Towards the end of 2017 virtual reality (VR) developer Cloudhead Games released the second instalment of its sci-fi puzzle series The Gallery: Episode 2 – Heart of the Emberstone. Now out of the blue the team has seen fit to unveil a new developer diary for the vidoegame, with this one focusing on the massive character that helps you get between locations in the title, Boulder.
For those that have played The Gallery: Episode 2 – Heart of the Emberstone, you’ll already know that even though Boulder is this massive creature who strides across the mysterious world of Ember the character isn’t a threat, in fact it is trapped there like you, merely there to help you out.
Yet Boulders roots go deeper. If you’ve been following development of the series you may remember that Boulder is the one character that’s been present since the very first reveal of the HTC Vive. So this developer diary episode of Inside The Gallery looks back at almost 5 years of iterations featuring one of the franchises starring characters.
Boulder has seen continued evolution and development since Cloudhead Games began working on the project. Early on he had a Russian voice and at several points featured a missing arm, the return of which was going to be woven into the story. In the video Joel Green, Cloudhead Games’ Audio Director describes how the character came to be: “Boulder was born out of everyone’s realisation that scale in VR is super fun.”
The Gallery: Episode 2 – Heart of the Emberstone hit Oculus Rift and HTC Vive last year, with VRFocus reviewing the title and finding it to be a worthy followup to Episode 1: “The Gallery: Episode 2 – Heart of the Emberstone isn’t massively long – a run through should take around 5 hours or so – but it’s big enough to offer a satisfying experience, especially if you play episode one for a refresh. Cloudhead Games has done exactly what it needed to, create a compelling sequel that expands and improves the series.”
It’s been a year since Cloudhead Games released its last Inside The Gallery episode. Why release another after so long? Well there are more instalments to come so maybe the team are getting warmed up for an Episode 3 announcement sometime soon. If that does happen VRFocus will let you know as soon as it does.