So, I picked up a new speedrun recently! The game is the 2011 indie roguelike Dungeons of Dredmor, a game I found back in the day in one of the first ever Humble Indie Bundles.

I haven't streamed it yet -- I plan to give that a try soon! -- but I've been recording some offline runs, and yesterday got a sub-30-minute PB in any%! Of course, the world record is under 15, but this is still a run I'm quite happy with this early on.

Anyway, Dungeons of Dredmor is a traditional roguelike, but much easier to pick up & play than other games I've played in the genre. It has three difficulty levels, permadeath is optional. It is a game with lots of humor, most of which has aged well (there are a few jokes & pop culture references that could have been left behind in 2011, but not too many). Coming back to it, I've found it to be a bit of a gaming comfort food I can always count on to distract me for an hour or several, but it also offers challenging, varied gameplay if I'm up for that. If any of that sounds fun, it's on Steam for $5!

And if you'd like to check out videos of my speedruns of the game, they're all neatly organized into this YouTube playlist: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdEJnoZ67UCkfOCF3hxxTQg

Most of the videos are without commentary so far, but that's something I'll be working on going forward, as I'm getting more and more comfortable with the game and starting to stream it soon.

An update to this: I did stream the game a few times this week, and I've started submitting the run to some charity marathons, so I'll be sure to announce if it gets into anything. You can find the highlights on my Twitch page.

Additionally, I was appointed the moderator of the SRC page today, so I was able to verify my runs and can officially announce that I have the world record in the Going Rogue difficulty with a 1h21m! The record was basically free, as nobody had made a serious attempt at the category, but I did lower my own record this week so it's not completely unoptimized. Still, it was far from a perfect run, and it's definitely beatable, so anyone who wants to take a shot at the record is highly encouraged! There is an older guide from Spleen on the SRC page, but I'd be happy to answer any questions for anyone who is interested in picking up the run. Again, the game is just $5 on Steam if you're interested in giving it a try.

from what i can gather this is about a virtual world called Dreamscape created by the company Avaterra.com, Inc. fascinatingly, Avaterra's work appears to be a direct descendant of LucasArts' pioneering C64 MMORPG Habitat (which The Made museum, here in Oakland, brought back online in 2017).

i think / it appears that the still-online Vzones.com is the latest/current manifestation of this massively multiplayer online world lineage. it's... kind of expensive.

i fell down this rabbit hole from looking up artist Sheryl Knowles, who worked at Commodore on Amiga art (colleague to the Four-Byte Burger artist) and later on WorldsAway, which seems to be the incarnation of Habitat under Fujitsu before it sold the tech to Avaterra.com. her home page hasn't been updated since 2005, but here's a 2020 interview with her. (Sega nerds: she was artwork lead on Zero Tolerance.)

commence infodumping.

Avaterra.com company description a July 1999 PR:

Avaterra.com was formed in May 1999, when it acquired core technologies from Fujitsu's WorldsAway Products and Services Group, in order to develop its VirtualZone business model. The company builds VirtualZone communities on the Internet where consumers interact, play, shop, educate and socialize within a graphical environment where they and other visitors are represented as avatars (customized graphical representations of themselves). VirtualZones are built around specific topics to attracted targeted audiences, and they are commercially sponsored by brand advertisers. Avaterra.com's two showcase VirtualZones have been online for more than three years and include members from around the world, meeting 24 hours a day.

Avaterra.com provides superior community-building technology with features like customizable graphics, high subscriber involvement, a working economy based on tokens, several patent-pending tools for social order and management, and one of the highest "stickiness" factors on the web (with an average session length of 3.5 hours). The company derives revenue from its unique advertising venues, fee-based membership, custom virtual community development and software co-licensing.

this page seems to show five attempted trademarks, marked abandoned in 2001, for terms including VIRTUAL ZONES, VZ, and ADOBJECT.