Review of muiltple SL based games.

Since there really isnt any single source of opinion of many second life games, I decided to start reviewing some. Today I will start with Tetris and Darklife.

Tetris : This is a simple, quirky puzzle game done in 3d. It is incredibly addicting and I wholly recommend it. There isnt too much to say about this game, so let me describe it. Tetris is a puzzle game where you have to make lines using differently shapes blocks, such as a T shape, an L and inverse L shape, and a |. Despite what it sounds like this is an amazingly addicting game, you can find it at Miru (220, 45)

70%
Pros :Fun and addicting
Cons : Costs 10L$ per game, not much depth
Overall : Incredibly fun and well worth the price of admission, althought no depth for those looking for a true game experiance.

:Recommended:

Darklife: I will go into much more detail on this. Darklife was originally made in october 2003 when it was built off of an early build of LSL and a very buggy SL. At the time, it was amazing, but sadly mark busch had to leave due to real life problems. Recently he has returned and with him Darklife. Darklife is a medevil world built into Second Life, and plays very much like Everquest, with slow select ; click ; wait combat. I will start by saying this does not work well in second life.

The system is buggy as it is, but this is simply a beta, so I wont knock it on that. But the combat is INCREDIBLY slow, I counted around 10 seconds between hits. That may not seem like much, but say "1 mississippi" 10 times to get an idea. There arent many weapons at this time either, and the selection that is available is rather poor quality. But the weapons are functional and do get the job done. At the time there are only 3 monsters (Giant ant thingy, Giant mantis thingy, and rat), none of which break the cliche of mmorpg games.

Before you bring up my action gamer preference, chew on this. I am currently playing and enjoying everquest 2.

However, one thing I loved about this game was the overall atmosphere they were able to create. While the world didnt seem BREATHING, it was an incredibly display for second life. But here comes another problem, the textures. The only custom textures I noticed were those for signs and interiors. Almost all of the wood and floor textures are AF linden textures.

One thing I hated, however, was how every monster in a given area would attack you on sight, making newbie leveling a chore. The most annoying flaw with combat though has to be the horrible potions though. Tip, dont use them. The potions have an annoying flaw of taking effect AFTER YOU DIE. Thus causing you to waste your money. Not to mention you loose a crapload of hard to earn XP everytime you die, causing a horrible treadmill process.

Monsters model are incredibly good though, as are armor models. But agian, weapon models are lacking, sadly. Overall, I did not enjoy darklife, but many people did/do. But as a display for second life's possibilities, it is a stepping stone. However, this feels more like an experiment in what is possible with second life technology than an actual "game".
Navora

80%
Pros : A showcase for SL technology, awsome enviroment and creature/armor models.
Cons: Weapon models, textures, BUGGY, all enemies are agro. Not much depth. Loose a % of xp upon death.
Overall : A showcase for SL technology that is still flawed and incredibly annoying due to bad design decisions.
:Recomended, check this out to see sl's capabilities. However, prepared to be fustrated with the all agro monsters and constant running back and forth for revives.:

These are my opinions on these games, so dont flame me because mine differ from yours. Feel free to write your own reviews also. I will edit/update this post as more games are released.

Edit: the more I think of it the better the idea sounds of creating a website that could review materials made in SL. IM me if you are interested

Im taking some pics and im going to post them to show people the enviroment and game. Here they are.

1.This is the entrance building where you start and can recieve your starter equipment.


2.This is me with my starter sword and starter shield


3. This is the backpack where all of your stats are stored.


4. This is the shrine where you heal and are revived. Agian, rather disappointing in terms of design and texturing.


5.This is a picture taken to show the terrible texture decisions, all of the textures are linden made and have been around since beta.


6.A few weapons


7.The second sheild you will be using


8.The only armor sets in the game at the moment.


9.An amazing overlook of the city, see what I ment by atmospheric?



Make your own judgements on the screenshots provided.

Prim Attack :

This is a quirky bejewled clone made by Dan Linden. Of course, this is just a simple game which is (as is tetris) addicting. Althought this doesnt do anything patricually new or interesting. This can be found in the newbie area Ahern.
70%
Pros: A fun, quirky, addicting game.
Cons: Doesnt do anything new with SL, no depth.
Overall: A quirky game that doesnt do anything new, but is still fun to play.
:Recommended:


Space Rocks of Death :
I actually stalled for a few seconds before deciding to play this, mainly because the game costs 100 L$ to play. That HEAVILY influenced my final dicision. But onto the game. Space rocks of death is a very cool, very details space shooter. Think a 3d defender. however, the 100L$ goes to waste incredibly fast, as this game is very hard. But the design and detail is great. But the 100L$ only gets you a single play, which could show why lines are ,well, nonexistant. You can find this game at Tantalum.

60%
Pros: Great detail, just plain fun.
Cons: Too short, COSTS 100L$ PER PLAY.
Overall: A fun game that will quickly drain your bank account.
:not recommended:

Hmm, have always wanted to try DarkLife. I was aware that it was up once before but wasn't an SL-er yet. Thanks for the review

I dunno what's funnier... the fact that Tetris costs L$10, or that you actually had to describe what Tetris is.

Ryen, I'd just like to point out a one hugely incorrect statement about DarkLife and as it stands right now (Mark or Pirate correct me if I'm wrong, since I'm nowhere near a developer, just an addict ). There are currently more than twice as many monsters as you have listed there. There are rats, mosquitos, praying mantis, some kind of deadly flower (never can remember their name), swamp spawn, swamp scorpions, an ice serpant, and, at times, a large brain with 9999 hp. That brings the total to 8 by my count, not the three
that you have quoted.
Another big thing I would question is how far you got in the game if it was taking 10 seconds between hits. If you never raised a level, you wouldn't know about the levelup points and how you can increase your speed to hit faster. You start out with a speed of five. Mine is now 25. They have to allow for that to increase, thus slow hitting at first.

SL is the worst possible tool to use as a game development platform.
As long as LL sees this as a "world", it will always be horrible as a platform.
A professional programmer does not have to put up with the kind of stupid bureaucratic restrictions LL has in place to ensure social harmony.
For SL to be a decent "platform" we need full control on what goes on and where.
A platform would not tie code to a visible object, or a specific location. It would let us rez whatever object we want wherever we want it. It would place no limits on our ability to create. We need lightning-fast long-distance messaging. We need permanent storage.
Actually, we wouldn't need messaging if someone hadn't decided that "16k ought to be enough for anyone".
As it stands now, no matter how much money you throw at LL, you will never get the kind of service you can expect from a web host. When you buy a web server they give you shell access, a database, and as many COTS tools as you'll ever need.
I will never buy a server from LL until they act like a professional host. I should damn well be able to kill -9 the simulator software if I so desire. It's my sim, for god's sake, to hell with whoever's standing on it at the moment.

Good reviews Ryan, although it bothers me a little that while reading your review playing a dumb game of tetris sounds a lot more fun then playing DarkLife. For example Tetis has 'not much depth' and DarkLife has 'no depth'?? That means tetris had more depth in your opinion?? Anyway that's your opinion and I will respect that. Gladly a lot of people disagree...
However saying that darklife is full of bugs is no matter of opinion... since it is not true... I just fixed 2 bugs that were found by players who played the game many hours and tried as much as they could to find them (only 2 or 3 of the 200 people who played it found them).
Ok there is a problem with old equipment disabling. but if you IM me about it I will replace it with a working one. If you expirience weird behaviour you should have a look at the statistics bar. I bet the server is overloaded and it doesn't complete all the pending events... that means the bug is in SL and not in DarkLife. Overal if the server is not lagging you can play DarkLife now without any real bugs.
And ofcourse playing darklife is not like playing everquest 2... it's built in SL but if you are a builder or a scripter I think you can appriciate the way I've used the rather limited (in comparison to a real programming language) possiblilties of SL to create a working MMORPG. And if you don't then you can still enjoy the social activities there. Most of the people who play regular are really really nice and creative people who help me a lot. And ofcourse a lot of people DO find the game itself entertaining! Specially those who are not a MMORP-vetetan (I think...)
It might look and feel like it's a bit buggy and unfinished.. but there are many hours of game-play already before you start missing content. And besides that I'm adding new content regularly and I'm working on a lag-reduced version as well
Anyway the reason that I've built this game in SecondLife is not only exploring the techinal possibilities of second life but also because I LOVE the community. Part of the fun for you is the possibilty of helping me with the game and part of the fun for me is getting help from people who are motivated, enthousiastic and creative
Also I think of DarkLife more as a future SecondLife-element that could add 'meaning' and interactivitie to a lot current and upcoming second life creations I mean, why built a huge castle if people can't do anything in it. If you use it for darklife it represents a part of a game, part of a story and a lot more people will use and see it
Darklife is in no way limited to one sim and we have plans for multiple sims as well as using currently cool (and in-theme) buildings to host darklife events and put darklife monsters/quests.
Anyway Ryan you played it and you disliked it thus so be it
But I hope by explaining all this people will still try DarkLife even after reading your review!

It is prolly a bit unfair to compare DarkLife to Everquest or Everquest2. Sony, after all, has teams of artists, coders and a very larger budget. In addition, the development tools Sony has at their disposal are not even in the same league as LSL. Also, the limits of LSL prohibit too much in the lines of in depth development (I think I remember hearing somewhere that DarkLife only has around 15 - 20,000 lines of code but correct me if I am wrong).

It's a neat proof of concept, and a welcome source of entertainment for those who want to wander in a medieval RPG (sorta) type environment and esp. for those who might not want to shell out the money for an EQ game (dont forget expansions!) and the monthly fee.

Also, Mark & co. seem to be constantly developing it, so in theory it should get better. I dont think anyone expects it to be on par with a full budget "spit & polish" online game. It just wont happen.

For what it is, it's pretty cool. And while, Ryen & I would prolly rather play Tetris (because we don't mind shelling out the money for the full "EQ" experience) it is also true that for many people, it hits the spot perfectly.

At a minimum, its a good example of what can be done within the limits of LSL with a relatively small code base. I, for one, look forward to seeing how it evolves.

-AP

A small misconception. I never compared darklife with everquest 2, I simply bought out that I play everquest 2 since most people take me as an action gamer. I will be trying darklife once a month now, and if it gets better I will change my review to reflect that.

I was also hoping Dark Life would be kind of an inspiration for people to try some bigger and better coding projects I really love/loved Secondlife but I was and still am a little disapointed that darklife still seems to be the 'biggest' code project.
I do appriciate the diversity and creativity of the projects in Secondlife but I still feel there is a lack of 'quality' both in the coding and texturing. The only really good texturing I have found was from Johnny (can't remember last name) with his Ice castle etc. and I am really disappointed he didn't want to help with DarkLife
And Pirate and Tedd has done wonderfull houses and other stuff and I love the swamp and the castle and they all look great, but they lack cool, high-quality custum texture indeed...
Hope I will find some great texturing people someday that will make darklife look better

Mark, do you mean Jimmy Tompson? He is more of a cyberpunk person, that and he is bogged down with project unreal.

Yeah that's the guy... I really was impressed when I saw his work!!! I should check out his latest stuff actually!!!
Well maybe he doesn't really want to help with darklife but maybe I can convince him to donate his current buildings to put some darklife monsters in
that is if he doesn't have a lot of other plans already...
maybe copy&past the whole building into our sim

I think criticizing Darklife is the same thing as criticizing SecondLife.

Dark is one of the most complete and ambitious (scripting and building) games that I know if in SecondLife.

Ryen, if you know of something more impressive, please let us know!

Congratulations to Pirate, Mark & crew, you certainly are a milestone in SL history.

Project Unreal

Regarding mark, I cant speak for him, but he is already working on tartarus once unreal is done.

Cool.. what's the coordinates to Project Unreal. I want to try it out like I did the DarkLife beta.

Can't seem to find it with the Find button. What should I search under?

I think DarkLife is really fun, for the couple hours I've played so far (I'm at level 4).

Tetris is great.

There are numerous others not listed here, like Green Fate's Space Rocks game (like Asteroids but in 3D).

And I can't wait for the SLUnreal project to open - such amazing scenery and weapons.

If you have been with SL for a while - think for a moment about how fast these games are evolving! I think we are going to get to professional quality (in terms of tools and SL features) as fast as we can, but the work done so far is amazing.

Philip, IM me with the location of these games and I will play them as well as review them.

Blaze, it should open in a week or two. I am in the beta and it is amazing.

Philip, I would also apperciate if you could give me the status on my proposal, it has been keeping me worried (as they say, waiting is the hardest part, especially when the answer isnt set in stone).

Ryen,

How about Space Rocks of Doom, how about Discs of Tron, how about the Bejeweled clone Dan Linden (wasn't it Dan?) has in the welcome area, how about every single slot machine that still has bits and pieces of Philips original Fairytale castle slot machine in it?
There are tons of other games to add to your review.

I've been playing Dark Life since it's inception in Darkwood. I have very little experience with most true MMOGs other than a week or so using a buddy's SW:G character (talk about old, over-used textures... some of the ones from Galaxies are coming up on 20yrs old.) but I do have have plenty of FPS experience... from before the term First Person Shooter was used in fact. And every single game builder has used the technique of re-using texures, sounds, everything they can to save install disc space, memory, load-time, etc. If you want to go back farther how about being so droll as to use the letter 'D' for every single possible type of Ancient Dragon? <Dripping Sarcasm>The HORRORS!</Dripping Sarcasm> (how many hours/days/weeks have people wasted on Moria/Angband/Nethack?)

I feel that you're bashing more than reviewing. Two barely fits the definition of 'Multiple' and where are all the screen caps for Tartarus or Project Unreal? We've all experienced vaporware and by just being here we've all experienced the growing pains of a beta universe. Dark Life isn't vaporware and it's now on rev 2.0. The core designers are builders and scripters... If I were a texturer myself I'd gladly give them every extra second I have for custom textures. As it is they're making very good use of what's already available, and keeping lag down as much as possible.

I'm glad Mark has a more even temper than I do. But then he's already reaping the rewards of his work by the dwell of those of us who pay and play DL already.


L8r,
UU

Pics of project unreal can be found on the main second life site. Tartarus has yet to (re)start development. As for the rest of your reply I will be ignoring it, since it may start a flame war.

I love what Pirate & Mark have done for DL. I havent had the chance to really play it, but i have been there on tours with Pirate & Mark, and played beta one time. I won't take anything away from them. I know everyone over at DL has work hard including Mark. Also Mark.. Thats not a bad idea. Since all the projects Bedazzle do are Temp projects, one thing me and Jimmy decided to do was to auction off builds. We would like to see some of the stuff we use in our projects find a new home after we are finish with our projects.

Blaze:
> I think criticizing Darklife is the same thing as criticizing SecondLife.

AP:
> The limits of LSL prohibit too much in the lines of in depth development

As a personal tech demo, DarkLife is very cool; but Ryen was reviewing these from the point of view of "Would I actually choose to spend time playing this?".

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AP:
> It is prolly a bit unfair to compare DarkLife to Everquest or Everquest2. Sony, after all, has teams of artists, coders and a very larger budget. In addition, the development tools Sony has at their disposal are not even in the same league as LSL.

Blaze:
> Ryen, if you know of something more impressive, please let us know!

Check this out:

http://www.planeshift.it/

OpenSource, decent community, looking extremely awesome.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Azelda

Yes, I did misunderstand. I suppose I should practice my "full post reading and comprehension skills"

Apologies ...

-AP

YES YES YES OMG I'M SOOO EXCITED

These are thrilling "games within a game+"... and to see it, even at this relatively "early" stage (in the long-term view of things), is to witness brave pioneers duke it out in action -- both literally and figuratively, and beyond!

I'm excited about Unreal SL for one... can't wait to frag! I'm not generally interested in FPS or most "computer games", but eh, since this is Second Life... it could... it should... it would happen.

*smiles softly*

Hey, Ryen... I don't have any record of you ever playing Deus Via, in Celadon.

(I've also added a version of MasterMind in the center of the same sim. It was a 3-hour job, so forgive the clumsiness of the interface. I'll get around to cleaning it up as soon as I can.)

Although I didn't like this review at first... it's been changed a bit and now it better reflects the real darklife and indeed you have some good points... the potions that take effect after dying is indeed a bug that no-one told me about (goddamn ryan why don't you IM me with that bug ) and some people die because of lag... but the new version is almost done and will come next week and promisses a LOT less lag.
and for the potions that will be fixed too!
And I will use another (more smarter) algoritm for losing EXP if you die. now you loose always 1/3 of your gained exp for current level with the minimum of what you have for current level.
But if you loose 1/3 on level 1 it doesn't matter... if you loose 1/3 on level 20 you're screwed. So I will make it better... high level will loose much less EXP. Still more then low level ofcourse but not so much you loose 10 hours of playing
next week people and when the new version is done and implemented there will be 10 new monsters (well not at once but I have 10 design.. probably on or 2 each day) and lots of new weapons/armor and magic.

Hi all

Ryen, good review! I would like to see more game reviews, why not head to blogger and set up a blog to do reviews of SL content? I have been thinking of it myself but am quite busy.

I think your review is fair. Mark and I really got into making this back in the days of Coney and luna when we thought "hey, this game stuff is fun!" and figured an MMORPG style game would keep people entertained for hours.

Right now DL is in what I call 'pre release'. It's not 100% there yet but it's pretty close and anyone can turn up and play for a while and have fun. In the new year we will launch and the zone will be populated with monsters, shops will be full, people will be renting houses and events will happen. And we have a surprise as well

meanwhile, if you haven't tried it, head over to Navora and join us! There are even guilds of players to get involved with!

And like Mark said, I also hope DL shows people what can be done and we see more interesting and involved projects, the bedazzled team have my complete awe, btw!

As for textures. Yeah, I suck at texturing ..anyone want to do a better job? I will pay! Said that a few times.. but it's hard to get skilled people, they're always so busy