At Marrowstone Island in Second Life, it’s the darker side of Halloween year round.  The grim and occasionally gruesome are focused through owner Loki’s Ball’s SL lens, dropped into a bucket of blood and grime, and slathered over stone, flesh and rusted metal skeletons.

Loki’s creations are all shapes and sizes, from burning piles of you-know-what and crows picking at half-finished meals to massive churches, warehouses, jails, morgues, mausoleums, asylums, and sweatshops.  Loki’s sim is a sinister ecosystem on a grand scale: it’s chock full of interactivity and you will rarely if ever see a gap in the action in the main area.  The buildings for sale are all connected by power lines (don’t touch that high voltage box), a system of crumbling roads allows easy navigation, and the ground is littered with things to test out.  I was able to warm my hands at a burning barrel, see how I’d look as discarded parts in a garbage can with a clever sit animation, and dig my own grave in the space of 20 meters.

Earlier builds tend to be more sedate, like the sweatshop (“I’m just a small sweatshop owner… larger sweatshop owners would charge 10 times less”) and warehouses, but everything has its own scripted personality, and as of late his work has taken on a fiendishly fun interactivity.  His motel is the ultimate in Psycho-style roleplaying, with ominous guest rooms and a tub I wouldn’t be caught dead in.  The unsettling front desk, with a phone receiver knocked off its cradle, holds a trio of disturbing s– AAHH! I just checked in the safe for the first time.  Okay, four disturbing secrets.  Maybe more.  For now I’ll just say the manager’s computer lets him or her keep an easy eye on the guests, and he’s got plenty of food stashed away for when he’s hungry.

Two other recent builds of note are his swimming pool, a tribute to litter and pollution, and his “I Gots Gas” garage, which shows some amusing gas prices and rezzes two of Loki’s vehicles in the vehicle bay.   Under construction, and sure to promise more demented detail and interaction, is a massive jail.

For those more faint or kind of heart, Loki also has a barn, trees, and animals for sale in the approximate center of the sim.  You can easily forget everything you’ve seen in his dismal urban nightmares by watching the animals graze, walking through the farmhouse (complete with beds and loft), or having a seat on the working swing.  Um, just don’t check out the fires too closely.  Or peek behind that tree in the corner.  Trust me.

So, whenever you’re in a Halloween mood, whatever time of year it is, Fluid Creations welcomes you.  For a leaden, fearful atmosphere, with just enough black humor so as not to be too serious, you’ll be hard pressed to find a better sim than Marrowstone Island.