I have to confess that I have been to Suffugium several times, but until now I hadn't penetrated the beneath the surface of the sim. Maybe I have become too used to sim where shops and a bit of window dressing are all that is there ... and have become out of practice.
I went this morning to look at the shop there ... but when I was accosted by a droid who instructed me to stand still while I was scanned, I realised that things might have changed in Suffugium, which is a work-in-progress, with a backstory and lots and lots of detail.
Police Drone: "Sub-Citizen, please remain still for the duration of the scan." I stood stock still. It didn't occur to me to do anything else, until Oclee asked me what might happen if one didn't. Police Drone: "Scan complete. Please go about your business as normal, Sub-Citizen Pendragon." Sub-citizen??
Suffugium is a team build by members of the Squidsoft Collective, and I was lucky enough to encounter Aliasi Stonebender, one of its members, on my way through the sim with Oclee. We were trying to attract the attention of the droid so that I could get a picture for this blog.
Aliasi gave us a tour, on the promise that I wouldn't reveal where all the secrets are. Believe me, there are secrets hidden all over this sim. You need
to be on the lookout for interactive things, mouseover anything and everything as you explore. "Heh, well, plenty of things beyond the obvious. this place is made for exploration!," said Aliasi.
I knew that Aliasi builds gadgetty things for Suffugium, because I had seen her exhibit a couple at Zonax's show and tell from time to time, but I wondered if she also built some of the structures? " Yeah. I designed the hotel, my shop, provided the model for the statue though Kaeli posed it, built the flea market... you can't always go by owner here because we're always tweaking each other's work. We're a real group project." I asked how many people there were in the group. "Hm. well, there's plenty of people in Squidsoft, but around five or six of us are what I'd call the "core" folks who built the place," she replied.
We started our tour at the large statue that greets visitors to the sim. What I hadn't noticed was the palm-scanning data access point slightly off to one side, which took my avatar and scanned her palm, while giving me a data card about the sim. Suffugium Data Access Point: "Welcome, Sub-Citizen Pendragon."
Aliasi told us that the group was planning to put a slightly less in-character warning to people. "We've got a fair number of cyberpunk RPers who want to use our sim, but some of them don't quite get the idea of 'play nice with others'," said Aliasi. "We've had trouble with some groups shooting visitors. Anyway, this place up here is the commercial district of the city. the sim has four major areas - commercial, slums, industrial (which is under construction) and the sewers."
Aliasi led us down a street. "Over here is the Holoball Arena. Holoball is a game that was devised by Lex, Kali, and Sprite - three of the Squids - and it's a lot of fun. We get people playing it. I keep meaning to run regular events again, but RL happens. The caberet - during the SL 3rd birthday bash, we hosted a Jaycatt and Frogg show here. Crammed 50 people into the sim without any real lag, believe it or not - we're pretty careful about scripting for lag, and we asked people to remove stuff, too, but even so, the place held up surprisingly well. We run other events here - I'm running my weekly Primtionaries here now, for example."
We moved down the street. "The movie theatre," explained Aliasi. "Mostly just set to whatever mix of random stuff I feel like, though we'd really like to show some of the impressionist cinema that was an inspiration for the place - the posters on the front, you know?" We encountered one of the interactive objects which Aliasi had told us about. Clicking on it made me go into an animation, and I received a freebie prize for my trouble. I don't want to give the game away, so I shall say no more, but the prize was a freebie hula hoop incorporating a hilarious hula-hooping looping animation.
Around the corner, we entered a modern building, where Lex Neva's photography -- which is fantastic -- was displayed. "She really enjoyed making a display that would be a little impractical in the real world - the thin bars holding up the prints, and all that." Oclee remarked that some of the images are very film noir.... and Aliasi replied "Heh, the sim is kind of film noir. Dark City was an inspiration."
We continued on our tour. Aliasi exclaimed: "Speaking of Lex, here's her shop. It's not a porn store!" We passed the flea market "perhaps the one place where we're somewhat conventional, 
vendor spaces for rent." Then moved on to the police station.
"With state of the art holding cell technology." I tried to enter the cell, but a forcefield held me back.
We moved to the building next door, which was covered in messages about being quite a respectful of the law, and threatening forced re-education for those who do not obey. Aliasi thought I could do with some re-education, and so asked me to click on a green pod. "Okay, this is just another thing I think that's cool - Chiri is one of our animation gurus, but she has a little scripting in her too. I clicked the pod and it closed around my avatar. The next thing I knew, I was trapped in the wall, being forced to adopt all different poses.
I have to gloss over the next section so that I don't give too many secrets away ... but in a short time I found myself exploring the slums. "Also, the plant," said Aliasi. "We've just got the one, so we try to take care of it. Oh, and you might see what they use for basketballs, down here ...." I saw one of the police helmets from the police station in a basketball net ... and fervently hoped it had no head in it.
I saw Gerami's pawnshop, was questioned by a robot bouncer as to my age before gaining admittance to a sleazy strip joint, was shown the grubby bathroom -- "the only bathroom in the sim. Lines can form, understandably." We left to see the laundromat across the street. "I know all about your type," muttered the bouncer on my way out.
I was stunned by the depth of detail and the sheer quantity of things to explore. "I have been here several times and just bumbled around the surface," I said. "I had no idea there was so much to explore." "I think some folks take the whole oppressive dystopia to face and get scared to," said Aliasi. "Here's the diner... while seats that make more of themselves aren't anything new, nowadays, one of our group members did come up with the idea independently. Also, all orders come with toast. it's manditory."
Aliasi showed us a final secret place ... which can be found by an explorer who is alert and determined. We were completely bowled over by the whole place, and we are going to go back to see if we can find some of the hidden things which we didn't see. She told us that 90% of the texturing in Suffugium was done by Kaeli Candour, whose Fractured Psyche build is one of my favourites in SL. We left completely lost in admiration for the work, thought, detail and care that has gone into the sim. It's free! It's wonderful! Go and see it! Gosh ... Akela's exclamation marks are catching ....
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