Tom Beardsmore, CEO of Coatsink tells VRFocus about turn-based tactical role playing (RPG) game Augmented Empire for Samsung Gear VR. Think XCom meets virtual reality (VR), designed purely for VR. Blending traditional top down asymmetric RPG perspective with first person elements for storytelling. The Gear VR has three degrees of freedom – so you will not be able to move around the map or peek in closer, however that might be coming in the future.
Augmented Empire’s story revolves around an island called New Savannah, an isolated neo-noir metropolis whose society has been divided into three tiers by the ‘Citizen Grade System’. Its citizens deemed of high value to society living an opulent lifestyle at the soaring heights of the city, while those seen as less savoury have to live their lives in the squalid depths. For the most part you play a girl called Willa, who had worked her way up to upper echelons of society, only to find it all come crashing down in an instant.
A team based game you get to choose between various different characters you meet on missions, tapping a bar to maximise hits or critical attacks on enemies, or dodging them in a tactical asymmetric map design. Depending on how you interact with your team members in the dialogue tree you’ll have one of the three possible endings for the game.
Coatsink, who have been working in VR since 2013 on games such as Esper and Esper 2 will be also be releasing a free update for Esper 2 to support Oculus Touch controllers for the Oculus Rift in the next couple of months. They also recently released a short experience A Night Sky, a VR puzzle game that makes the most out of the new Gear VR controller as well as the Samsung S8.
VRFocus previously interviewed company COO Eddie Beardsmore about the game, and VRFocus‘ writer Peter Graham gave it a full five stars in his in-depth review earlier this month. You can find out more in this interview with CEO Tom Beardsmore above.