Welcome to the World of Tomorrow
Design Document
Table of Contents
Core Statement.................................2
Feature Set......................................2
Design Constraints.............................2
Overview........................................3
Concept......................................3
Target Audience.............................3
Flow Summary..............................3
Look and Feel...............................3
Scope.........................................4
Gameplay........................................5
Progression..................................5
Structure.....................................5
Play Flow....................................5
Mechanics.......................................6
Physics.......................................6
Movement...................................6
Object Interaction..........................6
Actions.......................................7
Setting...........................................8
Back Story...................................8
Plot Elements...............................8
World.........................................8
Level One....................................8
Level Two....................................8
Level Three..................................9
Characters...................................9
Levels...........................................10
Park.........................................10
“Supernova” Club.........................11
Interface.......................................13
Technical Restraints..........................13
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Core Statement
This game is a tutorial exercise in the use of Second Life's client software, and in the expression of virtual
worlds culture as well as the sci-fi influenced, positive futurism of its host, Extropia. It plays as a point-
and-click adventure, meaning it urges players to collect information and items from the environment.
Feature Set
• Follow casually-delivered instructions which guide you to around the game's three unique learning
environments.
• Learn to engage with the world around you in a consequence-free environment, with playful tasks
as your tutorial.
• Collect rewards from tasks you've completed, to help found your second life when you're done.
• Share your experiences of the tutorial with fellow inductees as you embrace the culture of virtual
worlds and of Extropia.
• Go beyond the tutorial's learning with links to quality specialist programmes from around the Grid,
at home in Extropia and abroad.
Design Constraints
Measurements are given in Second Life's scale metrics.
• 2048 m2 (approx.) footprint, arranged as a three hexagon cluster (right)
• 937 prim (primitive shape) allowance in building materials
• Must be created in a sci-fi style to match its surroundings, e.g.
reminiscent of Star Wars' set design
• Ground level can be reached from the entire Eastern border and North-
Eastern corner, but is inaccessible from the South-West.
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Overview
Concept
Welcome to the World of Tomorrow (WWT) is a ludic (game-based) tutorial space, which guides its players
through a series of encounters similar to those they might have inside the Second Life world, and inside
Extropia as a sub-continent of the virtual world. Its theme matches Extropia's own, as the players or users
are invited into an old-fashioned world of tomorrow.
The game is played as a point-and-click adventure, with rewards offered to intrepid explorers. Although it
teaches basic movement and interface functions, the game relies chiefly on players using a PC mouse to
interact with the tasks.
Target Audience
The game is intended for use by science fiction and futurism enthusiasts, as well as a broad range of new
virtual world users who have already come to Extropia, seeing it as a good match for their interests. The
game may potentially be used by lecturers and visiting speakers, as required of the land-owners. In both
cases it is targeted primarily at technology professionals or enthusiasts, with a foundation PC literacy. It
must cater for those who often have little to no prior experience with virtual world platforms or digital
gaming.
Flow Summary
Items in grey are elements outside the control of this tutorial. They are instead handled by Linden Lab as
the software proprietors. Items in red are described as content for future expansion.
1. Second Life account creation process
2. Introduction via Extropia-hosted web portal (assuming software requirements have been met)
3. Second Life sign-in screen
4. Level 1: Park & Club
◦ Introduction, movement & viewing, basic controls for interaction & chat
◦ Gestures, etiquette, finding events, teleportation, friendships and grouping, clubbing, profiles
& networking
5. Level 2: Shop & Library
◦ Currency, using inventory & correspondence
◦ Blogging, news and media, world maps and navigation, Extropian culture, cultures of the
world & scripting
6. Level 3: Workshop & Office
◦ Photography, building techniques, finding inspiration, selling, storage tips
◦ Earning money, creative permissions, land ownership, the preferences menu
7. Exit
8. Extropia Forum registration
Look and Feel
The tutorial should remain a friendly guide to the player, and will feature content which does not assume
prior knowledge or otherwise intimidate an entirely new visitor to the Second Life platform.
The environment should feel bright, positive and skyward-looking, using chrome or lightened textures
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upon dominant and extravagant architecture in the science fiction style in order to fit its surroundings.
Tasks offered to the player should feel natural, and should approach them on a personal level where
possible (such as by addressing them by name). The tutorial content is delivered through a narrative voice
which is assumed to represent Extropia's owners, and therefore should be welcoming and patient in tone.
The tutorial should be a 'pick up and play' experience, not threatening its players with missing out on
anything should they wish to abandon it or take a rest. Ultimately, the user must feel that they are in
control of the experience.
Scope
Stage one of the tutorial space will feature basic demonstrations of unique interactions within the game.
Stage two includes the first level, teaching basic interactivity. The final, 'version 1' release of the tutorial
will include all the content contained within this document as well as two more levels, comprising four
advanced learning environments.
Stage two includes:
• Two enclosed spaces – a park and nightclub
• 3 non-player characters, supported either as scripted objects or as 'bots'
• 5 unique gaming tasks, to help test the user's knowledge at each stage of the tutorial
• 3 rewards relevant to Extropia, offered as incentives to those who complete the tasks successfully
Future expansion (past stage three) will depend on community input and may include outreach to other,
specialist training environments, such as for advanced building or scripting. Community input may include
expansion or tasteful branding of certain areas (such as expanding the workshop to include a local
merchant's own tips and merchandise). Further learning may be facilitated within a cinema, showing video
content where any skills are deemed less appropriate for being taught inside a game.
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Gameplay
Progression
Players progress through the game by taking in the information around them, applying their knowledge to
set tasks and clearing physical obstacles as a result, such as by opening a gate or being transported to the
next level. Through the course of the game they will receive incentive rewards, however these will have
no part in the puzzle solutions.
Structure
The game features three unique delivery styles for its content:
• 'Posers' are signposts or other prompts which ask a rhetorical question or pose a statement to the
player, to try and encourage critical thinking of the world around them.
• 'Boards', listed below in quotation marks, indicate instructions delivered through iconic, textual or
practical demonstration.
• 'Tasks' are mini-games designed to test the player's learning, and they will usually need to be
completed before progressing to the next phase.
Play Flow
1. Level 1: Park
1. POSER: “Where are you?”
2. “Stretch Your Digital Legs”: Movement & camera controls
3. “Speak Up!”: Chat
4. TASK: Password Entry
5. “Look Closer”: Pie menu
6. TASK: Name My Creator
7. POSER: “Who are you?” introduction
2. Level 1: Club
1. “Express Yourself”: Gestures
2. “Whisper Whisper”: Instant messaging (IM)
3. “Getting to Know You”: Profiles
4. GUIDE: Etiquette
5. “Stepping Out”: Finding social events
6. “Beam Me Up”: Teleporting (TP)
7. TASK: The Private Function
8. “Extropian Like You”: Friendships and partnering
9. “Come Together”: Groups
10. “Boogie Nights”: Disco gadgets
11. TASK: Wanna Dance?
12. GUIDE: Social networking
13. TASK: Teleport Beam
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3. Exit
Mechanics
Physics
The game is bound by Second Life's standardised physics settings, and will offer no scripted utilities for
avatars to subvert this, e.g. by offering vehicular transportation or 'flight assist' (allowing the player to fly
above 256m). These physics allow:
• Collision detection between objects and avatar, unless the object is marked 'phantom',
• Gravity upon all objects which are marked as 'physical'. As a result of a gravity-induced drop,
objects may also bounce depending on their material attributes (e.g. metal, plastic, wood...),
• 'Pushing' of objects by scripted interaction, e.g. for bullets under trajectory or the shunting of an
avatar,
• Flight and hovering of an individual avatar, to a height of around 256m. The only way to subvert
this is to apply a scripted force to the avatar, pushing upwards at a force greater than 9.81m/sec2,
• Building to a height limit of 4096m directly upwards.
Some constraints are made based on Linden Lab's implementation of the Havok 4 physics engine:
• All objects, regardless of the simplicity or complexity of their geometry, will not make use of
separate collision meshes. Collisions are detected based on what can be a finely-detailed mesh,
which in the case of complex objects can cause 'lag' (slow-down). Steps should therefore be taken
to limit physics puzzle objects to simple geometric shapes.
Movement
Movement is standardised within the Second Life client, and it is this standard which is communicated to
the player through the tutorial. It allows for:
• Forward and backward motion,
• Pivots (turning on the spot or while in motion),
• Jumping, both from standing and when in motion. Players can adjust their trajectory while in mid-
air.
• Crouching,
• Flying, with similar controls as on the ground plus z-axis travel,
• Strafing, only in 'mouselook' mode.
Object Interaction
Unless the task has asked for the player to explore Second Life's native object menus, accessed with the
right mouse button, all interaction is achieved with the left mouse button or by text communication. Left-
clicking allows for button-based, boolean events, while left-click and dragging may manipulate 'physical'
objects across the three physical axes (i.e. moving them).
Text communication can only be used when a scripted object is 'listening' to Second Life's open or specific
chat channels. A user talking in 'open chat' (channel 0) may have queries responded to them by a scripted
object monitoring that channel. Players may also speak to objects on a private channel, and objects can
communicate with each other on such channels too (channels 1 – 2,147,483,647). All 'open chat' is limited
to a 20m broadcast radius, while narrowcast chat may be picked up from across the same simulator.
Objects may be picked up, given the appropriate object permissions, by using the native object menu or
by scripted interaction. Any objects a player encounters are treated as common Second Life inventory, and
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are stored in their asset bank.
Actions
• Movement
◦ “W A S D” or “˄ ˂ ˅ ˃” forwards, pivot left, backwards, pivot right
◦ “E” or “Space” jump (hold to fly upwards)
◦ “X” crouch (hold to fly downwards and land)
◦ “Return” or “Enter” open chat bar
• Interaction
◦ “Left-click” touch
◦ “Right-click” object context menu
◦ “Return” or “Enter” open chat bar (and again to send chat)
• Camera & user interface (UI)
◦ “Esc” return to default view
◦ “Alt & ˄ ˂ ˅ ˃” pan and zoom camera around the selected object
◦ “Alt & left-click, drag” orbit camera around the camera-selected object
◦ “CTRL & B” enter 'Build mode'
◦ “CTRL & H” open 'History' palette
◦ “CTRL & I” open inventory
◦ “CTRL & M” open map
◦ “CTRL & T” open 'Communicate' palette
◦ “CTRL & W” close palette
◦ “CTRL & ' ” quick screen capture
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Setting
This game tutorial is set inside the Independent State of Extropia – a community of futurists and science
fiction enthusiasts who are assumed to be living inside the 'city of tomorrow'.
Back Story
Extropia's city and landscape been etched from the digital aether in a model of humanity's science fiction
worlds, when prospects of shining futures out in the stars and deep in the oceans were rampant. It is a
haven for digital people – personalities who exist only online – and the sort of exciting experiments and
creative activities one can only achieve in a virtual world. Extropia's board of directors has set up a
Department of Orientation, which in turn has developed a theme park for new arrivals. New prospective
citizens are invited into the digital tomorrow's world, in order to have fun and be inspired as they are
welcomed into the world.
The park's employees are constructs of the world, just as much as the architecture. They're not free-
willed citizens, but scripted entities to guide visitors along.
Plot Elements
Where possible, each task is presented by a character whose appearance and introduction suggest their
chosen role quite clearly, (e.g. a bouncer in a tuxedo and librarian in distinctive glasses). They are
examples of the extent to which an avatar's appearance can suggest a lot about their personality. They
will introduce themselves in a manner befitting their stereotype, and approach the player as if they are a
part of the setting, e.g. as a shopper or clubber, rather than as a theme park visitor inside a shop setting.
A problem will then be casually introduced, and a reward may be hinted at.
World
The Independent State of Extropia is presented in a retrospective, science fiction aesthetic, relying on
bright colours and bold, skywards-facing architecture. Visitors should not be intimidated by its design, but
instead have impressed upon them a sense of wonder and a familiarity with its sci-fi roots. The culture is
somewhere between relaxing and exciting, with a layout which pairs tranquil ponds with frantic group
discussions as moods change.
Level One
Set atop one of Extropia Core's water-borne habitat plates in the heart of Core Bay, level one joins its
neighbours in being a verdant plot, with a functional social hotspot in its bar. It is the main entrance to
the theme park, also visible to current Second Life users, and so it should invite curiosity from both
parties. Key to its players is a sense of openness, easing them into the experience with a parkland setting
and bright, unimposing furnishings.
Features the Park area and Club, leading to level two via teleporter.
Level Two
Floating amongst the clouds in Extropia's private neighbourhoods are the open-top street and skylit library
and shop. The level feels detached from the rest of the experience, designed to be very metropolitan in
spite of its island nature. Much of the time, its visitors will be indoors amongst cosy furniture, and with
the library offering the bulk of the game's textual content it should be made to feel as welcoming as
possible.
Features the Shop and Library areas, the latter of which leads on to level three via a teleporter at check-
out.
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Level Three
Enclosed amongst Extropia's low-orbital facilities are the final habitats, offering an experience which is
kept entirely indoors. Players are invited into the spartan but bright offices with their simulated window
views, and to the workshop where an equal focus is placed on functional furnishings, for this is a level
where players can work.
Features the Studio and Office areas, both of which offer a teleporter exit to Extropia's Central Nexus
lobby.
Characters
• Bouncerbot X-300: a seemingly broken, heavily-set robot with a monitor set into its face. When
the player first encounters Bouncerbot, it is asking for a reboot code. Grateful to any who can
help it in its work, and are forgiving of its hard hearing, it allows entry to the club based on the
player's kindness.
• Castella: a cheery, flirtatious barmaid who works the public side of the Supernova nightclub. She
is confident and welcoming, delivering helpful advice to new arrivals with a cheeky wink. Players
should get the impression that she knows everyone else in the bar, particularly its regulars, and
that all are welcome in 'her place'.
• Orion: a proud man of few, choice words who works the private room in the Supernova nightclub.
He is not particularly approachable but knows how to help people find where they need to go.
Players should get the impression that he is content simply to watch people in his bar and
maintain a good standard of service to the clientelle. He is outshone by the resident DJ.
• Groove-a-tronic Jukebox 600: a low-level intelligence jukebox robot within the Supernova
nightclub who says little other than to direct players to relevant notices around the club, and to
the exit once the player has completed the tasks inside the function room.
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Levels
Park
The player arrives in a lush and open-planned park, surrounded by friendly signposts, plantlife and a view
of Extropia, seen from through a fence. A large wall with force field gate separates one half of the park
from the other, and the Northern faces are bordered by the walls of the nearby club. Information and
tasks designed to get the player moving will guide them to the force field gate, and through to a quick
course on 'rezzing' and inspecting the world around them.
Introduction: the park is presented in all imagery relating to the tutorial, such as on the website portal,
in order to familiarise it as the arrival point. Players arrive at this point via the SLURL posted on the
portal, or on foot from a footbridge to the East. A signpost welcomes the player to Extropia and Second
Life upon arrival.
Objectives:
• discover where you are
• learn how to move and to operate the camera
• open the park gates
• learn how to drag objects from inventory and create new 'prims'
• learn how to talk
• discover how to 'inspect' an object, and shout across large distances
• open yourself to questioning who it is you want to be
Map:
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Encounters:
1. PASSWORD ('door keypad' and 'power switch' on the map)
The player comes to a computer panel next to the park gates. On it are three unlit buttons with
non-descriptive icons, such as for an alien language. A screen relays the instruction that a correct
password may be found on the opposite side of the wall, next to the power switch which activates
this terminal. A target icon may be seen over the panel itself.
The player must 'ALT-cam' their way through the fence in order to read the sign on the other
side and turn the power on.
When they have pressed the correct button, the gate will open to allow them through, closing
again after 8 seconds. A reward may be found inside this next section of the park.
2. NAME MY MAKER ('bouncer' on the map)
A robotic bouncer with a monitor in its head is repeatedly flashing the message “reboot initiated –
please state manufacturer name”. It is making an occasional, quiet whimpering noise.
The player must right-click the robot, navigate its pie menu and find the 'inspect palette'. He
or she must then speak the 'creator' name out loud.
The robot stops whimpering, but flashes a question mark, asking the player to “please speak up”;
its auditory systems are malfunctioning.
The player must shout the maker's name by typing “/shout”.
A relay posted outside chat distance but within shouting range 'hears' this message and relays a
confirmation to the robot on a private channel. It beeps happily and grants the player an entrance
to the club.
“Supernova” Club
The player enters a gleaming, compact but comfortable club with a bar and modestly-sized dance floor. A
lobby carries holo-posters for local gigs and other events. A handful of bar stools are seen – not enough to
make the place look barren, but enough to support a small gathering of player-controlled avatars. NPC
agents inside the club are dressed in an array of cyberpunk and Jetsons-styled retro club wear. The club
itself is themed as 'raygun gothic' – gleaming chrome, brass highlights and colourful detail lighting. A
barmaid can be seen behind the bar, facing the player as they enter. Behind a wall which bisects the
building lies a private function room, accessible only by teleport. In it is a second bar, some well-to-do
socialites and a semi-intelligent jukebox, as well as a teleporter to the next level.
Introduction: the player is greeted at the door by a scripted chat entry, but is otherwise left to explore
the bar of their own free will. The bar should be arranged so that the barmaid is made most visible of the
bar's visitors, and more so too than the scripted objects found within.
Objectives:
• learn to use body language gestures
• use the profiles feature to find out more about other residents
• discover instant messaging
• learn some common sense rules on etiquette
• find out how to look social events up
• practice teleportation
• learn how to offer friendship requests
• learn about groups and their functions
• discover how to dance using common club gadgets
• discover social networking in 'the metaverse'
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Map:
Encounters:
1. PRIVATE FUNCTION ('bar & barmaid' on the map)
The barmaid thinks the player has potential, and would like to show them to the private function
room. A party notice has recently been put out, and she cannot use her invitation.
The player must search the events listings for a party happening inside the Supernova's
function room, and teleport in.
When they arrive, the player is welcomed by a second scripted 'greeter'.
2. WANNA DANCE? ('group signup & danceball' on the map)
The barman slips the player a private note card, asking why it is they're not dancing. It suggests
that there is a group 'inviter' on the wall, allowing use of the club's dance ball.
The player must use the group inviter to grant them permissions to use a dance ball placed in
the ceiling.
3. MAKE AN EXIT ('private entrance & exit teleporter' on the map)
The jukebox thanks the player for coming, and suggests that if they must leave, they may find a
teleport exit at the far end of the room.
The player must use the group-permitted teleport beam to leave the club and enter the next
tutorial level.
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Interface
The player is bound to Second Life's native client interface at all times and the WWT game does not
impede on this. Its content is delivered through in situe boards, and through 'open chat', i.e. text
delivered directly to the player's screen in the lower left corner. There are no native menus, and with the
exception of tasks which demand player-controlled camera movement, all activities are delivered to the
default camera view in the 'third person'.
See 'Actions' for details on user interface controls, such as for moving and opening menu palettes.
Technical Restraints
Assets for the game must follow the following constraints:
• Textures should be no larger than 512x512 pixels to allow for slow download speeds, and should be
in the faster .JPG format where possible
• Textures which require alpha channels should be presented in .PNG format
• Video content should be kept to below 1MB, and compressed in Quicktime format with basic (i.e.
common codec) sound encoding
• 'Listen' scripts should be kept to a minimum in order to maintain server lag.
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