Wall of Passed Time

I share a fun activity with my two adult children playing a computer game called A Tale In The Desert 6. Every year and a half a new Tale starts and the game varies in the requirements to reach higher levels, but the basics of the game remain the same each telling. There is no violence in the game; avatars learn to do the menial chores of a burgeoning society in Egypt.

Growing flax, weaving thread into linen, making bricks, gathering clay to make jugs and firing them in a kiln, feeding camels and and sheep, growing vegetables and mining for ore and gems are among the jobs avatars do as well as solve puzzles and build monuments.

When the three of us are in the game at the same time, we talk on the phone, conference style and play the events and projects as a team. At the beginning of ATITD 6, my son commented that he wanted to make bricks, a million of them. I said if he made a million bricks I would make a million jugs and wondered what a million of either would look like.

I said that I would make a wall with the bricks, but it was explained to me that the game wouldn't allow stacking them in a heap. Being virtual, you can make them, store them carry them, but not stack them. You can only see them as single units. The same with jugs. When I saw what they would look like as single units if dropped on the ground, I began to think of ways of using them in a statue vignette.

Since a vignette can have 25 items raised at different heights, I came up with the idea of making a wall using a pattern of jugs and bricks .The next step was experimenting with the idea and building a practice model on the top of a near by sand dune. Stacking two statue bases doubled the distance of the wall, then by repeating stacked bases, we could continue the wall for any length we wanted.

It was decided to build the wall in a straight line and in an area without mountains or sand dunes if possible so the next move was a walkabout to fine the right spot for our wall. Between scouting trips I made over 6000 jugs and added them to the stash of bricks and other materials we needed for the wall.

In order to make the jugs and bricks we had to collect clay from clay beds, build kilns in which to fire the jugs, build a warehouse to store all the materials and grow flax to make the rope and linen required for the statue bases.

The wall project will last as long as this phase of the Tale does. So far the wall reaches beyond 100 coordinates of the map grid and we continue to add to its length.

[Editor's note: you can follow our progress from the game wiki: Wall of Passed Time.]

Wall of Passed Time 100 coordinate milestone