Second Life developer releasing four games in the next month
Express your creativity with Patterns, Creatorverse, Versu and Dio.
Second Life developer Linden Lab has announced it's releasing a whopping four games in the next month.
The first, Patterns, is already out in a pre-alpha "Genesis" form. We've written about Patterns before, but the gist is that it's a world-building game similar to Minecraft, only with real-world physics and the ability to create your own shapes. It's a bit like Minecraft mixed with Spore then, which should come as no surprise as Linden Lab CEO Rod Humble previously worked on Wil Wright's ambitious creature sim.
Patterns' Genesis release is currently available from Linden Lab for $9.95, half off the regular price for a limited time. As was the case with Minecraft, an official Patterns 1.0 release is expected in about a year Humble told Giant Bomb.
Next up is Creatorverse, an iPad 2D sandbox game where people can draw shapes and bring them to life with physics. Its open-ended nature can be used to create puzzles games, pinball machines, mazes or simply interactive art. User creations can then be uploaded into the cloud where they can be played and edited by others, sort of like a low-rent, high-concept LittleBigPlanet. Check it out in the trailer below.
PC and Mac versions of Creatorverse are in the works as well.
Looking ahead, Linden Lab is working on Versu, a procedurally generated storytelling game from interactive fiction author Emily Short and The Sims 3 AI designer Richard Evans. It asks players to assign characters a set of motivations, then the story will play out based on your input. Versu's first release will be tailored towards murder mystery and romance stories.
Finally, Dio is described as a "room creator," whatever that means, but apparently it can be used to construct choose-your-own adventure stories, interactive wedding albums and a guide to one's horse stables. Yes, someone actually made that. Wild!