After much anticipation, video tutorial series, guest blog posts and a global SDK bootcamp, the 2019 Decentraland Game Jam has finally kicked off. Over 2000 digital creators are currently flooding into the Metaverse for two weeks (Sept 16–30) of intense creative development and collaboration, competing for over $250k USD in prizes. Their efforts will form a lasting contribution to the evolution of Decentraland.
First Place: 350,000 MANA (worth approximately US$21,000 at current exchange rates), plus LAND (Decentraland’s virtual land parcels)
Second Place: 200,000 MANA (worth US$12,000), plus LAND
Third Place: 100,000 MANA (worth US$6,000), plus LAND
4th through 10th Place: 50,000 MANA each (worth US$3,000), plus LAND
11th through 20th Place: 25,000 MANA each (worth US$1,500), plus LAND
Every qualifying scene wins 1,000 MANA each (approx. US$60), plus LAND
Please note that prizes above 50,000 MANA are subject to an irrevocable six-month vesting schedule (in other words, you have to wait 6 months before withdrawing the money).
So, what are you waiting for? Register today and get cracking!
Everybody has days when they feel worried, upset, sad, or anxious. Talking to someone like a trusted friend or a therapist can help a lot by giving you some perspective on your problems. But sometimes you need to talk to someone and there’s no one around to listen to you.
When you absolutely need someone to talk to online, one of the best places to go is The Kind Voice subReddit and Discord channel, both of which are staffed by volunteers:
“Sometimes we need to hear a human voice on the other end of the line telling us that everything’s going to be ok. This subreddit is for people that aren’t in a suicidal crisis, but feel depressed, alone, or want someone to talk to.”
A similar service is called The Haven, another Discord channel for people who need someone to talk to. Both Kind Voice and The Haven are free, volunteer-run services, and I can recommend them without hesitation.
Kind Words is a peculiar game about writing nice letters to real strangers while listening to chill music. There’s no pressure, tension or objectives—you just relax in your cozy bedroom, scribbling away. It’s incredibly sweet, with a surreal but reassuring atmosphere. A deer delivers your mail! I love it.
If you’re tense or upset and don’t feel like you can share your worries with people you know, you can jot things down in Kind Words and send your letter out into the community, at which point they go into the request queue and people can respond with words of encouragement.
Alternatively, you can also fire off a paper airplane, which can be sent to individuals or to the community in general. If you’ve just got good vibes to share or you want to thank someone for helping you, just launch one of them out of your window.
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Sometimes it’s just nice to have people rooting for you, even if they’re invisible strangers in a game. And despite the potential for abuse, the community seems to be overwhelmingly lovely and sincere. It only launched yesterday, but prior to that there were still thousands of people writing letters to each other, and so far there don’t appear to have been problems.
There is a report feature, too, which sends the letter to the developer and removes it from your list. It might need to be used more now that it’s officially released, but hopefully not.
To test out the system, I posted a short note about something that I was worried about, and within 20 minutes I received no less than ten supportive letters from anonymous strangers, offering encouragement and suggesting solutions and different ways of looking at my particular issue. It was immensely heartwarming!
And in turn, I wrote a note of reassurance and encouragement to someone who was feeling lonely and disheartened about his situation. Everything you send out is only signed with your first initial. All communication is strictly anonymous, and Kind Words sets out some good privacy and safety ground rules (such as not sharing links to your personal social media), as well as links to mental health resources.
Kind Words is a brilliant example of how you can change the world in a small, positive way through your actions. It’s a wonderful program and I wish the developers, Pop Cannibal, every success in this endeavour.
Kaithleen’s is a store with a wonderful selection of women’s clothing—everything from formal ballgowns to sexy lingerie! If you join the Kaithleen’s group for just L$5, you can pick up nine free gifts from the group gift wall:
Here Vanity Fair is wearing two of the group gits: a metal-trimmed minidress that comes in black or pink (with a HUD to change the metal to one of seven different colours), plus the updated version of Kaithleen’s universal thong underneath (which also comes with a HUD with 17 different colours). The thong comes in versions to fit the Maitreya Lara, Belleza (Venus, Isis, and Freya), Slink (Physique and Hourglass), eBody Curvy, and the new TMP Legacy mesh avatar bodies.
But there’s also a hunt going on until Sept. 30th! Search for rotating golden coins hidden throughout the Kaithleen’s mainstore and you can snap up some well-designed outfits for only L$10 each:
Let’s look at three of the hunt items. The Snow ballgown in midnight blue has some lovely attention to detail, with lacing up the back and metal eyelets, both of which you can recolour using the included HUD:
Back view of the Snow gown
Next up is the curve-hugging black Ava Chance catsuit (there’s a HUD to change the colour of the stripes and the straps):
Finally, we have the beautiful Cream Cake ballgown in white, absolutely perfect for your Second Life wedding or another formal occasion!
Atlas Hopping (the regular Saturday morning group tour of four or five Sansar worlds, led by Draxtor Despres and Solas NaGealai) has now been renamed World Hopping (since we no longer have an in-world Atlas, just the one on the Sansar website).
As a result, I will be creating a new category on this blog, Sansar World Hopping, for blogposts reporting on our weekly adventures. (I will keep Sansar Atlas Hopping as a category for older blogposts.)
Drax’s livestream of this week’s tour should be posted shortly to his YouTube channel, but here’s a video of last week’s episode, which unfortunately I had to miss:
Today, we had an epic crowd of avatars who met up at our standard starting point, the basement of 114 Harvest, who then went on to visit the following worlds:
Fire Goats Battle Ships by Fire Goat (an immersive version of the children’s game Battleship)
It was an adventure, especially trying to beat all five levels of Fire Goat’s Dungeon! Here are some more photos taken by Mijeka Munro (click on any picture to see it in full size; here is the full archive of photos):
The picture in the bottom left-hand corner of the photo mosaic is none other than the CEO of Linden Lab himself, Ebbe Altberg, who often joins us on Atlas/World Hopping events. He put together a very cool avatar look!
But the best part? Drax obviously bribed El Diablo to wear this signboard!
