In November 2014, I began building Reef VR. Like many people before me, I broke away from the mainstream, and built my own OpenSimulator virtual world.
Second Life had become far too expensive and their service was terrible. I gave Linden Labs several chances to improve but they didn't. So, after six years in SL and exhausted by the experience, I relocated to InWorldz in 2013.
InWorldz showed promise initially, but by the time I left in 2014, they were following the Linden Labs handbook. Cracks were beginning to show via IM meltdowns that things weren't going well behind-the-scenes. This, along with rumours of insolvency which turned out to be true, pushed me away in the end. I didn't want to go down with the ship.
To be honest, after seven years of selling virtual real estate alongside running my own RL company with 40 staff, I was over being a land baron. At the same time, I knew that my Irukandji worldbuilding adventure was far from over. With my other unfinished world, Khataria simmering in the background reminding me I never finished projects, I bit the bullet and built Reef VR
New beginnings
While maintaining the integrity of the previous continent, I didn't want to feel burdened by it. I didn't want to remake old stuff for the sake of sentiment. This had to be a time of reinvention. I wanted to focus on creating new game content and developing new scripts.
In the end, Reef VR lasted 15 months. I had a dozen or so diehard land owners from previous grids and their financial support helped give me the freedom to work on all the above.
In terms of longevity, no, The Reef Virtual World was not a roaring success, but in terms of content creation - especially the explosion of animations and scripts - and the hyper development of NPCs - and the new IruMoto car engines and drop menus and ATMs - I mean, WOW!
So yeah, Reef VR was a failure in that it's no longer here, but damn, what a fantastic failure.
This is the great legacy of Reef VR. I built stuff. I invented stuff. And when I moved to DigiWorldz the following year, I had all these groovy new and totally unique creations to take with me. Ten years on, I'm still using content and honing scripts that I created in Reef VR.
Teleport to present-day Irukandji
If you have a viewer for OpenSimulator installed, click the landmark to teleport to Arius.
Islands and seas of Reef VR
Kiwi Islands & Iruka
Kiwi Islands & Iruka
- 104.8576 hectares
- Grid: The Reef 2015
- Use: Mixed
I've combined Kiwi Islands and Iruka under one heading, simply because they were the same region but at different points in time. When my friend Leah owned the region, it was Kiwi Islands. When I took over the region, I kept it going but renamed it Iruka. More on that later.
Kiwi Islands (Leah's legacy)
Kiwi Islands was a one-million square metre 4x4 var-region on The Reef virtual world. While technically, not part of the Irukandji Continent, it was in essence.
When I created the Reef VR grid, I didn't want to go into competition with my estate owners, and thus I decided not to build an Irukandji continent there.
That decision however, created a vacuum as many of my former tenants in InWorldz followed me over and wanted to rent land.
Enter, Leah Hammerer. Leah had been a volunteer estate manager on every grid since Second Life. A huge personality in InWorldz, Leah modelled for my Electric Pussy range of women's clothing. She basically ran the Pussy shop on Tamita Island in InWorldz.
So, Leah decided to try her hand at being a landlord and ordered a region from me. Being a New Zealander, she called it Kiwi Islands. 😎
I terraformed and landscaped the island for her while she took care of the promotion and land rentals. At a million hectares, and terraformed by hand, it took us about a month before Leah could start renting parcels.
In every sense, Kiwi Islands looked just Irukandji. The culture, covenant, and even many of the tenants were exactly the same as before. Leah buried herself in the Electric Pussy business again, building a new series of themed shops while I created a new NPC script so her bots could model clothes.
Life went on like a charm for several months then Leah revealed she had just learned she had terminal cancer. A few weeks later, she passed away.
Stunned by the news, my volunteer helpers did what they could to fill the gap of Leah's absence, but many of my old team had moved on after InWorldz. Eventually, it was pretty much just up to me.
Iruka, a nod to Irukandji on Reef VR
I took over the region so as not to inconvenience Leah's tenants. I renamed the sim Iruka, in order to put some sort of metaphoric underline beneath where Leah's artistic vision abruptly ended and mine began.
It was a horribly emotional time as the very likeable Leah was a close friend to lots of us. Eventually though, the pressures of operating a grid plus a tenanted estate proved too much for me, especially while running my own beauty clinic in RL.
I was able to keep the region going for a few months but finally had to let it go, along with the Reef VR grid itself.
So much love went into this region from both of us. I saved its terrain to my hard-drive and used it as a template for the first iteration of Aratura on the DigiWorldz grid. And all the time I tinkered there, I thought of Leah.
It's 2025 and it still tears me up to think about that time. Even today, 12 years since InWorldz, photos of Leah remain everywhere on product boxes and promo posters. She was very much a big part of Irukandji.
Photo Gallery ★ Kiwi Islands and Iruka
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Marlin Reef
Marlin Reef
- Size: 6.5536 hectares
- Grid: Reef VR 2014-2015
- Use: Mixed
Marlin Reef was a region on The Reef Virtual World.
Located south of the grid's landing sim, Reef City, Marlin Reef formed part of small mainland continent.
The mainland idea was in answer to requests from former tenants in InWorldz, who followed me over to the new grid.
Marlin Reef was residential and commercial, and enjoyed around 50% occupancy from mainly US and European tenants.
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Reef City
Reef City
- Size: 26.2144 hectares
- Grid: Reef VR 2014-2015
- Use: Mixed
Reef City was a region on Reef VR. It was the official landing sim for the grid and its principal commercial district.
In its original form, Reef City was a standard sized region, adjoined by Marlin Reef to the south and Starfish Reef to the north.
Later, Reef City was transformed into a 2x2 var-region and the separate regions were combined.
Photo Gallery ★ Reef City
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Starfish Reef
Starfish Reef
- Size: 6.5536 hectares
- Reef VR 2014-2015
- Use: Mixed
Starfish Reef was a region on the Reef VR virtual world.
Part of the grid's mainland continent, most of Starfish Reef was public land. The northeast corner housed the Irukandji Palace, home of the estate team.
To the south of Starfish Reef lay the grid's landing sim and administrative centre, Reef City.
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The Lagoon
The Lagoon
- Size: 26.2144 hectares
- Reef VR 2014-2015
- Use: Mixed
The Lagoon was a standalone simulator on Reef VR virtual world. While technically not part of the Irukandji story, I've included it here due to its similarities.
The Lagoon was a 2x2 var-region. It was terraformed by hand. A long sandbar ran from east to west, with the northern half of the simulator set aside for commercial purposes.
The southern half was a gay themed resort called Calypso.
Photo Gallery ★ The Lagoon
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