New World Notes

Let us Know: What's on the Top of Your Wishlist for the Steam Summer Sale?

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

The Steam Summer Sale, one of the most hyped and celebrated sales events in gaming, is finally in full swing on the popular digital distribution platform. Between the daily deals, flash sales, community's choice picks and all-over discounts, it's a pretty good time of year to thin down your wishlist and snap up a few titles to keep you busy this summer. Even if you don't have your eye on anything in particular, today's deals are all pretty juicy. For example, RPG Maker VX Ace is a great purchase if you've ever wanted to make your own RPG, while Game Dev Tycoon is a good choice if you'd rather just play a game about making your own RPG instead.

So what's at the top of your wishlist for the Steam Summer Sale? A darling indie you're curious to try? A big-budget triple-A title that you've been itching to play since it came out? Even if you don't get what you want from the sale, there's a chance you won't leave empty-handed. Share what game(s) you've got your eye on in the comments below before the end of the sale (June 30th) and I'll randomly draw one lucky commenter to receive a shiny new gift copy of Tomb Raider (yes, the 2013 one) via Steam. Just be sure that the email you use to post your comment works or else, well, it won't!

Read it This Weekend: Eurogamer's Tom Bramwell's Admission That He is Sexist is Incredibly Relatable

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

It's tempting to let this piece from Tom Bramwell, editor over on Eurogamer, speak for itself without framing it too much -- but maybe it doesn't even need that much framing, because the experience Bramwell's writing about is a very relatable one. 

A lot of us at one point or another in our lives have stopped and realized something we were doing, a behavior or a perspective taken for granted in our routine, is actually completely wrong. Not just wrong, but potentially harmful. It's almost certainy not something started out of malice, but rather something that made perfect sense to us until that moment when it quite abruptly didn't.

That's a truth Bramwell gets at in his piece, referring specifically to those infuriating comments that trail along after any peice even briefly mentioning sexism (or racism) in gaming:

SL Developers: A Fundraiser to Benefit RL Cancer Research

SL hair creators: Help raise funds for Wigs for Kids by creating special bandanas which will be sold at the Hair Fair, with all proceeds converted into real dollars to benefit the non-profit which provides hair replacement for children undergoing chemotherapy and other hair loss-related diseases. You get a free kit from  CharitySasy String (who should IM), and can create a customized bandana by June 30. Go here for all the information.

SL11B Surprise Coming This Sunday - Stay Tuned Here

Second Life's official 11th anniversary is upon us, and this Sunday, I'll announce a nice little surprise to help celebrate it. Check back here then, and meantime, be sure to check out the community site for SL11B (where this logo originates).

What's at the Root of Racism and Sexism in Minecraft Communities?

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

This week Christopher Long posted an interesting article over on Medium about the experience he went through with his daughter. She went from playing Minecraft Pocket Edition on her iPod to dipping her toes into PC multiplayer servers, and parental conversations about online safety and discretion turned to conversations about racism and misogyny as she engaged with other players who had less than appropriate things to say about the girly, dark-skinned avatar she'd chosen for herself.

These moments are now part of coming of age in a plugged-in world, but I doubt that their experiences will take many Minecraft fans in particular by surprise. Here's why:

Makies Virtual Fashion Game Launches: Custom-Create Styles, Eventually Turn Them Into Real Clothes

Makies FabLab is a free new app for iOS 7, a game extension to Makies, the customizable avatars that become 3D printed dolls (which we've blogged about many times before), which turns user-made fashion design into a kind of social game:

Grow materials with cute plants and pets, make Makie doll clothes and accessories using adorable machines, and decorate your fashion with patterns you create yourself. Take fabulous photos in your Photo Booth and add them to the Look Book, where others can fave your fashion.

Unlike other fashion-type social games, however, this game rewards actual user creativity and commitment:

"We always envisioned Makies living in a game world," Makies CEO lead developer (and longtime pal) Alice Taylor explains to me, "and Makies FabLab is the first instance of what we want to see expanding over a time: a creative space where 'dress up; becomes an actual skill, and where digital fashion becomes a proper case of self-expression."

The game's lead designer, Sulka Haro (who was also lead designer of Habbo Hotel), cleverly combined the game's fashion creation and dress-up aspects with a resource management mechanic. Even more cool than that, players can make their Makies doll fashion real:

Can Virtual Reality Really Work With a Fully-Embodied Avatar? (Hint: Probably Not)

A recent post in Gamasutra, "Letting go of the avatar" got me thinking about my experiences at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality conference from last month, which left me in an excited but decidedly ambivalent state:

When the player moves, she expects an immediate and precise feedback to that movement, a subconscious association created out of many years of continuous experience in the real world. If our game fails to deliver on that, it will break the illusion of presence, the feeling that the body and avatar are one and the same, and might even cause physical discomfort in some of our players. I'd argue that, as designers, we need to learn to let go of the player's avatar. In VR, avatars act more as visitors in our virtual world than as part of it, and we should consider them as interfaces with the player's body. As technology improves, these interfaces will need to become thinner and thinner.

This sounds right to my own experiences in VR -- using the Oculus Rift headgear is pretty immersive, but when I try to also use hand controllers or a body suit, that sense of immersion starts breaking down. (What's the point of a hand controller, for instance, if you can't also control your fingers?) Simulating sight is difficult enough, and we're only getting close to success there -- simulating our limbic system and how it interacts with the rest of our physical body is probably going to be as difficult, if not more so, and we're just getting started. (And that's not even talking about the economic feasibility of mass marketing full-body periperhals in the first place, let alone the physical feasability of waving one's arms and legs around for extended periods of time.)

This realization leads me to a fairly confident conclusion:

Iris Wants to Know: What's Your Most Hated Virtual Fashion Faux Pas?

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

We've all got at least one. One little virtual fashion/avatar customization pet peeve that gnaws at us when we see it in the wild. Maybe it's feet that aren't tinted to match the avatar's skin properly, maybe it's poorly fitted clothes cutting into the body, maybe it's even something as broad as flexi-prims or sculpties... But which ones are the worst?

Happy Birthday, Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins: One of the Smartest, Most Talented & Dedicated Bloggers I Know

Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins celebrates her birthday today, and I hope everyone who reads this blog who's enjoyed her posts from over the last 8 (eight!) years offers her a happy one. (In Comments below, or via her Twitter account.) Everyday I'm grateful to know Janine, incredibly talented, devoted, and knowledgeable, one of the smartest people I know writing about games and virtual worlds, especially those with an indie edge. The masthead for this blog only mentions my name, but Janine is just as key to this blog's success over so many years. Her work has been featured in Kotaku and Jezebel, she's been featured in The New York Times, and as I keep telling her, she's just getting started.

Watching the World Cup? You Won't Want to Miss This Second Life Machinima Music Video

 
Janine "Iris Ophelia" Hawkins' ongoing review of gaming and virtual world style

Japanese machinima maker Ume Sib has developed a following for his fun and irreverent Second Life music videos. They tend to feature casts of unique characters, vibrant colors, inspiring set designs, and some very interesting choreography and camera work.

His latest video is a celebration of the 2014 Wold Cup currently taking place in Brazil, and it's a pretty good example of why his videos are so popular. It's bright, it's funny, and it's a solid demonstratio of SL in action. That said, it's nowhere near as charming as his second most recent video, "Dance", which features a ridiculously adorable virtual couple and outfit notes for any fashion-minded viewers hoping to recreate the avatar looks shown for themselves.

Watch more of Ume Sib's Second Life music videos on his Youtube channel, or follow him over on Facebook.