2012: Our year in review (Part 1)

This year has been another fascinating and surprising year for Z&A. We're the first to admit that there is no master plan, that we have let Z&A grow and evolve naturally, that the most important thing for us is that this is fun and that everyone we deal with is happy with what we do. Once again we finished the year surprised and delighted at how much we've grown considering our humble beginnings.

January was a pretty quiet month for us. Antony had a play with the idea of a relay checker, initially as something that would be placed around the shop to help people diagnose any problems they might be having with our products, and then we quickly released it as a free product to help everyone. We did release a couple of products, including a new Punishment Picker and the very popular Z&A Strap-On.

Two big announcements were made that month. The first was our decision to hold a mini-hunt around Z&A to celebrate Z&A's second birthday. The second was the formation of Raven Park, a playground and hangout created out of the older Shackles Femdom (something which, a little later on in the year, was to grow much bigger).

February was a very busy month for us. We released quite a few new products, including a black version of a popular simple throne, along with the catch/hold holding cells and the Quadripod; and then a little later we released two new cells, the Corner Chained range and the Pipe Bed.

This month we also experimented with the idea of having a guest vendor in the store. For this experiment we invited Evelock to place a vendor in our main store. This worked well and Evelock would go on to having a store nextdoor to Z&A's main store (but more on what made that possible a little later).

February saw two very big events, for us. The first, of course, was the birthday mini-hunt. We planned this having no idea how well received it would be. The idea was to have people wander around the main store and the Raven Park playground and pick up a collection of gifts we'd left out. We weren't sure how many people would turn up. We weren't sure at all if it was going to be a massive flop or not. We needn't have worried. It was a very busy weekend that weekend and lots of people turned up and made the whole thing really fun. It was a real delight to see so many people wandering around and exploring.

The second event followed just after the end of the mini-hunt, but had been in the planning stage for about a month, and we'd been busy working on it for a couple of weeks leading up to it. On the last day of the month we deleted the main store building, and the cell store, and replaced them both with a brand new build that would join it all together. This was our biggest and most ambitious store build to date and we made it big enough to last us for a while to come. Hopefully it'll last us more than a year (normally we've found ourselves replacing the store every year, or more). Of course, it didn't quite work out that way, as we needed to build a special sky platform for a new product range, but more on that later...

March, which we'd planned on being a quiet month after all the work running up to the mini-hunt and the new store, didn't turn out to be so quiet after all. Around the middle of the month we were told by our neighbour that they were letting their 1/2 of the region go. We had another long conversation, the same as we'd had before when this last happened, and this time the outcome was different. Whereas last time we decided to just stick with our 1/2, this time we decided to take a risk and take on the whole region, making the other 1/2 available for rentals.

Although slow to get started we're now in a position where, not only is every single plot being rented, we have a waiting list for plots. And we're lucky to have some wonderful residents on those plots. It's worked out really well.

April was another busy month for us. I kicked off with us taking part in two hunts (one build being, we think, the only chocolate RLV cell on the grid), with us being in a third hunt by the middle of the month. Also, around the middle of the month, we released six more cells and two new gags. By the end of the month we released five more products, including the rather popular RLV Force-TP Sentry.

May kicked off with us sponsoring the Femdom Community in SL's Femdom Fiesta. This month also saw Antony playing with a pet project that, by the middle of the month, was released as a freebie known as the Z&A Avatar Radar.

May also saw the release of a product that had Antony all excited as he was building it: The Z&A Police Box Cell. That wasn't the only cell build that we did that month. Towards the end of the month we sponsored a Science Fiction themed dance at The Velvet Thorn. As part of this we built a special cell that was given as a gift to all who attended. This, in turn, would inspire a new small range of cells that would be released in...

June was another very busy month for us. It kicked off with us taking part in the Fetish Love Hunt. Our build for that probably took us as deep into full-on fetish territory as we've ever been and, to this day, we're still debating about if we should release it as a product (as we often do with hunt builds).

A few days later we announced the release of a range of science fiction themed cells, inspired by the build we'd done for the VT dance the previous month. Whereas all our other cells, so far, were very much about doors and bars and walls and the like, this range concentrated on force fields, both visible and invisible. One cell even doing away with any visible door, walls or roof.

June also saw the release of a new Z&A carry restraint as well as the release of two versions of the Z&A Lamp Post -- a build that started life as the gift for a hunt earlier on in the year.

Finally, towards the end of the month, we released two new gags. The mousetrap gag is still one of Antony's favourite gag builds.

And that takes us half way through Z&A's 2012. The review of the second half can be found in part 2.

Deirdre and lelo’s Fetish Spot

As avid readers of Second Life Fetish Fashion we were delighted to receive, a couple of days back, an invite to take part in Deirdre and lelo's new Fetish Spot. While we don't exactly do fetish fashion, we obviously do fetish and, in part, cater for a section of the fetish community that isn't so well supported (come on designers, let's have more stuff for guys!).

The idea of the Fetish Spot is simple: invite designers and builders of fetish items and kinky stuff to make a thing available for just L$10 and then have people gather and hang out and meet and greet and get a great selection of (full, not demo items) samples of people's work.

So, with that in mind, we've made an item that's a very Z&A product and is currently exclusive to the Fetish Spot location. It's a rebuild of an item that was a gift during our Second Birthday Mini-Hunt, this time done in 100% mesh (and still with a land impact of just 1 prim).

To get this product head over to the Fetish Spot and look for our board:

Also, while you're out and about, grabbing Z&A bargains, don't forget that there's just a few days left to get our Christmas Gifts and our Winter Gift.

Three new products

We're delighted to be able to announce the release of three new products into the main store and onto the Second Life Marketplace. The first two are two styles of wooden pet cage. These two products are our first ever 100% mesh builds. Because of this they give quite a bit of detail despite having a land impact of just 3!

The third and final product is a fun RLV trap, in the form of quicksand:

This product will grab any open-RLV-relay-wearing victim who happens to walk into it and will hold them there for a time you set, or until someone else comes along and releases them. Optionally it can be configured to strip them as they're released (because, of course, quicksand would cause all your clothing to fall off -- no, really, it would).

As always, you can find these products in our main store and on our marketplace.

While you're down at the main store don't forget that there's still time to pick up our Christmas gifts and your own copy of the Z&A Sleigh.

Now that it's December...

Now that it's December it's time, once again, to make available some seasonal builds and gifts available.

First off, the Christmas stocking version of our popular Punishment Picker is now listed on the marketplace:

As usual, this will only be available until the end of the month and then it'll be packed away for another year.

Also, in addition to the winter gift we announced a couple of days ago, we're making our Christmas builds available for free again. Just pop down to our main store and look for and touch these two boards:

A new mansion for Raven Park

Over the past six or so weeks we've been working away, on a build platform high above Raven Park, creating something we've been wanting to create for quite a while now.

The plan for the project goes back quite some time, at least a year, before the plot that was known as Shackles Femdom became Raven Park. When we first took over complete ownership of Shackles we decided that we'd like to update the building known as The Mansion. While the building we were using was (and still is) a great build, the layout was never quite right for our needs. Because of this we kept saying that we should custom-build a mansion building that would be exactly what was needed. Much time passed and other projects got worked on and completed, but we finally got round to this one.

Today we dropped the new building in place:

All the rooms the old Raven Park Mansion used to have are still there (two BDSM play rooms, a pamper room and the office) but, this time, there's space for more. We have firm plans for the extra rooms but, while the "old" rooms are still there and ready to use, the new rooms will look like this:

until we get around to furnishing them.

Please feel free to drop in, explore, play and make the most of The Mansion. We hope you have as much fun using it as we had building it and will have furnishing it.

Two new vehicles and a winter gift

It's around six weeks now since we announced our new range of RLV-enabled vehicles and we're happy to say they've been well received. Now that a little time has passed we've decided to put the carriage (which was our gift for The Femdom Hunt III) out for sale including, of course, a rezzer version of it too:

As well as this we've also made a winter-themed vehicle. We're very pleased to announce the release of the Z&A Sleigh. As with all our other vehicles, for those who want to make the vehicle available for public use on their plots and in their regions, we have the rezzer version:

The vehicle itself is also, of course, available. However, from now until the end of December, we've decided to make a gift of this. If you would like your own copy of the Z&A Sleigh all you have to do is come over to the Z&A vehicle test track, find this board (it's with all the other sale boards):

make sure that "Friends of Z&A" is your active group (if you're not a member yet there's a joiner next to the board) and touch the board. When you do your own free copy will be delivered to your inventory.

And, while you're there, please do feel free to try our the other vehicles available.

Also, all being well, anyone interested should be able to try out the sleigh in proper winter conditions this Saturday. Keep an eye out for the sleigh as an attraction at the Femdom Network Ice Queen Winterfest.

Halloween Gifts

Now that Halloween is almost here, it's time to put out the Z&A Halloween gifts again. If you're in need of a prop or two, or even an outfit, for a Halloween bash, and especially something with a little sprinkle of RLV, you need to head down to our main store and slap these boards:

Also don't forget that this weekend is the final weekend of The Femdom Hunt III. If you're intending to do the hunt, and pick up 60+ gifts from around the grid (two of which are Z&A builds -- the one in our main store and the one at Raven Park), and you've not started yet, this is going to be your last chance. If you've not grabbed Z&A's gift yet you really should think about heading down and doing so, it is related to recent product releases and you don't want to miss out.