La Citysphère

I had seen some images of the Citysphère on a few blogs—Caitlin Tobais's for example—and kept thinking that I really needed to take a look. And you should, too—it's a fantastic creation that's guaranteed to put a smile on your face. This "little world," as its creators call it, was built by Freeloops Zanzibar, with Mr Slove Mode contributing the walking script, and with the participation of Gizmo tyrant, Loda Denfu, Coxigrue Borgin, Chikami Resident and Abracada Dreamscape. Suspended high in the air, this is a city that wraps around a globe, and one where orientation can be delightfully confusing.

Surely those of us in the Northern Hemisphere remember wondering, as children, why people in Australia and New Zealand didn't fall off the planet. Here you really would, so when you arrive the first thing to do is to click on the ground, then left-click on the red box that rezzes (so you sit on it), and then jump once (page up—although I'm not sure that really makes a difference). And now you won't fall off—your feet are glued to the surface. 15th century mariners would have appreciated it. As you walk about, going sideways and upside down, your camera will go all bonkers, and it's really not easy to tell where you are or where you've been (or even, sometimes, if your feet are up or not). If you slip into mouselook all of that disappears, and you can stroll about, but without the interesting perspective.

Via notecard, there's a windlight setting you can use—the appearance is that in the photo above, a sort of dark, dreamy blue. There are rudimentary furnishings in the buildings, although I don't think you can actually make use of any. And it can be very funny to try walking without use of the red cube, just to see how far you can push it before you really do fall off the edge of the world.