Homeling Seal of Approval: the Nebula Airship
by SealWyf, HSM team writer
With this article, we introduce a monthly feature that highlights new Home content that best matches the Homeling aesthetic. We also award the first Homeling Seal of Approval. (Many thanks to Homeling Commander LittlePeddler for designing the Seals.)
As I explained in a previous article, Homelings gravitate to objects that match their “aesthetic”: retro-futuristic in style, white or black in color, scary or quirky in mood. Some examples are our signature Echochrome suit, the now-vanished Irem White Kimono, and Home’s free Bubble Machines.
The Collective is delighted by the increasing number of Homeling-friendly goods in Home. December brought us the Lockwood Retronaut costumes, which have now been approved for Homeling Commanders. December also saw the introduction of the Loot Space Station Apartment, which is one of the most Homeling personal spaces ever produced. If we had instituted the Homeling Seal of Approval in December, this space would surely have won it.
January was a fairly quiet month for us. But it included one obvious contender, to which we award this month’s prize. This is the Nebula Airship, from Sony Computer Entertainment.
To be honest, this space is not the unalloyed win of the Loot Space Station. In fact, many Home users will find it disappointing. This is simply a matter of timing. If the Nebula Airship had appeared a year ago, it would have been an triumph. But Home users have gotten used to glory. There are so many spaces available, we have to be selective. If a new personal space does not include a good minigame or built-in media, or plenty of unlockable content, it’s an also-ran in the race for user dollars.
However, a unique atmosphere can make a space desirable. Most of us don’t need another “house beautiful” residence or fantasy mansion. There are plenty of those in Home already. What we want is a space that transports us into our imaginations, a place where we can tell ourselves stories.
Being a story-teller by nature, I am delighted that Home personal spaces are incorporating more fantasy. The first few Home apartments were squarely in “house beautiful” territory; the only fantasy being expressed was that of having enough money to afford them. The Lakeside Log Cabin started the break from pure materialism. It was still a luxury space, yes, but the sunset beauty of the lake gave us something more — a place to dream. That space is still one of my favorite “romantic” apartments.
But it took the Chamber Apartment to really break the bonds of reality and move into magic, with animated fire pits and waterfalls, a mysterious tree-god, and winged sprites fluttering in the foliage. It’s still one of my favorite spaces. I am sorry that new Home users cannot acquire it.
Since the stylistic revolution of the Chamber Apartment, the moods of personal spaces have alternated between materialistic “lifestyles of the rich and famous” and more playful, storytelling fantasies. Home has given us haunted pirate ships, zombie hideouts, wizards’ dens, villains’ lairs, futuristic cities, post-apocalyptic bunkers and floating islands. The Nebula Airship is squarely in the storytelling camp — an ethereal, futuristic vessel sailing through the clouds.
I’ve always wanted an airship in Home, preferably either with a resident Chocobo, or lots of pseudo-Victorian gears. The Nebula surprised me. It follows neither the Final Fantasy nor the steampunk tradition, but breaks new stylistic ground. It’s post-technological — “magic”, in the Arthur Clarke sense of “any sufficiently advanced technology.” And it mines the territory of dreams.
The habitable space is small, with a few simple divisions: a raised bow area, a larger central room, and a small afterdeck. The ceiliing is high and vaulted; most of the walls are taken up by windows. The color scheme is white and black. There is no technology in evidence except a cryptic “radio” on one wall and an unobtrusive gift machine on another.
In fact, the ship is the least important part of this space. It simply provides a platform, a place from which to view the real features, which are the sky and the passing landscape. The Nebula Airship is similar to Loot’s Sunset Yacht in this way — the apartment is less important than the world in which it is embedded.
You see the cloudscape first. It surrounds you, dim and sunset-tinted, hinting at ephemeral castles. You move to the bow to get a better look. And then you see the ground. It’s a stunner, and totally unexpected — a global labyrinth constructed from what appear to be titanic crop circles.
Faced with that infinite terrestrial geometry, you start telling stories. When I first got the space, I debated the origin of the landscape with one of my friends. I said that it was the deserted ruins of an ancient civilization. He favored a natural origin — a vast wetlands created by processes unique to this alien world.
Both of us were aware that we were seeing a programmer’s creation. But the sense of reality, and of back-story, was strong enough to wake our creative imaginations.
The space has a suite of associated furniture. There’s a very nice curved couch. There’s also a bed, which is an active item, and one of the new Home beds on which you can lie. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the beds that makes you look dead. It would be a great prop for vampire machinima, but I can’t see much other use for it. There’s a white shelving unit that makes a fine room divider, a simple round white table, and a curvilineal potted plant stand. The plant stand is nicely styled, but the plants look like they need water.
Even with the coordinated furniture, decorating this space is difficult. The open, curved areas don’t lend themselves to conventional room design, and normal furniture would just look silly. I set my airship up as a Homeling Generals’ meeting room, with a ring of black chairs around a central fire. I floated a couch in the bow. Such abuses of physics are still possible in Home, though not as easy as they once were.
In a fit of whimsy, I added the Pegasus statue from the Lockwood Dream Yacht as a “hood ornament” at the front of the bow. As a final touch, I set one firework (a silver Zeus rocket) so it fired ahead of the bow, a decoration for the sky-scape.
As a furnishing strategy, it’s simple to the point of sparseness. But, in this space, simplicity is a virtue. You don’t want to distract from the beauty of the scenery. Scenery is what this space is all about.
The Nebula Airship has a gift machine, which awards one gift, a model of the airship. There is one picture frame spot, on the wall beside the radio. Two furniture spawn points let you position items in the main area or the bow.
I am sorry to report that there are some definite bugs. Everyone who enters the space freezes for several seconds as loading is completed. And you can’t move furniture onto the afterdeck. The public preview space shows furniture there, but it is a lie.
One surprising feature is an invisible seat in the bow. If you move around the area, you discover a popup that invites you to sit. Hit the X button, and you find youself sitting in mid-air, to the amusement of your guests. If you stand by using the Start button, the dialog box tells you that you are exiting “Cloud City Sit”. Is this the ghost of a minigame? Nobody I have talked to seems to know.
The bottom line is that this is not a space for everyone. But for those who appreciate this kind of beauty, it’s well worth the $4.99 price tag. Now you can have your own private airship. That’s a grand fantasy for some of us.
For Homelings, it’s a very special space. The smooth, retro-futuristic lines, the monochrome color scheme, the aerial majesty of the clouds, and the alien mystery of the passing world all fit our Homeling aesthetic.
And so it is with pleasure that we award the Nebula Airship the first-ever official Homeling Seal of Approval.
- A beautiful, unique personal space
- Your own personal airship!
- One extra Bubble Machine for matching the Homeling aesthetic
- Small space, compared to most recent apartments
- No special features, such as media or mini-games
- Some small defects and eccentricities
February 4th, 2012 by SealWyf | 3 comments
SealWyf is a museum database programmer by day, and an officer in the Homeling Collective by night. She has been active in online communities since before the Internet, and in console gaming since the PS1. In games, she prefers the beautiful and quirky, and anything with a strong storyline. She is utterly addicted to PlayStation Home.
One of my favorite novels is Clarke’s “Childhood’s End” — easily one of the most captivating books you can ever read. And when I first saw the Nebula Airship, I immediately thought, “If Karellen had a personal yacht to enjoy over his homeworld, this would be it.”
Granted, as a personal estate, it’s rather lacking — for all the reasons you identified. It’s ideal for the Homeling Collective, but I wonder how successful it will be with the Home community at large. Anyone who’s a Jules Verne fan, though, will probably enjoy this chance at reenacting Robur-le-Conquérant.
Fantastic review, and great to see LittlePeddler quite literally make a mark on HSM.
General Seal, I love to read what you write. You did an awesome job in describing the details about this ship. Great read General…
My first thought when saw the ground during open house was:Coruscant.It reminds me of Coruscant.
I know what you mean by “the abuses of physics”but those laws need to be re written for our virtual universe.
Because we can.