Last Words from Lost Mine Hunters

Okay, maybe this isn't anyone's last words, but it's always such fun to hear feedback from people who have been through a similar experience. This is especially true with others who have done the Lost Mine hunt.

Some people (those hardcore hunters who chose not to use clue finder!) think the hunt is a good challenge; others (those of us who prefer fun to formidable!) think it is a laid-back and playful hunt. We've heard observations from all across the spectrum.

Maggi Shadows: I lived to tell!

Chanasitsayo: My favorite part was in the mine itself because I love puzzles. Running around looking for pieces of the map and dirt pile gems not so appealing. But it was overall quite enjoyable.

Heidewitzka Himmel: I am astonished by the beauty of the landscape. I must say that this is my first hunt, never done something like this before but I have the feeling this won't be my last one.

ωĨℓℓøω (willoweaston): It was really challenging, sometimes a little frustrating, and completely worth it in the end.

Katniss Everdeen (anya.flux): its not a pick hunt. thats the differential about this hunt. u need to use ur intelligence to find the itens that lead u to the prizes. that makes the hunt more exciting than the others.

Amadeus Hammerer: It was absolutely amazing and I loved the idea of the little helper!

Tuhtle Soup (xzel.kawashima): It was fun, pretty repetitive with the two stages of finding so many random pieces. But, the prizes were definitely worth it. The last stage was a nice difference though. The addition of interactives was nice.

ẲŁỖỰQỰẲ (lahyana): It was really great! Very well built and the presents are fun!

Jackson Taylor (justjackson): It was the most fun I've had in a long time! It was something fun to do with my friends!

Kenzo Ryba: That was more fun than a dungeon crawl in the most popular MMORPG! (massive multiplayer online roleplaying game) I really appreciate the effort all you guys put in!

Callie (calliope.ahren): I thought it was so much fun and definitely a challenge! I'm glad they had those clue finders though or else I'd still be there.

Sly (sly.whitefalcon): The last hunt was a fun quickie. Looking forward to the next. We're overdue for a longer story. :)

It's not too late to take part in the Lost Mint hunt! You have through Wednesday, April 30. The hud is only 150L and you will win more than 20 amazing prizes when (if!) you make it to the end. Go to Mad City Park to begin . . . if you think you can handle it.  :-)

We're Getting There with Unia!

“Kiana, this is not a hunt.. this is a GAME!” said an excited person (that I will leave nameless for now) as she was getting a grand tour of Unia. I nodded my head excitedly.. “Yesh, yesh.. this is what I’ve been trying to tell everyone.”

“But Kiana, you really have created a GAME! You must show the Lindens this. They won’t even know something like this is possible in Second Life!”

“Wow, this is groundbreaking. I’ve never seen anything like this in SL before.” Said a 10-year-old avatar and an owner of a popular sim. “Yeah, I’m speechless just trying to take it all in.” Said his friend and I was grinning from ear to ear. 

Currently, it takes two hours to go through the game flow and show the game areas to people new to Unia concept and I don’t do tours easily.. only for the special ones, who win the VIP ticket.

Comments like these however are something that push me harder to get Unia finished and launched. Sometimes I lose my faith as it’s coming closer to a year soon that we have been developing this game. “What if people will hate it?” “What if no one wants to even play it.” For hunts we work for a month or two and bring it out and get the feedback immediately. This is something we have never done and all I’m going by are my own gut feelings on how it should feel, look and work. Fingers crossed!

People have been coming to me asking if they missed Unia. I keep assuring them that there is no way they can miss Unia. Once it’s launched, we’re going to scream about it so loud that everyone knows it’s out. Then we will probably collapse and hibernate for weeks to get our energy back while you play. And no, you won’t do it within 48 minutes like the fastest player for the Lost Mine hunt. I would expect it to take at least a few days for the first one to finish… that is if you don’t sleep.

One of the biggest setbacks in the development has been something I wasn’t prepared for. It is Second Life after all and people sadly come and go. We have had a lot of people wanting to join such a cool project and due to their real life commitments or the fact that the project is taking so long to finish, they have decided to leave. It’s challenging to keep people motivated and enjoying their work in SL. It is also very tiring to welcome a new team member with open arms and get them into the project and explain everything from scratch just to see them walk out weeks of months later.

That just makes me appreciate our hardworking builders and scripters even more, if that’s possible. They keep going and keep pushing to make sure that we can truly bring out the best experience ever. They are putting all of them into this and have my uttermost respect.

However, the biggest setback has been the fact that we lost our sim sponsor just after we had began the building. This means that for a year we have had to come up with money to pay for two full islands (730USD) monthly when there is nothing happening on the sims apart from development. We have had to join gacha events and arrange hunts in order to get money in to finance ourselves, but that becomes soon a vicious circle. To create gachas and hunts is time away from Unia development. It truly has cost a lot in money and many work hours and hopefully it will be all worth it in the end. 

Currently all game areas are mapped based on the game flow and most builds are done. The skeleton of the HUD and functions are ready and being implemented throughout the game. For me a really fun part begins as we’re starting with the character dialogues and I can get our voice actors immersed into the game. The boys are lost in making creepy things that I won’t talk more about…

There are only 7 VIP Tickets left to be won that will give you FREE access (all included) to Unia 24 hours before anyone else as well as a guided tour by me. Follow our in-world group and Facebook to be able to have this unique opportunity!

Stay tuned... We're getting there! 

                                                                            <3, Kiana

Unia photos by Electronic Mode & Chloe Seljan

MadPea Participating in !Exodus! Rock Club Easter Hunt

MadPea is participating in the first annual !Exodus! Rock Club Easter egg hunt. From midnight on Friday, April 18 through Monday, April 21, there will be a special Easter/Spring themed build where a mini egg hunt will be held.

Our talented makers of cool stuff put together an Easter Pea avatar, complete with an egg shell hat, watercolor paint box, and a paint brush. It even has it's own special AO so you'll have that spunky MadPea swagger.

In addition to the Easter Pea, there will be nine other prizes scattered around the !Exodus! Easter build.

The club will have DJs performing from 8am to 8pm while people hunt.  All club events will be in the Easter build so there will be lots of opportunity for people to find the items while they listen to awesome rock music and hang out with friends at the club.

MadPea hopes you'll hop on over to !Exodus! Rock Club and take part in the egg hunt. The Easter Pea alone is worth the trip!

The Unique Lost Mine Hunters

by Honey Vesuvino

My job as a MadPea staff member is to help people. I (try!) to answer questions, provide hints, and give links to useful information. In this capacity, I am most often in Mad City Park or in the lost mines so I can show people where to purchase the hunt huds, get their NewPea avatar packages, or just commiserate. This means I have an awesome vantage point to see some of the most creative avatars in all of Second Life.

Pepi (aka Otto Jeffries) chose to do the Lost Mine hunt as a pug. He wore the collection bag around his tail! He said it served double duty (doodie?). Hahhaha!  Even though he's low to the ground, he still needed his spectacles to sniff out the missing map pieces.

I absolutely love the Japanese anime avatars! These people looked absolutely spot-on to real life animation. They totally worked as a team and tore through Mad City.

 

I thought it was really cute to see a Dwarfin avi with a MadPea clue finder. 

CyberWoLfman seemed to need a little liquid courage to face the mysteries within the Lost Mine. Either that or maybe it's just medicinal in case the mines were really cold. Either way, this big, bad wolf says he had a great time at Mad City and Dwarfins.

You have through April 30 to do the Lost Mine hunt. A single prize alone would make it worth your time but having 20+ prizes up for grabs means that you'd be crazy NOT to do it.  You can get started at Mad City Park or you can purchase the Lost Mine hunt hud, the female MadPea Clue Finder, and the male MadPea Clue Finder on SL Marketplace. They make excellent gifts!

NewPea Event: Best in Noob Wear!

Do you remember your first days in SL? The awesome duck waddle until you discovered AOs . . . the lovely stiff hair that just kind of stuck out from your head . . . the clothes that had no movement to them whatsoever. Ahhh, those were exciting times, right?  Well, you can relive these fond memories from your SL youth at the MadPea NewPea Event! 

This Saturday, April 12, from 12-2PM SLT, the best male and female in noob wear will each win 1,000L. DJ Dox (Paradox Messmer) was so well-liked when he spun for us last weekend that we begged him to come back and play for us again. Ti'chelle Teebrook will host the event, bringing her sweet charm to everyone.

But wait!  There's more! Some of our amazingly talented MadPea staffers, Icegul and Picole Bade, put together absolutely incredible NewPea packages. All MadPea group members can get an entire NewPea avatar that includes a shape, skin, mesh outfit, boots, and an AO. The female avatar includes hair and the male avatar includes a hat and goggles.

  

Pretty awesome, right? These are so well-made! The outfits have the super cool MadPea logo and the AOs are totally unique. I'm not a noob or even a NewPea, but I'll be wearing mine all over the grid. There's not a single avatar that doesn't look smashing in MadPea green.

Oh my gosh. I forgot to mention the best part. The NewPea packages are FREE! 

So, come on over to Mad City Park and pick up your NewPea package. They'll be available at the stage area. We hope to see you at the NewPea event this weekend!

Fastest Finishers of The Lost Mine Hunt

Aaaannnddd . . . they’re off! Roxie Harbour takes the early lead but Nic Roxan is close on her heels. Up the side comes Emma Dianthus. These Peas are really hunting fast! 

Nic Roxan makes a move for the lead but Roxie Harbour shuts him down. Emma Dianthus gets in front of Nic Roxan but he quickly recovers. As they’re coming down the final stretch, Roxie Harbour and Nic Roxan are neck and neck. It’s Nic Roxan . . . no, it’s Roxie Harbour! 

Finishing The Lost Mine Hunt at an amazing 1 hour and 21 minutes each, Roxie Harbour and Nic Roxan came in first and second place. A totally respectable 1 hour and 30 minute finish captured third place for Emma Dianthus.

Roxie and Nic did not use a Pea or Dwarfin companion, which makes their wins even more impressive. Emma said, "I used the female Pea companion. It was pink and I had to have it."

Roxie’s favorite part of The Lost Mine hunt was hunting for the map pieces but said that, “The crystal mines looked prettiest.” Nic most enjoyed the mini games at the end.

We asked Emma if she was surprised to be the top finisher and she said, “Yes! That is insane. I hopped over when it opened but I was so lagged out. I can’t believe I finished so fast!”

With plans to decorate her house with some of her hunt prizes, Roxie admitted, “I shop at most of the hunt vendors’ stores anyway!” Emma shared, “I may have spent A LOT of L$ in all the stores while I hunted.”

When asked how he celebrated completing the hunt, Nic said, “I hollered out ‘Whheeeeee!’” He has no particular plans for his prize winnings but is an admitted “shopping freak” and will definitely be visiting the vendors’ stores.

The fun continues at Mad City Park tomorrow from 12-2PM SLT with a Peas and Dwarfins Dance Party! You are welcome to come dressed as a Pea or a Dwarfin and enjoy some great tunage with DJ Paradox Messmer. We'll be giving away some awesome prizes and Ls for trivia. Hope to see you there!

The Lost Mine Hunt - How to Play

Click here to begin the Adventure

Introduction:  

Childhood bedtime stories, we all had them and enjoyed them. They were meant as a way to whisk us off to some magical realm that soothed us and let us sleep soundly.

A local scientist, known to some as a mad scientist but known to all as Madrigal Peabody, is claiming he has found a way to open a portal to another realm, a realm that comes from one of our most beloved bedtime stories. The story of the Lost Mine of Stonehaven.

The bedtime story makes claim of a long lost mine, kept secret by its creators, full of gold, gems, chalices, and other such wonders. Riches untold to be sure. 

Professor Peabody, by all rights a genius, has put a help wanted ad in the local newspaper. He claims he created a machine that could open a portal to this bedtime story-world and allow entry to it. He also claims he's found the Lost Mine of Stonehaven, but accidentally ripped up the treasure map, mistaking it for his grocery list.

Now he's asking for adventurers to help him reclaim the pieces of the treasure map, put it back together, and enter this story world to find the mine once again.

Dare to join this Adventure? 

Finding the map is only the beginning...

HOW TO START THE HUNT!

Pay the vendor at Mad City or Dwarfins

150L to receive your HUD. 

Wear it and it will attach on the top left corner of your screen.

When you purchase the HUD you will also receive a very special bag.
You must wear it as well, because it's needed to collect the items
you will find on your journey.

OPTIONAL! 

We have special avatars available at a low cost 

to help you immerse in the story. 

Both MadPea and Dwarfins have rigged mesh adventure avatars.

The avatars do not give you a gameplay advantage.

The MadPea avatar has a backpack that comes free with it. 

You can collect items and tools for your avatar 

from the gacha machine at Mad City for 25L/play. 

NEW: CLUE FINDERS 

Both MadPea and Dwarfins have some very 

special companions for your adventure! 

The Clue Finders give you a huge advantage in the game, 

as they will point you towards the active items 

you need to find to be able to move on. 

They will tell you if you're within 20m, 15m, 10m or right next to the item.

 Of course they look super cute as well when they walk by your side!

Female version available too

Pink one available too

ABOUT HUD

When you first wear your HUD you will see four buttons. 

The HUD will ask you to allow permissions to TELEPORT you. 

Please accept this as it's necessary for the game to work as intended. 

What the buttons do: 

RED: Minimize the HUD 

Helmet:  Get teleported to Dwarfins sim

Pea: Get teleported to Mad City

? : Get URL to this blog post       

  

You need to look for crumpled pieces of paper in Mad City 

in order to find the missing map pieces. They look like this: 

The pieces can be anywhere! 

Inside or outside... and if someone else has picked up 

the piece right in front of your nose, 

then it disappears and you must search for a new one. 

When your Map is full, it looks like this: 

 Now you have the map ready showing you the way to the mine.. 

and that's all you're going to find out now! 

Please understand that this game is a point-and-click treasure hunt. 

Clicking items will give you clues to advance in the game. 

Make sure to pay attention in nearby chat for instructions.

We also have help available in MadPeas’ group chat 24/7.

You will encounter new areas, puzzles and you might even get lost. 

Keep the faith though, the treasure is so close you can almost smell it! 

Good luck dear Adventurer, 
may your journey be filled with wonders!

THE LOST MINE HUNT BY 

In Collaboration with

Participating vendors with prize donations

*Cae*

An Lar Poses

The {Wicked} Peach

RACK Poses

Potpourri Designs

Never Totally Dead

//elephante poses//

floorplan.

Peqe

Collage

Alouette

LaNoir Soleil Designs

Abranimations

Kottos Games Factory

Chimeric Arts & Fashions

The Loft

Wimey

Apple Fall

.aisling

Poise

Check out the prizes here 

Click here to start the Adventure