This post contains affiliate links.
Always on the lookout for horror games, around 2010 I had the eccentric idea of searching for ghost trains in Second Life. To my thrilled surprise, I did found a few.
Spook House by Sinatra
Type: Ghost Train
Theme: Dark Ride
Duration: 2:30 minutes
Location: Yulmu
Area: Sim: 3584 m2 , Ride: 240 m2
Lag Level: Low
My Horror Rating: Ride: 1/5, Zone: 2/5
The first one I visited was Sinatra’s Spook House. It used to be elsewhere, but it moved to a region called Yulmu. It is available, still there, at Yulmu.
It was built in 2003, the first year of Second Life. That fact alone compensates for the short duration of the ride. It costs 10 L$, for a ride of almost three minutes. I’m not sure, but I remember it as longer-lasting. Maybe I’m confused.
This dark ride has been around for ages. Years ago, the Spook House was an oddity in the mainland, surrounded by unlikely neighbors.
Today, Sinatra’s ghost train is happily surrounded by sims that have more to do with its mood and aesthetics. I visited the sims two or three weeks after Halloween, so I’m not sure if the sims surrounding the Spook House are seasonal and temporary, or permanent.
Update: No they aren’t seasonal, the creepy sims at Yulmu surrounding Sinatra’s Spook House stay there and open for business all year long. Not horror games, but creepy and interesting nonetheless.
Tarot Fate Greeting Card shop
This shop sells a few greeting cards. Get Halloween-related greeting cards here. Including this one.
The greetings cards, most of a Halloween theme, are customizable. They exhibit the cards each one almost life-size, which means, they are almost the height of avatars.
You can see with luxury of detail how the cards look inside if you walk to the edge of the card and watch inside of it. They sell a greeting card that has an optical illusion design.
Bakelite Radio
A Second Life radio. It’s a heavily decorated diorama with an other-world feel to it. The dummy of a zeta reticulean alien was sitting at the microphone when I was there. I guess that anchormen or anchorwomen of Bakelite remove it when they sit there to transmit their shows.
Tarot Fate’s Amusements
Very nice assortment of coin-op diversions in a tent. Even the one with the less level of novelty, is cool, a Horror-skinned zyngo machine.
Some of the coin-ops featured in this penny arcade tent:
- Fortunes Coin-op
- Love Tester
- Fortune Scale
- Treasure Island
- Zyngo
- Evil Tester
- Pirates Treasure
- The Magic Skull Fortune Teller
1313 Mainstore
Opposite the ride, the big creepy board house. It’s a novelty shop. Just a few things, but a kind of Sharper Image of darkness to behold.
Now, this may sound silly, but when I was watching the ouija board pendant and earring set one of the thunders from the storm outside rolled from outside into the shop and I had a mini jump scare.
Some of the gizmos for sale at 1313:
The Cult-O-Matic (L$199)
A poster system with 21 high-resolution cult flicks posters and six sculpted frames. The owner can do things to the content like activate the backlight and change other settings.
1313 Magic Potions (L$99)
Customizable gift bottles.
Magazine Rack
Something like this, for a retro-head like me, is the bee’s knees. Obviously that they’re just objects for show and not real magazines, or scanned ones, for that matter. After all, what did you expect for L$10 each?
F*** Off
Animated photograph in a frame, with nine-plus 1930s fops insulting the observer. No sound but you can easily read their lips.
Mona Lisa (L$99)
It’s the good old Mona Lisa, with a twist: frontal nudity.
Devil Girl Wall Vase w/Flowers (L$66)
A wee vase with the face of a mischievous elf.
3D Sculpty Reliefs
Framed sculpties with texture, all of them are of bones themes.
Voices from Beyond
My favorite novelty in the 1313 shop was the “Voices from Beyond Spirit Cabinet”. It touts itself as “Wisdom, Insight, Advice from the departed”.
It’s a twist on the creepy coin-op formula, but I rather not spoil it for you. It was kind of disappointing to find that the object I liked the most from the shop wasn’t for sale.
Thurston’s Live Stage
A band of monkey animatronics was on stage when I visited it, The Bakelite Boys. This reminded me of the coin-op dummy band attraction common in amusment parks of the 1980s.
Outro
For those that don’t want to go through the hassle of having to deal with Second Life for the real experience, I recorded the whole ride, even a little bit of walking by Yulmu too.
Ghost Train Simulators as Horror Games
Do you think that simulated horror amusements on the metaverse can be considered horror games? If you do, please tell us why, if you don’t also tell us why in the comments section below.
© Bholenath Valsan 2021 — Sinatras’s Spookhouse on Second Life – Horror Games
As the first ghost train of Second Life Sinatra’s Spook House doesn’t deserve to be knocked down, even if the ride is short. Other than that, I’m happy that now this dark ride is an area that is most becoming for its theme.
For those that don’t want to go through the hassle of having to deal with Second Life for the real experience, I recorded the whole ride, even a little bit of walking by Yulmu too.
Ghost Train Simulators as Horror Games
Do you think that simulated horror amusements on the metaverse can be considered horror games? If you do, please tell us why, if you don’t also tell us why in the comments section below.
© Bholenath Valsan 2021 — Sinatras’s Spookhouse on Second Life – Horror Games
As the first ghost train of Second Life Sinatra’s Spook House doesn’t deserve to be knocked down, even if the ride is short. Other than that, I’m happy that now this dark ride is an area that is most becoming for its theme.
For those that don’t want to go through the hassle of having to deal with Second Life for the real experience, I recorded the whole ride, even a little bit of walking by Yulmu too.
Ghost Train Simulators as Horror Games
Do you think that simulated horror amusements on the metaverse can be considered horror games? If you do, please tell us why, if you don’t also tell us why in the comments section below.
© Bholenath Valsan 2021 — Sinatras’s Spookhouse on Second Life – Horror Games
