The welcome note card says: "Welcome to the Jungle! Feel free to explore at your leisure." The wilderness is made up of six sims: Gecko, Caiman, Piranha, Tapir, Capybara, and Leech. The area is a dense rain forest filled with abandoned ruins, tombs, caves, games, animals, and hangouts, plus hidden surprises and prizes in Wilderness, Second Life's newest exclusive destination for premium members.
When I first landed at the dock there was a nice rat filled hut, a banana throwing monkey, small guinea pig looking creatures running around (which turned out to be a capybara herding game for various prizes depending on the amount you herd into a fenced area, where I herded one before I wanted to move on but won a shoulder parrot for my efforts), a fishing area with free 7 Seas fishing rods and I almost immediately caught a rare bat fish, then a t-shirt, lots of brightly colored parrots, and some beautiful jungle type scenery around.
You can travel about on unicycles, inner tubes, canoes, double ram riders, or boats. I tried them all but chose to mostly walk the trails and I did try to venture off the beaten paths. The foresty/jungle sounds were cool. In some areas there were whack a mole games, darts, etc to play for prizes and other things to do like Tahr racing and many little hang out areas.
I'm not sure my graphics were working the greatest in there though and whenever I snapped a pic the water color turned darker for my photos until I turned on atmospheric shaders and graphics up to ultra, so guess that was just me but their welcome note card does tell you to adjust your settings up this way so I should have paid attention. Another person I met said he could not move until he bumped his graphics down low though. Their note also suggests region default, but after a while of too much yellow I did change mine.
I started a little pied piper pan flute type hunt in some ruins for a prize, but since I, like most SL players, have an attention span of a 3 year old in there, I moved on before I completed that mini-game. It was pretty cool though and I enjoyed this a lot more than the premium Linden Realms gem collection game areas that were a little too cartoon looking and gamey for me, although I have a female friend my age who tends to like many of the things I do and she absolutely loved Linden Realms.
I'm still not convinced of the reason LL has created these areas, but I guess it is to entice people to go premium and provide added incentives through the mini-game prize winnings. I'm not exactly in SL for gaming so I'm sure this appeals to others more than me, but I am curious and did enjoy the graphics and seeing the area, although still, there are many other places in SL that are even more visually appealing. I ran across other avatars expressing their great delight over the area though, so maybe my expectations are exceptionally high after seeing so many fantastic sims over time. Call me spoiled.
Anyway, I did venture off the main paths and found the water is mostly filled with fish and watery weeds/plant life, and some cool frogs and alligators, etc. are around the river banks. I felt LL could have put more cool things to explore in the water and maybe more hidden ares like caves or walk in waterfalls to make it more challenging and mysterious for explorers. I also think some of the animals could be improved as well. Considering the amount of work that must have gone in to this the alligators and monkeys at least should have been of much better quality. This area is not meant to look cartoony, but some of the animals were not realistic looking at all vs much of what I have seen elsewhere in SL.
While trapped inside the flute/rat game ruins I completed this blog post. I'd say overall it's an interesting explore. I wouldn't sign up for premium membership just for this, but then again I already have premium membership, so that's easy for me to say and as curious I am it would tempt me if I saw photos and a positive blog post about it. I'm sure it's much more fun to go with a friend too. It's pretty cool. Well worth a visit if one already has premium membership. And of course I'm grateful for the many fun places to explore in my SL.
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