Ever since former Everquest and Sim 3 alumni Rod Humble joined Linden Lab, there’s been the expectation that the former Second Life developers might come up with something special. Patterns is that something special, an abstract game of exploration, building and expression. It’s heavily focused on geometric shapes and physics, meaning you won’t see the gravity defying impossibility of some Minecraft creations in Linden Lab’s latest. The trailer is exceptionally impressive, and below.
It’s still in very early beta, Patterns is a very different take on what made Second Life interesting; instead of attempting to ape reality with avatars and buildings, it’s focused more on abstracted shapes.By focusing on geometry and a simple building tool that allows anyone to put shapes together into an object, they’re avoiding the huge bandwidth cost of rezzing in hundreds of custom textures. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if there are still giant geometrical penises constructed by at least one person.
There’s an announcement video providing a quick overview of how the game currently works, as well as demonstrating quite how physical everything is. However, there’s no word on whether this is looking to be an MMO, or more of a singular experience close to Minecraft’s model, with players dropping in and out of each others worlds.
Here’s the trailer.