Mikuland was a VR event held from the 8th to the 10th of August inside VirtualCast. People had the opportunity to explore a small Miku themed amusement park with a few attractions. I was able to attend and figured I’d share some of my experiences of the time I spent there.
(People were also able experience it(in a limited way) through the Holomodels app in AR, but my phone is too old and didn't work with it.)
The main area was the Mikuland Gate, which served as a hub to the side attractions. It was a small park-like place with entrances (links) to the side attractions, a few walls dedicated to Piapro fanart, and a huge statue of Miku in her Mikuland costume, surrounded by water. The ceiling was a dome of a starry sky, with the world map from the webpage in the center of it, showing the star-marks of the people attending(who marked at least).
Areas(rooms) were limited to 12 people at once, and maybe for this reason there were a dozen Mikuland Gate rooms, but only 1-2 for the side attractions.
Yukine Hills was an area dedicated to Snow Miku's pet bunny. A spiral staircase would lead up here from the reception, but it is a separate room which you can only teleport into. It was like a lookout which gives a nice view of the main area from a higher point. It had snowmans, igloos and a Yukine statue with a "real" one hopping around it.
The Miku Outdoor Shop was a camping themed room, with tents and camping equipment. Right in the middle Miku can be seen camping, with some Miku themed merchandise on display. Mugcups, pots, etc. can be looked at, picked up, and purchased of course. There are QR codes for each item for sale, which buyers would get both in real life and in VirtualCast to play around with.
The Digital Figure shop was a small exhibition featuring an iXima style Miku figure(which could be bought for use in VirtualCast and the Holomodels app). The Mikuland themed Miku and Megu models were on display too. In the middle of the room, there was a small replica of Mikuland itself.
The Rhythm Attraction is a small arcade-ish room housing only the rhythm game, instructions and a scoreboard. The game can be played by equipping two bracelet-like controllers, and wearing those, hitting the correct buttons as the notes reach the player. Quite simple, with a twist of "emote notes" on the top 2 lanes, where you're supposed to press a different button and swipe in one of the four directions depending on the note.(this is something I didn't quite get how to do) After the song, you can enter your name if you made it onto the scoreboard. The songs that can be played, from what I noticed, were the background songs of the different areas of Mikuland.
In the Cosplay Shop, you could try on contact lenses, costumes of certain CFM characters, and some special effects. In the other room of this area, you could try Miku themed instruments, including a synth, an electric guitar, a drum set and a microphone.
The Miku Art Gallery was like a LAN-party office with Miku themed chairs and keyboards. Most of the walls were filled with Miku artwork, and tiny projectors under them, which could be moved and activated to project a large version of the picture. There was one item here for purchase, which is an iXima style Miku plush(real and VR, supposedly).
During the days, random rooms were streamed on Nicovideo for a few hours. Also, Megu-san and Miku would show up to Gate areas to take pictures with guests.
It was troublesome setting the client up and getting it to work properly, but after figuring out what was missing(JP locale it seems) I had a lot of fun in Mikuland and hope to visit again in the future.
The next Mikuland just happened(a week or so ago) and I had the opportunity to attend again.
This event was called Snow World 2021 and most of it revolved around Snow Miku. Unlike last time, it was open only for 2 days. A few things changed, the biggest one being they introduced "Myrooms" next to "studios". One big difference between the two is that rooms now had collision and basic physics. All of the Mikuland places were room instances, allowing people to walk up and down and not go through walls.
The very first room was a simple preview and tutorial about how to get to Mikuland.
Mikuland Gate was mostly the same area as last time, but winter themed. Snow everywhere, snow sculptures around the Miku statue, and the Piapro wall filled to the brim with Snow Miku artwork. Yukine hills became one with this area and could be accessed by either the stairs or by climbing the roofs outside. The door in the background had a portal which lead to the Snowglobe area. The bgm for this place was Happy Coaster, Melancholic, Day & Night and Twinkle Twinkle.
The Snowglobe was the main attraction of the event and also where the mini-live was held.
https://youtu.be/AOOeejwKCGg?t=26446
The entrance was some underground staircase, which lead to a square with a huge Snow Miku statue. Points of interest here were another snow sculpture exhibition, including a recreation of the actual Sapporo Snow Miku of this year, the Kamakura shop where Snow Miku themed virtualcast items could be purchased, a snowball-fight field, and the Miku statue in the middle. The statue was surrounded by a staircase of sparkles, leading up to a small bell and the puzzle for the area.
The Kamakura shops were snow bunny shaped igloos with snow Miku themed merch such as: a glowstick, a lantern, pair of gloves, clock, snowglobe, Yukine airplane, muffler, Miku twintails, Rin ribbons and Luka headphones.
Second igloo had some instruments, but they were only for show, and seemingly for HoloModels. And some Miku and Megu virtual plushies. Third igloo housed a life-sized snowglobe and some ads for a snow photo festival in Sapporo.
The snowball fight field was a small set of cover walls, tree cut-outs and two sides with neon snowflakes for teams. The set didn't have any special function, the board pointed to the gloves you could buy in the shop, which allowed you to create and throw snowballs. So it was merely for a pretend snowball fight if you bought the goods. The bgm for this area was pretty much the White Luminescence album.
Between 7 and 10pm Japan time, the Snowglobe area would turn dark(randomly), SnowMiku appearing and performing a dance to this years (snow)theme song Fondant Step. I was lucky to catch one, even if I had to wait more than an hour.
https://youtu.be/_unlVPpr0vw?t=27530
Outdoor camping shop
Mostly the same, with a few new items added to the exhibition.
Rhythm attraction
The same as last time, with some adjustments to the game itself.
Digital Figure shop
Mostly the same as last time, with snow themed figures added.
Art gallery
Same as before, with a different plush and different art on the walls.
Like last year, throughout the days Megu-san and Miku would appear in the main area to take pictures with people lucky enough to be around at the moment. This time however, at different times, Megu-san would be accompanied by either Miku, Rin, Len, Luka or Snow Miku. I was fortunate enough to catch them a few times myself. The Snow Miku one is an epic tale of regret, greed, despair, hope and redemption, ending with a bang, but I will omit that from here.
Despite the technical difficulties(new ones) it turned out to be quite the ride again and I had lots of fun. Hoping to attend the next one too!
These avatars are on point.
This is VirtualCast?
Is it a healthy alternative to VRChat?
Too many trolls and desktop users crashing people who want to enjoy community there.
Would love some more information, sorry for not reading through thread completely.
I am a busy shitposter these days..
The main area was decorated with sakura trees and a falling petals effect. The Miku statue in the middle was back to normal(compared to her snow version last time) and the gate in the back still lead to the Snowglobe area. The Piapro wall appeared empty, and I don't remember any announcement about submissions, so they might have skipped it this time. Most of the music was the same as before except since VocaColle was happening around the same time, some of the songs were used from VocaColle uploads. They had new merch that goes with the theme of the event, such as a tea set, dangos, pink glowstick, sakura hair-accessory, sakura hand-effect and a sakura satellite.
The cosplay studio made a comeback this time, although with fewer items to play around with. The Outdoor camping, Art gallery, Digital figure shop and Rhythm game room were pretty much the same as before. As mentioned earlier, the Snowglobe area was also back, complete with the SnowMiku performance in the middle. One new room, a simplified version of the main area was reserved for figures of the GEMS COMPANY idols. Five puzzles were also hidden in the rooms, with the prize of a sakura branch that exploded into RGB petals when shaken. Unfortunately, I could only solve 4 of the 5, so I didn't get it this time either.
In the art gallery, someone with a long-sleeved Miku avatar noticed me staring at the puzzle and tried to help me(for a good 20 minutes) by pointing at it with a glowstick and even showing me a guide, but I still didn't get it.
This time Megu-san wasn't the only idol helping out. Members of a virtual idol group GEMS COMPANY were acting as hosts during the 3 days for the "greeting" photo-shoots. Megu-san and Sugarock(Vtuber) only participated on the third day. I was a bit late, but still managed to catch Miku.
Like last time, lucky people were able to attend one of the 6 acoustic mini-live performances of Miku and Megu-san. Unlike last time however, I won the ticket lottery and went to the second performance of the first night. The songs were the same as the winter performance. Megu-san asked us a few things between the songs and they took group photo at the end.
Even though I've seen most of the places already, I had a lot of fun again, made some memories and looking forward to the next one.