works of written material in Second Life full stop. Current techniques involve use of notecards, images or media on a prim, none of which do true justice to the written word.
A nice reading system within Second Life is far from a priority, but it would have potential to add some oomph to Second Life in terms of storytelling and on top of telling the story in words, Second Life can also be used to tell the story in 3D, so there’s certainly a potential for added richness.
However, as I said, hardly a priority. In the meantime I’ll just have to keep an eye on Emily’s blog.
I can’t seem them spending any time at all in bridging Versu with SL. I’m interested to see what format a Versu content creation tool looks like. While i love the concept for Versu I’m more of a writer than a reader so want to make my own stories rather than read Emily’s. DIO seemed to offer a similar playground for creating interactive stories minus the AI aspect of characters. The fact Linden Lab decided in the end to throw away that interactive element of DIO was quite a shock since it was the one thing that made DIO something new. I hope they don’t do similar with Versu.
Again i don’t think the Lab will connect Versu at all with SL, or at least i hope they don’t. If they make it easy for people to create sell interactive Books then i think it could be a pretty big thing in future without SL.
Well thinking about this again, bringing Versu to SL wouldn’t work because it would no longer be Versu, I do think LL could promote Versu in SL though, even if it’s just having a Versu parcel or somewhere for the people behind Versu to meet with a global audience.
I agree with you both about Dio and the potential for people to write their own stories via Versu, there is a lot of potential in that. I was most disappointed to find out the direction Dio has turned to, but the Lab will have their reasons for that.