Virtual reality (VR) videogames don’t necessarily need to be amazing 3D worlds, as with a keen eye and artistic talent 2D gameplay can work just as well. With the likes of Bloody Zombies and The Lost Bear showcasing different ways of handling 2D in VR, today, indie developer Dakko Dakko has revealed its latest project coming exclusively to PlayStation VR, Pop-Up Pilgrims.
Dakko Dakko solely creates 2D videogames and Pop-Up Pilgrims is an adaption of one of its PlayStation Vita titles – Floating Cloud God Saves the Pilgrims. It’s up to players to guide a bunch of pilgrims through a dangerous world of intersecting 2D levels filled with demonic forces.
The studio has kept the control system simple and easy to use, whereby your gaze moves a pointer around the levels and with a button press tells the nearest pilgrim to get moving in that direction. The difficulty comes in managing all those characters on multiple levels as they run around to their hearts content – or they meet something nasty and die.
On the PlayStation Blog, Rhodri Broadbent, Dakko Dakko founder (former Lionhead and Q-Games developer) explained how Pop-Up Pilgrims came about as VR doesn’t automatically seem a good place for 2D content.
“We’ve long been all about 2D gaming at Dakko Dakko, and at first it seemed like the recent arrival of VR gaming wasn’t likely to affect our development plans,” said Broadbent. “Fortunately, I had the chance to try a friend’s VR kit quite early, and the moment I put the headset on my mind started racing with ideas for what our games might be like in VR.”
“Within a couple weeks we had gone from never really thinking about virtual reality to having a specially adapted version of one of our PS Vita games – Floating Cloud God Saves the Pilgrims – playable in a VR space!”
Featuring more than 50 stages to complete, Pop-Up Pilgrims will be available to download from PlayStation Store on February 13th. Check out the first trailer below and for any further updates, keep reading VRFocus.