Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Reader Submitted: A Visit to MadPea

For the founder of Madpea Productions, Kiana Writer, for sponsoring their gridwide Hunt.

It all started by rezzing a funny MadPea on our island to gain more traffic. But it was not the traffic that reached my av's heart, it was the way the Team of MadPea created the identity of a sim stuffed with interactive games and so much more besides that! Officially they are called Madpea Productions. That promises a lot more than only interactive in-world games and so they do offer more!

After hiding our MadPea, I received the group chat of all hunters, finding a really relaxed group of members just hunting and having fun finding all Peas hidden grid-wide. Even a ranking online to see how they all found the Mad green little creatures.

By their website, I found interesting products for business owners. Not the main-business for MadPea Productions, but if you offer Second Life residents so much advanced and fun interactive games for free, you need some sponsoring and that's where it all began for me.I embraced their AdNet Advertisement system and all group-chats made me very curious about those games.

As a creator, I almost never go out or explore Second Life. Gaming is abracadabra to me, but the perfect information on their website was attracting me like a bee to honey. I found a spare moment to TP myself and give me the opportunity to focus on one of their games. So difficult to chose.

So late at night I walked to a library high on a mountain and clicked a book called 'Book of Spells'. I'd seen this word in the group chats, used by gamers for helping gamers and hunters. The book is the HUD itself and to wear that was an easy task. To find the Ring to work with was easy too, I saw that laying and glittering in a corner of my eyes a minute before. Then I got the first spell and got stuck immediately!! What can I do with only a spell, when I've nothing else then a ring who doesn't respond to me typing the spell itself in local chat?? I tried to click several things, but i really needed to do the first step first to get any closer to all the other spells I was looking forward to work out.

The day after, Sweetdevil of Madpea's recommended me to start with Kaaos Effect game. So after I landed on their main TP point, Madpea Circus, I could start right away after I took a look at the good information given out.

As a real game-dummy, I clicked several times on the wrong objects, forming the little hand in the hope it should start working. But wearing and using a HUD is new to me, besides the AO-huds I've used several times. (Still walking like a duck after 3.5 years, but less lag!)But with the patience I have, endless it is, I tried several times, getting the HUD three times too. So while smiling to myself, my screen changed and I got the green text with the first explanation and I read and waited. I ended up in a room of a German U-Boot (Submarine). I needed to find items to open a Submarine shutter. In the rooms behind it several hints could be found. But for me it was looking for an unidentified object. I really didn't know what i was looking for. But it must be crucial to find my way out of here and send out coordinates to find the next location to finish this game...

Yeah, I got out, found the right keyword and being proud of myself I ended up in the next room. My HUD shows a lot of red smileys, one, only one, has changed into a green smiley... oh my, need to do a lot of these little adventures on my own to work this out!!

And this is only one single game of so many they offer.

The 3rd day I pick up my HUD and re-enter the game where I left it. Finding missing letters of a typewriter in an old office of a newspaper, flashing back to 1930s. The scenes are absolutely stunning, great sense for details, beautifully textured, everything works. But still I feel myself a gaming-dummy. Sweetdevil had told me it would take me about 2 hours to do this game. Well the first 3 rooms took me much more then 2 hours. It kept being exciting, challenging and still fun to work out.

My work called me home, out of the game. But I returned to Madpea as soon as I could. To try a more simple game that would not take this much time. The 'Escape from the 70's Room' looked nice. But once inside, the door will be closed and stay closed till you did all things necessary to get out again. Again I spend a full hour in the room, someone is waiting outdoors to enter too, but only one can play this funny game at the time. I gave up on a last detail I couldn't get done.

Next to these great interactive in-world games they offer more. I visited their website with the forum. To join the Madpea Community. To ask anything you like about their products, talk with other hunters about the July's Duck Hunt, give comments or ask the crew a question. During most games you can earn Madpoints. The Madpoints can be used to buy products made by Madpea, to get in-world objects or to get discounts and enter games. Most games are for free, I saw mini-games for only 5 lindens to enter. So even newbies or low-budget avatars can enter and have fun! They are hidden all over Madpea Island.

And that's only about the games they offer! haven't even spoken about all other products like AdNet, a smooth running advertisement system, paid once, rezzed all over the grid for ever. Or Tradeware. A kind of webshop with the service to use their server or hosted by Tradeware and using your own to sell SL-files outside SecondLife. They are working on new features, but for me, as a hard working creator, the games are just the way to escape from work a creative and fun way. To relax and explore, learn something new and meet new people.

The website to Madpea is at http://madpeagames.com/nhome/ .

“An Anonymous Blonde”

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ADDITION: In August, the following Youtube about Madpea appeared on the Second Life website.

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