Roots

When I arrived in SL, January 2007, I was determined to survive without putting RL money into SL, but have it come out.  I poked around and found a lame camp spot and earned L$6 in an hour.  Ick.  I promptly lost that in a slot machine.  I camped a little more at Parrothead Games and tried playing arcade games and met with success. 

However, I got frustrated with the state of games and their poor performance and tried making my own.  Thus Zyngo was born.  I hung out in Cyldane in a quiet corner scripting.  I had the company of Cat Slade who was building her own things.  My friend Cindi Sellers led me to Dreams Come True where I set up a test game.  The Sim owner, Beccaboo Aero loved to play it (and plays to this day) and helped me finish it off.  Cyldane owner, Hannibal Kennedy, rented me game space and gave me german translations for the game. 

I showed the game to a few people without vision, but then I showed it to Athena Sterling who promptly cleared a spot at Solo Junkies Skybox for me to do final testing.  Everything changed then.  The last bugs were worked out, and Zyngo went up for sale.

Party

From late February 2007 to August, SL was heaven. Games were sold, people had fun.  Lamorna Proctor and I started getting better acquainted at this time and began a friendship that turned into a business partnership. 

Then I added Quince and Shrooms to the arcade selection.  I decided to try my hand at gambling equipment (my other games were all skill games).  I made 3 Keno games of different sizes.  The hour I released my Keno games came the gambling ban. I immediately removed them from sale.  I read the TOS and knew my other games were OK.

Depression

August and September of 2007 were bleak months.  There was a lot of confusion over the meaning of the gambling policy, some of it in LL..  Games got returned, people got frustrated.  I politely tried to convey what I knew and tested with my games that they were within Linden policy.  In the middle of all this, just to do something, I made Pipz.

Rennaisance

Suddenly, in October, all things changed.  The Linden lawyers looked again at Zyngo and approved it.  Quince, too.  Shrooms was already OK.  Syzygy got an easy OK, as did Pipz.  Now things are mostly back to normal.  The arcades with skill games have replaced the old-school casinos.  I'm glad I'm in the middle of it all.

Favorite Games

I get asked this a lot.  it's really hard to say.  Zyngo probably takes the least amount of brainpower.  It's great for when I'm tired and want something to toy with in SL.  Quince is a little more challenging, so I like that when I'd like more of a challenge.  I play Shrooms when I want to feel like I'm playing a regular video game and when I need a laugh.  I love Syzygy, but I've already been so outclassed by my own players, I kinda gave up.  Pipz is probably my favorite, though.  Just about the right level of challenge for me, it's fully 3D with real moving parts, and I think the design is fun.

Frankly, it's still hard to say.  Scripting is really my favorite game.  :-)  But outside that, mood changes my favorite.