The Circular River Run, Game Demo

Another recurring theme is the circular river, actually a river that splits around a large rocky structure, and then flows into a quiet bay. On on side the river there is wide and shallow, surging with the tidal flow, a brackish mix of water that feeds lush marshy areas to either side. The other side is a wider deep cut along side the island that splits the river, the tide only rarely making headway. A flotilla of small sail boats carves up the wide slow current nearly year round. Swimmers can actually swim against the current with ease, often doing so to then ride down the wide shallow side of the river with the current and then across the bay side of the island, thus being able to make a full circuit of the "circular river."

In this dream I started out enjoying a sunny picnic along one of the grass covered levees, listening to a live band, and enjoying the sounds of conversation and laughter, the bright red, white and blue bunting snapping smartly in the wind, the flotilla of small sailboats in the background, weaving among themselves in the sheltered mouth of the bay and the wide stretch of river up stream. A woman in a wet suit caught my eye, and motioned for me to join her as she slipped down the slope of the levee into the slow moving river.

I suited up and when I put on my full face diving mask, I heard the girl talking over the headset. While she was talking to someone else, it was plain that she was making her location plain in her conversation. There was a set of caves under the island, sometimes open to the air, sometimes the entrance fully under water depending on the tide. At the moment they were well under water. I swam against the languid current up river past the tunnel like entrance and allowed myself to drift back along the water-worn shelf that led into the up river opening of the caves. Once inside, it was clear that the girl was in some sort of trouble, and didn't want to be there. I climbed out onto the ledge above where she and a much older, tougher looking fellow were conversing. He had some sort of motorized underwater drone, and was stuffing something into water tight bags tied to the device. The girls mask was off, but her microphone was still open, so I could hear their conversation.

I made a bunch of noise and started talking like a tourist guide. Webbed flippers slapping against the rock. I hear him fire up the motor as he abandoned his partner, who was obviously not ready to dive. She made noises like she wanted him to wait for her, but he told her she was on her own, he had what he wanted, and she'd better keep quiet if she knew what was good for her.

I came around the corner and she looked up at me, grateful for the interruption. I noticed that even soaking wet, the curls in her hair would not be denied, and the platinum sheen was not dulled for being wet at all. I also recognized the girl as a Middle School student who was frequently in my store. I helped her up the ledge to where I had come in and asked if she was up for a little more swimming. We ducked out the upstream entrance and swam up river to where she could meet up with her parents on their boat.

Once free of my charge, I swam across the lake and shot into the fast flowing current that ran along the other side of the island. I switched frequencies and made a couple of calls, working hard to make the upcoming meeting between criminal and police look like a coincidence.

The dream shifted and I was in my shop, demonstrating a new game. Players were able to fly freely about the space of the game, like swimming in the river, the controls were essentially a number pad and a mouse, the camera on the computer could also be used to track where a collector was looking and would move the world view around, it felt dreamily fluid, of course. Most of the players were using a pair of hand controls and a DDR pad, though, so there was lots of flailing around and activity on the demo floor. A good mix of kids and adults in their VR glasses, goggles and tablets.

in the game were lots of things to discover, and much of the game world was made of modifiable, scoopable and sculptable "materials." Collectors not only could collect tokens by digging, trapping, searching, tracking, playing, puzzling, unboxing, fighting and even constructing from collected resources in the demo, but could use the various tools and tokens created to shape their world. I showed how the players could witness the NPC world deployment team in action, and pointed out how they could, by paying careful attention, get a fairly good idea of where some of the rarest materials were deposited. We swooped down to the surface of the newest world, a swarm of players intent of finding the best loot. They began scooping and sculpting the landscape in search of goodies. I banked away from the collectors to show the procedure generated "sky mall" and the critters around it (Giant conifers and dinosaurs, in this instance.) This is where collectors would be able to upgrade/acquire or trade virtual items, and have a look at the Sponsor's real world products as well. I pointed out that aside from the name and logo, all of the real world shopping was strictly opt-in, and could actually be blocked by a parent or the player themselves if they didn't want to be tempted to spend real money. I pointed out the while the big public servers were all ad supported, it was meant to be subtle, and not interrupt game play.

Someone asked how long a person had to play to be able to move around like in the demo and I indicated that your first "flight suit" was available as soon as you finished the twenty minute tutorial, which you only ever had to do one time. You would also come out of the tutorial with a full basic set of tokens, and several useful patterns and plans to make or trade with others. The movement and transport items in the game were meant to be discovered and shared in order to allow players to move to the areas that interested them as quickly as possible. There were some secret areas, and places that might be difficult to get to, but they weren't needed to engage in any of the games competitive mini-games. Unless, of course, you considered being "first" a competitive mini-game.