Someday this will be the guidebook page about the 12 (15?) Parks that sit between the various
Warps. For now, it's a discussion and development page.
For a long time, I was determined that there should not be any more major public infrastructural building until all the other public areas were getting used on a regular basis. It occurs to me now that that was silly. What I didn't want was all the "padding" that exists on other MUCKs, relatively nondescript street corners that exist only to put a (phooey!) realistic sense of space in-between buildings. Such areas were almost entirely neglected, since teleport commands were ubiquitous, and besides, I wanted to get away from that sort of bland mimesis of contemporary reality in the Mess. Yes, they could be nice for a wander, but... well, anyway.
Now, I've realized it's not the amount of space that's important -- it's the character of that space. The Parks are intended to be very vivid and evocative, probably moreso than, I dunno, the "corner of Ermine and Wildebeest" over there on ElseMUCK. The Parks are intended to inspire people, so it doesn't matter if they often, even usually, go unused. As long as they're just the right place for some people to be now and then, and are favorite hangouts of a small core of people, even just a player or two, Parks are worth having.
So I'm bumping park @descing and building way up in the To-Do list, hoping to get 'em up before the (fabled) Grand Opening. Remember -- though this is up for discussion, player-mass-veto, and debate -- my inclination right now is to have the Parks each be "one concept big." In other words, their @descs will not imply that they are the size of an entire large city borough or neighborhood, like the six Warps. They will instead each be about the size of one smallish city park, big enough to contain one, maybe two large attractions -- a sculpture, perhaps, or an art installation, a stage, a carnival ride, a pseudo-historical marker, a garden -- and enough room (plus benches, snack stands, and so forth) to comfortable support and entertain a gathered crowd. Think of them as tourist traps for the transhumane. :)
Below are my basic starting ideas. Some Feel free to elaborate upon or modify them, add new ones, swap or copy them from Warp to Warp, leave commentary or criticism -- just consider not removing any other people's ideas! I know I've forgotten lots of other people's excellent Park ideas, so PLEASE add those back here for my reference!
There are also interesting ideas on the [LJ thread] for this subject.
- -perhaps some kind of educational toy, a collaborate poetry or puzzle game?
- Maybe some inspiration from Cut-Up theory, or NLP, some rationalist-mystic mind development tool... intended to work on players as well?
- -a games library inspired by the [Exploratorium].
- -An enclosed space with a museum- or gallery-like quality. A long, narrow hallway with dioramas (or the games) along one of its long sides. The side opposite would consist of an enormous, perpetually-moving clockwork machine that performs some endless task such as calculating the value of pi or recording the age of the universe in microseconds.
- -a gigantic trip toy of some sort, e.g. a lavalamp or loving, eroticized parody of the Cube Tree as a [giant lite chaser]?
- -Amsterdam run by the Swiss (to paraphrase Peter Ustinov)? Where all the upstanding citizens from Up go on the sly for a bit of recreation. ("Do you know how many of these I've fitted onto other Gamma-104s? You civil servants!")
- -Park is an enormous heart. No blood, but the walls pulse and contract with a constant double-beat. The heartbeat is slow, steady, and rhythmic toward Up, growing faster and more arhythmic as one approaches Bottom. Chambers closer to Up grow more "artificial" in appearance; toward Bottom, more organic.
- -a giant, pulsing brain, inspired by the one that ruled [Camazotz] in A Wrinkle In Time
- -That feels perfect. (Brings to mind old Dreamcast commercial, frantic whisper 'IT'S THINKING....') -Coal
- Brain in dry fountain in dead public park; silvery pipes coming from brain heading in all directions, orderly toward Up, messy toward Strange. Brain spouts randomised pseudoscience with lots of CAPITAL LETTERS for EMPHASIS. :) Pity random-noises.muf seemingly can't run MPI scripts (unless some daredevil MUF coder wants to hack at it) -Dr Talib Litston
- Dr Talib Litston's prototype Upstrange
- -The House That Escher Built. Collection of Neoclassical buildings with warped geometry: two-dimensional bases supporting three-dimensional buildings, stairways that circle back on themselves. Maybe some elements inspired by the Winchester house, too. Windows in the floor, stairs leading nowhere, doors on the third floor that open into thin air.
- The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, Anyone? Silverblue
- -some sort of arcade, perhaps with a virtual reality "room" where everyone & everything resembles an 8-bit platform game
- -...Video game? Blippy and bright. Children's shows from public television. There should be Sprite vending machines everywhere...
- -For some reason, I just think of boy bands and idol singers. Manufactured cuteness. Scripted spontaneity. Perhaps the entire park is an enormous stage, complete with curtain and the phantasmal suggestion of an audience observing from somewhere beyond (where you can't see because of all the bright lights shining down on you)?
- -something steampunky, maybe with a Babbage engine, or modeled after that [Flash thing] where you dial three-digit phone numbers and go into strange, noirish puzzleworlds? (site is currently down)
- The steampunk thing strikes me as more Uptop, probably 'cause I've been re-reading The Difference Engine. --A
- -Chernobyl diary. "Involuntary Parks" (Sterling). The Galleria. Piranesi. (Could have classical overtones, even.)
- (XOR initially suggested the Galleria could belong in Downtop - and I'm starting to think it'd be perfect there. The mountain is interesting as a sort of geographic non sequitur, but something strikes me as not quite right.)
- -overgrown, abandoned palaces and cities (Elysium or the Neke-Ovon without the return of their respective builders)
- Underground park? Former subway station or underground concourse with huge tree roots busting in through the ceiling?
- -A cyclotron forest inside a concrete jungle of iron-sap magnetic trees, pushing em-fields in a vortex to support a great tree in the center of the park made of frozen lightning. Perhaps frozen clouds and several varieties of biomechanioid plant life. (One species inspired by the [Finder] series--television kudzu.) --Coalesce
- Park or not, I think this must be built.
- -An area like an old movie: everything is black and white, movements jerk, things (and people) jump from place to place. "Reality's" colors and framerate have degraded and devolved, you see...
- An idea from during the meeting: Crumbling block of stores overgrown with [nothing but flowers]. Some abandoned store is a SUPAR SECKRIT meeting place for the Szjna-Cyvani; don't try to find it; if you're 'lucky', they'll find you. ;) -Dr Talib Litston
- -a giant vending machine that dispenses sentient, happy, yielding, and dispensible android feline sextoys
- (it's not as bad as it sounds -- chips in their heads store their personalities when they run out of power, and are recycled, putting them into a blissy digital nirvana while they're waiting...)
- -an atavism-inducing clone of the Cube Tree made out to look like a giant scratching post
- -some sort of gladiatorial arena, where all participants are fully aware nothing they do is "for keeps"
- maybe some Rollerball or Running Man inspiration on this one - something creatively cyberpunk and cynical
- Sounds similar to the Tude. Ooh. Could two warps (these or another pair) meet at the top of a building? Or somewhere inside, where the elevator suddenly starts going sideways? (Non-vertical elevators were a recurring motif in my dreams when I was younger.) --A
- On the side. Maybe gravity's crazy, maybe not and you have to cling precariously to the rusting, rotting metal and stone. (ala Jeter's Farewell Horizontal) -- T.
- Eeee! Two steps this way and you're in one warp, but walk across the boundary line and suddenly up is sideways. YES
- Other possibilities of note were back from when Buck was building in Down. He had ideas for joining Down and Strange under the river through a network of abandoned subway tunnels. I also like the idea of a ruined underground parking structure, perhaps halfway Strange-infected. (Oooh, Strangecars). This could work for another Down park as well. -Coalesce
- -A secret clubhouse in an abandoned skyscraper, converted into hideout for a bunch of neotenic, futuristic glitterpunks who have adopted the "adolescent lifestyle" for good
- How about slightly more organic? Think the Lost Boys' treehouse after having cable and Ethernet installed. Big old hollow tree whose branches are festooned with cables instead of leaves. Surround sound speakers built into the roots. That sort of thing.
- -a cathedral built entirely from sentient beings in heavy rubber-tube-and-cable bondage (a la Michael Manning), including the accompanying giant pipe organ and garden installations outside
- Mmmm.
- -The lost headquarters of the Strange Medical Corps. -Coal.
- And the canals are supposed to run from one to the other, too...
- -An old-fashioned circus freakshow. But which side of the bars are you on? For more fun, sprinkle liberally with funhouse mirrors.
- -maybe some kind of petting zoo?
- -I keep thinking of the string quartet from Pepperland. Hookahs and mushrooms - pastoral and psychedelic (that was the picture I had in mind when I did the musicmix, anyway...)
- Oooh, wonderland. Though the Rabbit Hole would be more fitting in Bottom. :-} -Coal.
- -a fin du siècle carnival, with amusement rides, a house of mirrors, a penny arcade, and other attractions
- A maypole somehow seems appropriate.
- [The Big Rock Candy Mountain] -Talib
- -an Easter egg hunt.
- -a huge puddle of the drug "Merge," perhaps with some filters to prevent (or subvert) viral contamination
- I was thinking of this one as sort of a public service for travelers to and from Strange via Bottom -- a safe place to play, even for the infected, without fear of getting contaminated; not sure how this would work with the premises of the Strangevirus, though...
- -[Videodrome]
- -a giant waterpark, with rainbow-colored dyes instead of actual water; perhaps much of it is actually underwater, and breathing appartus (or some magic-feather solution like "oxygen pills") is available?
- Perhaps the liquid itself is breathable (for those that need to breathe)
- Option for visitors to grow temporary fish-enhancements (gills, fins, big pretty fishtails, bright pretty colors, oo ah)
- -divine Sphinx jukebox (see [here], entry #4)
- Perhaps the water is above and the air below? Another playing-with-gravity idea, I know. Maybe it could be a running theme, though. :D
- Like the water in Riven! We need more head-hurty gravity-odd rooms! :-}