- Sprite Gallery Show Spoiler
On the 13th expedition of the Fan Ages Touring Club, we visited Tikibear’s Ages. See Minasunda’s video!
Tikibear was present, undercover, but he totally did not deceive me, not even for a second
.Tikibear recently updated his Ages; if you haven’t visited them in a while, it’s definitely time for another visit. All three now incorporate CalumTraveler’s GoW fan Age seal. They could be categorised as ‘demos’, as one of Tikibear’s intents was to showcase features of PyPRP then, and Korman now (with some tweaks of his own); but do not underestimate them on this definition.
These Ages are a work in progress to this day, so when Tikibear will need more testing, I’m sure we will all be ready for a second visit!
Paper Pagodas was originally released on January 2009. Based on the Eames ‘House of Cards’, it consists of three pagodas surrounded by fog and water (and a lot of leaves). The update changed the original look (stone covered in ivy) to actual crinkled paper. A few spots on the pagodas levels trigger fixed camera views, a nice touch for group photos; a few allow for “dangling feet in the water”.
The Age is surrounded by a very tall wall, quite far from the pagodas. An easter egg or two for the explorers daring enough to swim all the way to the wall could be a neat idea.
Sprite Gallery was originally released on December 2008. The main area is a large concrete platform in the middle of, apparently, a desert. On the platform there are various items: lots of sofas (including a very comfy one), a bar, a horizontal imager, screens, and a circular building, which is actually a dance floor!
In the original version, the sky was a starry night, the textures were basic and there were less items to interact with. The update brought a drastic overhaul of the look of the Age, adding most of the details, objects and light effect that can be seen now. The dance floor has dynamic strobe lights; none of the surfaces are prerendered, and the decals are all dynamic.
There are semi-invisible (you can see them from the right angle) ramps around the platform, that eventually lead outside to the ‘desert’. Each screen shows an image from one of Tikibear’s Ages, two of which unreleased.
Next to the link-in point there is the fan Age seal; if you stand on it, a platform comes up from below the imager, but a fixed camera is also triggered for another nice group photo.
Duck Knee Skydiving Club was originally released on October 2008. The Age consists of two platforms, with a hole in the middle surrounded by a sort of energy field contained in a series of forks; each platform has a smaller platform below it, connected by a ladder. Jumping in the middle, with the right angle, should send you through both platforms and back to Relto.
To understand the name and intent of the Age, it should be noted that back in 2008 ‘skydiving’ had a meaning closer to actual skydiving: climbing on tall locations and jumping down together, trying to achieve the longest fall before panic-linking. To find new places to jump from, skydivers little by little learned to jump around invisible barriers.
By 2009–2010, the original meaning was completely overridden to mean ‘gitching’, run-jumping on colliders to cross them and land on areas not meant to be seen; a more appropriate term could be ‘parkour’ or ‘free-jumping’
. Since then, the original meaning has been forgotten by most members of the community.This Age is comparatively the less changed since its previous look: the forks are now rounder, the sky is clearer, and there is a city below the platforms! 26,400 ft down, according to aqua. Unfortunately, an exporting problem created an unintended upward current strong enough to lift people; it is an interesting added challenge, though
The GoW seal triggers a group photo camera spot in here too, this time from the perspective of a tethered yellow drone.
A Twitch stream will be available for the next two weeks.
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Next time (May 17 at 11:00 KIT), we will begin our two-part visit to the Geologica series by Ametist and Metabasalt, 10 educational Ages of varied complexity about Geology.
However, Doobes’ GoMe New Pub and Veelay Tsahvahn have just recently been released; if Chiso Preniv too will be released by next Sunday, we will do a Doobes special and continue our regular expeditions the following Sunday.
(Previous tour: the RAD & DAWN Ages)
