This is basically my first post on the forums, so I'll try to make it as informative as possible about Worlds.
I have no doubt some of you are already acquainted with Second Life - a game where you are free to create your own avatar and roam around the world in what is basically a 3D chatroom. The concept of Second Life already existed, back in 1994 - in a game known as Worlds. The game was heavily popular and attracted the attention of people like David Bowie. People were free to create their own worlds using a tool called Shaper.
Over the years, most of its audience faded away. Worlds sunk, and any self-respecting company would have closed down their servers a long time ago.
This never happened. Until a year or so ago, Worlds was still very much alive. But rather than hundreds of people playing it on a daily basis, the game was reducted to a few individuals, spending years of their lives playing the game.
It went from a relatively lighthearted chatroom to something a bit weirder. About a year or so ago, Worlds was dug up by an online community known as 4chan - for those unacquainted, it is essentially a huge forum with different boards. Two boards took a certain interest in Worlds: 4chan's video gaming board, and its paranormal board. The game knew a surge of newcoming players, who, over time, lost interest in what was a very strange experience.
As it is today, Worlds is no longer much of a chatroom. It is about exploring what other people left behind: for the most part, empty rooms and worlds, some of them seemingly lacking a purpose, like an empty, run-down gas station in the middle of a desert, or an acid trip of a room where the game would make the player automatically say religious sentences. Those who didn't hail from 4chan - the old-timers - always stood still and never uttered a word. If they did, it would be unbelievably cryptic. A player named Nexialist would constantly expose the "explorers" with unsettling, out-of-place stuff - it would be both unusual yet expected to see him in his bodybag skin throwing a giant, spazzing face at you, warping you somewhere else.
The biggest interest in Worlds is travelling, exploring the empty, somewhat unsettling maps left untouched for over a decade.
If I were to sum it up in a tl;dr: Worlds is a 3D online MMO game from the late 90's. Although the site and official servers are up and running, nothing has been updated in a long while. A relatively small group of regulars still log on quite often. They are all fairly old, from 30 on up. Many of the user-created rooms are creepy or generally full of WTF. Even the official rooms and character avatars (the ones found on the universe map) have a strangeness about them, however unintentional that may be. The age of the client and its primitive graphics create sort of an uncanny valley effect. I'll let the screenshots speak out how strange the game is - it isn't the same sort of horror as Amnesia or Slender, but trust me when I say it's a lot scarier.
I'll let the images speak for themselves.
How to install Worlds: As I said, Worlds is free. It can be downloaded here:
worlds.com/WorldsPlayerWin7.exe
It is a relatively light game, but can be a pain to get it running. If it doesn't run correctly, try running it in compability mode for Windows XP or Windows 2000, and run it as admin.
I have no doubt some of you are already acquainted with Second Life - a game where you are free to create your own avatar and roam around the world in what is basically a 3D chatroom. The concept of Second Life already existed, back in 1994 - in a game known as Worlds. The game was heavily popular and attracted the attention of people like David Bowie. People were free to create their own worlds using a tool called Shaper.
Over the years, most of its audience faded away. Worlds sunk, and any self-respecting company would have closed down their servers a long time ago.
This never happened. Until a year or so ago, Worlds was still very much alive. But rather than hundreds of people playing it on a daily basis, the game was reducted to a few individuals, spending years of their lives playing the game.
It went from a relatively lighthearted chatroom to something a bit weirder. About a year or so ago, Worlds was dug up by an online community known as 4chan - for those unacquainted, it is essentially a huge forum with different boards. Two boards took a certain interest in Worlds: 4chan's video gaming board, and its paranormal board. The game knew a surge of newcoming players, who, over time, lost interest in what was a very strange experience.
As it is today, Worlds is no longer much of a chatroom. It is about exploring what other people left behind: for the most part, empty rooms and worlds, some of them seemingly lacking a purpose, like an empty, run-down gas station in the middle of a desert, or an acid trip of a room where the game would make the player automatically say religious sentences. Those who didn't hail from 4chan - the old-timers - always stood still and never uttered a word. If they did, it would be unbelievably cryptic. A player named Nexialist would constantly expose the "explorers" with unsettling, out-of-place stuff - it would be both unusual yet expected to see him in his bodybag skin throwing a giant, spazzing face at you, warping you somewhere else.
The biggest interest in Worlds is travelling, exploring the empty, somewhat unsettling maps left untouched for over a decade.
If I were to sum it up in a tl;dr: Worlds is a 3D online MMO game from the late 90's. Although the site and official servers are up and running, nothing has been updated in a long while. A relatively small group of regulars still log on quite often. They are all fairly old, from 30 on up. Many of the user-created rooms are creepy or generally full of WTF. Even the official rooms and character avatars (the ones found on the universe map) have a strangeness about them, however unintentional that may be. The age of the client and its primitive graphics create sort of an uncanny valley effect. I'll let the screenshots speak out how strange the game is - it isn't the same sort of horror as Amnesia or Slender, but trust me when I say it's a lot scarier.
I'll let the images speak for themselves.
How to install Worlds: As I said, Worlds is free. It can be downloaded here:
worlds.com/WorldsPlayerWin7.exe
It is a relatively light game, but can be a pain to get it running. If it doesn't run correctly, try running it in compability mode for Windows XP or Windows 2000, and run it as admin.
An idea that might be interesting to do is get your friends in a skype call and everyone plays the game at the same time and shares what they discover 
