A Township Tale already has something few other VR games can claim to enjoy – a fan-run wiki.
No, really, I meant to type wiki.
See, the mere fact that Alta’s part survival, part town-building universe needs an online encyclopedia tells you a lot of things. First, it suggests the game has genuine depth, and that’s certainly the case; the world of A Township Tale is rife with different resources to collect, classes to master and, above all, equipment to make. Understanding what you need, how to get it and where to farm it from takes time. In fact, it’d be practically impossible without an online resource such as this.
It also tells you that there’s already a strong community behind this game, and one that clearly believes in Alta’s mission. Township enjoys a very active online community that, especially around this week’s Quest launch, is enthusiastic to do all it can to help you find your feet. You can also see that in the exhaustive amount of YouTube tutorials that spend anywhere up to an hour explaining the finer details of select elements of the game. Fostering a community like this is no small task, and it’s an early sign that, clearly, Alta is onto something here.
Finally, it’s also an affirmation that A Township Tale can, in its early hours, be a little overwhelming. There’s a lot to do here and the game itself currently doesn’t do a great job of explaining what your overall goals are and how to achieve them. In that sense, A Township Tale very much is about finding your own way and making your own adventures, but it takes a long time to really start feeling like you have a grasp on what you’re doing.
That’s not just because the in-game explanations are lacking (seriously, there isn’t any sort of real written explanation of what to do for most tasks) but because the game itself demands a good grasp of the fundamentals of VR before you start playing. It’s a fiddly, physical experience that requires you to pick up items correctly and act out using them properly right down to the angling of a swing of a hammer or how you hold a chisel. You can get some starting tips for the game right here.
The goal is to be as realistic as possible, and Alta certainly throws its all at that concept. And in a lot of ways the game succeeds with fascinating results. Without question, A Township Tale is a game that wouldn’t work with a controller or keyboard; yes you can play very similar games on flatscreen but the entire point of Township is to feel like you’re really doing these activities yourself. But, as a result, the game can also find itself brushing up against VR’s current limitations, asking for a finesse that’s hard to produce without the context you’d normally get from, say, swinging a top-heavy hammer onto a nail.
All that is to say that we’re not nearly ready to put down a review score on the game just yet. We’ve spent a fair amount of time digging into the meat of the game, but not nearly enough to really feel like we’ve seen everything it has to offer. It might be some time before we are ready to put that stamp down, too.
A Township Tale is hugely ambitious — especially on the Quest platform — and, if it gets everything right, it could be one of the most important releases yet. That’s why we need to make sure we get our judgment of the game right, too. Check back soon to find out our final thoughts.
Having already spent a week with Alta’s A Township Tale for Oculus Quest it became clear that this was nowhere near enough time to actually review this open-world adventure. Originally brought to PC in 2019, if I’d played this version of A Township Tale then I would’ve had a better understanding. Instead, I stepped into A Township Tale fresh and naive that I’d be able to see most of what it had to offer prior to launch and give a definitive answer. What I can say most assuredly, if you’re looking for a huge, brand new Oculus Quest videogame to play with friends then this is most certainly it.
If you’re already acquainted with the PC edition of A Township Tale or have been closely following its development, all the core functionality and gameplay has been brought over to Oculus Quest. Every player can start their own virtual server (private or open), get invited to another or simply join an already open server. These are their own individual worlds, so any progress made stays with them, hence why it’s a good idea to start your own with a few friends to nurture. Because you’ll need them, there’s a lot of ground to cover and jobs to do – unless you’re a glutton for multitasking.
And I’m not lying when I say you’ve got plenty to keep yourself busy. A Township Tale is built around collaboration as each server can support up to eight players so you can build a merry town. All the marketing blurb focuses on each player choosing a profession which they then have to stick to, every one providing vital services to progress the groups’ goal. In reality, this is only partially correct. You can if you so choose become a Blacksmith or a Woodcutter, or decide that you want to be a warrior fighting through monster-filled woods. It is quite easy to be a bit of everything, learning the various crafts so you know how to forge a weapon or cook a tasty meal.
That’s certainly the case if you don’t have a full contingent, becoming even more daunting if you decide to start a game all by yourself. And this is exactly what I did, thinking “how hard can this be?” as I wandered around the derelict town for the first time. Hard wasn’t really the correct description either, it was more “what the f**k do I do and where do I go?” A Township Tale gives you almost complete freedom to do that, with almost no handholding whatsoever. There’s a tutorial which in itself isn’t exactly straight forward and once you’re through that, satchel in hand, you’re off to build a brave new world.
Like any videogame of this ilk, you’re going to stumble around for a bit as you find your bearings. There are basic challenges to help give you direction and books which do kind of detail some of the mechanics but there’s certainly plenty of trial and error. This is why it’s best to bring at least one buddy along so you can all figure some of this stuff out. Brazenly, after felling a couple of chicken/dodo type creatures wandering around the town we thought it would be a good idea to explore farther afield, get the lay of the land so to speak. We so weren’t ready.
Whilst there’s plenty to do in and around the town, collecting useful resources such as food or various rocks and ores, there’s a big world to explore and it’s dangerous. Danger is good, danger is exciting unless of course you dive into your first fight with nothing more than a piece of flint strapped to a stick. In which case, death is almost certain, and with the hunger level low, the option to run away suddenly wasn’t there. Then, in a very Dark Souls kinda way, I returned to the town minus one backpack full of useful items I’d collected, so you know exactly what happened next.
Thus it would be nice to get back and suddenly find one of your mates has been finessing their blacksmithing skills and created a new weapon or maybe someone else has cooked up a hearty broth to soothe those bones, all possible in A Township Tale.
It’s an impressive achievement getting this massive open-world to work on Oculus Quest considering its hardware limitations. There are no loading sequences that I could find, run into a fort or go explore some dark and dingy caves and it’s all smooth and effortless, making A Township Tale truly feel immersive. However, sacrifices have had to be made to ensure this velvety effortlessness. As VRFocus previously reported when Alta released a comparison video between the PC VR and Oculus Quest versions, massive amounts of detail have been scrapped, especially at a distance. If you’re expecting a beautiful landscape when you get to the top of a hill, don’t, the videogame is best appreciated at closer range. Even then, buildings, trees, animals will all popinto view. That’s the price you pay for wireless, standalone freedom.
Even with these visual issues – and a few other annoying quirks – the time that I’ve spent with A Township Tale has been a blast, just mucking around working shit out. And not once have I been bored, even strolling around the town at night lighting all the torches was a simple joy, seeing the flames flicker away. As mentioned, I do need to spend more time digging into A Township Tale and its various mechanics to provide a proper review. Priced at $9.99 USD, from what I’ve seen so far A Township Tale is an absolute bargain on Oculus Quest.
MMO-like A Township Tale has been available on PC VR for a few years now, but today’s launch on Quest opens the game up to a whole new audience. With support for up to eight simultaneous players and immersive interactions at its core, there’s nothing else quite like A Township Tale out there.
A Township Tale Details:
Available On: Oculus Quest & PC VR
Price: $10 (Quest), Free (PC) Cross-play: No (planned for future)
Developer: Alta Release Date: July 15th, 2021 Reviewed On: Quest 2
A Township Tale is free-to-play on PC but costs $10 on Quest. However, the Quest version includes 1,000 Talems (the in-game currency for premium cosmetics) and the ability to run your own server (which on PC costs $10 per month).
Gameplay
On its face, Township Tale is a game about finding an abandoned town and working together with friends to fix it up and create a functional community. Along the way there’s tons to explore and discover. Not just the world around the town, but the game’s breadth of mechanics and professions like cooking, mining, blacksmithing, carpentry, and more.
Image courtesy Alta
Township Tale is very open-ended; there is no explicit story or quest structure. The game starts you off with a tutorial of the absolute basics. It’s up to you—and your compatriots—to figure out the rest. At its best, discovering how the world works is a blast. Every time you find a new item, area, or learn how to make something new, it feels like the world is expanding before your eyes.
While some parts of the game—thanks to fairly intuitive immersive designs—offer that thrill, other parts can feel obtuse and frustrating. Players who are not patient and persistent will likely tire of Township Tale quickly for this reason. And while you could certainly opt to look everything up in the official Wiki, discovering it together is really the heart of the game.
Whether or not you have friends to share in the highs and lows of discovery and adventure will likely play a significant role in your enjoyment of the game. While any number of players can ‘belong’ to a server, up to eight can be connected at once on Quest. Cross-play with PC isn’t supported, but developer Alta says it expects to add this in the future.
Township Tale’s avatar system has great customization thanks to a wide range of options, including the ability to pick the color (and often secondary color) of pretty much anything you can customize on your character. Figuring out how to save your avatar and apply it before joining a server can be pretty confusing on the first run, but it works pretty well once you understand it, and supports 10 different avatar outfits which you can swap between.
While Township Tale might be missing the ‘massive’ part of ‘massively multiplayer online’ (MMO), it definitely has that MMO-like feel of adventuring around a persistent world that everyone is contributing to. I can’t imagine playing the game solo (nor would I recommend it); there’s a ton to do and a lot to learn; you’re going to want some friends to share the load, otherwise much of the game could feel like a tiresome grind.
While there’s also lands to explore and enemies to slay, Township Tale’s crafting professions really steal the spotlight. Gathering resources to build things is usually the motivating force behind what you decide to do in the game.
If you want to make a sword, for instance, you’ll need to mine ore. To mine ore you’ll need to make a pickaxe. To make a pickaxe you’ll need to learn carpentry to make a handle. To make a handle you’ll need wood. To get wood you need to chop down trees. Etc.
While the lack of tutorialization can be frustrating at times, it encourages communal knowledge transmission that often plays out much like a master & apprentice. This is supported by the game’s rich player-to-player interactions (covered in more detail in the Immersion section).
As you get more experienced with the game’s various professions, you’ll be able to become even more specialized in that profession by learning new skills at special shrines hidden throughout the world. I don’t want to get too deep into all the skills—after all, discovery is one of the most fun parts of Township Tale—but learning these skills feels like a direct sense of progression in the game, and a reflection of the role you’ve chosen to take.
While out looking for resources, you’re likely to come across enemies. Unfortunately combat in Township Tale is perhaps the game’s weakest component. It feels very ‘first-gen’ in terms of VR combat; which is to say it’s largely an awkward affair due to enemies hardly responding to your hits and there being little room for strategy beyond ‘hit them until they die’.
This is a bummer considering the range of player-made weapons available in the game. There’s bows, swords, axes, spears, daggers, maces, throwing knives, dynamite, and even a slingshot.
And, thanks to the flexible crafting system, you can build interesting variations on those weapons. For instance you could easily whip up a halberd (a spear & axe combo) by combining a side-facing axe head and a top-facing spear tip onto a long handle. Or you could make a double-ended polearm, a battle axe, or an axe-hammer. Hell, you could even make a flaming torch-axe.
Like the professions, the ‘town’ of Township Tale has a surprising amount of depth to it. At the start most buildings will be in some state of disrepair and you’ll need to gather resources to build them up to their full potential. Eventually you’ll find your own personal lockbox and bank where you can store valuable items and coins that only you can access. There’s even vending machines in town which you can use to sell items to other players when you aren’t around. You put in your inventory, pick the price, and then collect the earnings when you get back.
Image courtesy Alta
Any time you sign onto Township Tale it feels like there’s 20 things you could be doing. Because it’s so open-ended, your enjoyment of the game will be very reliant on having friends to play with regularly, and your ability to focus on one objective (ie: gather ore to make a weapon or upgrade a building) and work diligently toward it without getting sidetracked. The game can feel like ‘work’ at times, given how long it can take to accomplish larger goals, so pick your objectives carefully.
Township Tale doesn’t have an explicit ending, so there’s no amount of time that constitutes the ‘end’ of the game. Your progression will be heavily dependent on whether you choose to look up information and whether or not you’re learning from seasoned players or learning everything as you go.
I’ve played the game for more than 10 hours and haven’t looked up anything or played with experienced players; even at this point it feels like there’s tons more for me to discover and craft. But I’ve gotten a strong feeling for the foundation of the game and where the core fun lies. There is some end-game-ish content, but it isn’t in the Quest version of the game at launch.
Immersion
Immersive player-to-player interactions in Township Tale make for a certain kind of social VR magic that’s hard to come by elsewhere. Nearly every interactive object in the game is physics-driven and networked between players. This means you can hand items to others, work together while crafting, fighting, managing inventory, etc.
There’s something special about holding out a torch toward your friend while they spark it alight by clacking two flint together before getting out their own torch to light it from yours.
This kind of cooperation is really where Township Tale shines, and opportunities for it are abound, especially in crafting. Blacksmithing, for instance, is a multi-step process that involves different tools and resources. Tossing a bag of coal to your friend and asking them to load it into the furnace while you load the ore into the hopper feels entirely natural thanks to the immersive crafting design.
You’ll likely find yourself asking your friend to hand you a tool or hold something for you while your hands are full doing something else. The game’s interactive and cooperative nature opens opportunities for benevolent helpfulness (or trolling, depending upon which kind of friends you have) and resource sharing which aren’t possible in some other games due to limitations in cross-player item interactivity.
This is all underpinned by an inventory system which, while frustrating at times, is smartly designed for immersion and usability.
On your back you’ve got a backpack with a handful of item slots and four additional item slots around your belt. If you have spare room in your backpack, you can put items over your shoulder and they’ll drop into an open slot. Or you can pull your pack off of your back to see everything inside and move things between your belt and backpack.
The developers have also came up with a smart system for handling ‘stacks’ of items. By default if you pull and item out of a stack of items, you’ll just grab a single item. But if you hold the grab button over the stack for a moment it will turn into a ‘pouch’ which holds all of the items in the stack. This makes it easy to move large stacks of items around your inventory, to other players, or into storage.
You can easily pull individual items out of pouches, or long-hold to split the pouch in half, with one half in each hand; using the thumbstick you can transfer items between pouches to change the stack sizes. It’s a smart, flexible system which makes working with large stacks of items easy and intuitive.
And, as with the rest of the game, your inventory and backpack are interactive between everyone. It isn’t yourcharacter’s backpack; it’s just a backpack you happen to be wearing. If you took it off and left it sitting in the woods, another player could come along and pick it up, loot your entire inventory, or take the entire backpack with them. Luckily people can’t steal items if you’re wearing the pack, but if you hold it out to them they can even place items into it for you (great when your hands a full!).
While there’s a lot of immersion that comes from this level of player-to-player interactivity, there’s an undercurrent of jankiness that tempers the overall level of immersion in Township Tale.
Object physics can sometimes be spotty, with items jumping about under the influence of invisible forces when dropped. Grabbing some items can be annoying due to a limited amount of grabbing points, and it can be difficult to get a tool into the right position to feel like you’re holding it at the proper angle (for instance, holding a chisel and a hammer). If you want to make a small adjustment to the grip of your tool, you usually need to set down whatever is in your other hand and then use both hands to make the adjustment (trying to toss it up and re-catch it with one hand usually leads to frustratingly dropping your tool to the ground).
Weapons also don’t feel great to swing given how enemies hardly react to the damage they’re taking. It isn’t clear how much you really need to swing for a successful hit, nor is it clear how much damage you’re dealing or how much is being dealt to you.
While the game’s immersive menus (like the server selection menu) are more interesting than their laser-pointer counterparts, they aren’t always intuitive and are often designed with the expectation that the player has a lot of space to physically walk around. They would definitely benefit from a redesign which reduces their footprint and aims for a bit more clarity.
Unfortunately Township Tale on Quest has a near-persistent performance-related stuttering issue which is especially apparent in your hands and when using tools. It’s hard to imagine this is the expected behavior, so hopefully something can be done about it post-launch.
The stuttering seems to impact the game’s physics which sometimes cause you to miss strikes (ie: when hitting something with a hammer) or can cause your tool to clip through an object and get stuck inside of it.
Comfort
Image courtesy Alta
Township Tale includes both smooth locomotion and teleportation. And although teleport is the default on Quest, it feels like the game has been built primarily around smooth locomotion, especially considering the way that combat plays out and that the teleport implementation doesn’t seem well-tuned for traveling long distances as one often does in the game.
There are plenty of VR games that I can play comfortably with smooth locomotion, however Township Tale isn’t one of them. It may be related to the fact that there’s a long acceleration curve when movement starts and stops. Luckily I could play comfortably with teleport even for sessions of an hour or more.
While the game generally doesn’t have any intentional lurching moments (ie: taking control of the player’s head), this can happen accidentally if you lean over a slightly raised surface. For instance if you lean your head over a small step, the game will consider that you are now on the step and raise your viewpoint accordingly. If you are merely leaning to reach for something, this sudden change in height can be uncomfortable, especially when it happens repeatedly (I found several instances of this while blacksmithing).
The aforementioned performance-related stuttering issue definitely adds a level of discomfort when you are looking at your hands or interacting with objects. It also makes smooth turning feel choppy and potentially uncomfortable even for those who would normally prefer it.
A Township Tale Comfort Settings – July 15th, 2021
A Township Tale is a deeply ambitious VR game, but your first few hours will likely be incredibly intimidating.
The town building sim arrives on Oculus Quest tomorrow, but it’s still very much an early access title, and the tutorials on offer right now are pretty meagre. Without a little help, it’ll be easy to get lost and frustrated.
So here’s just a few tips to help you find your feet a little faster.
First Of All… Have Some Patience
With all the buzz around A Township Tale these past few weeks, you might be expecting to jump in and start bashing swords into shape and hitting bullseyes with arrows within the first few minutes. Nothing could be further from the truth. The fact is there is a lot to learn and, in its current state, the game doesn’t do a great job of explaining how to do basically any of it.
So, before we go on with some other tips on how to do things, just keep in mind that A Township Tale requires a little patience and commitment. You might not get things the exact right way the first time, you might need to gather a lot of materials to get the things you want, and you’ll often find you have no idea how to progress along a certain path. Be prepared for those moments to hit thick and fast at first.
You’re Here To Build
Wait, so what do you actually do in A Township Tale? Well, in the early game at least, the answer is quite simply to build. You want to make your town as expansive and complete as possible. That means gathering resources and dropping them into boxes dotted around the town that will build stairways, bridges and extra features for your cosy little settlement. As you go, you’ll start expanding your suite of tools to let you venture further out into the wilds and, eventually, the game will have a much bigger scope. But, to start with, keep focused on those building goals.
Play With Friends
You can play A Township Tale on your own but, trust me, the game’s not designed for it. It’s far better to gather up a gang that can work on chopping trees together rather than putting yourself through the ordeal of gathering up 300 pieces of wood yourself.
Adventuring together really is what the game’s all about, too. You’ll want an extra pair of hands to light the way in the dark of the mines, or someone to pass you a snack when energy levels are getting low. Again, you can play A Township Tale on your own and the game won’t fight you on that, but you’ll be turning it into a much more mundane experience.
Gather Every Resource You Find And Start Banking Them ASAP
As with any survival game, you do really only have a very limited amount of slots to start out with in A Township Tale, and they’ll fill up quickly. And yet every resource seems to have many different uses, so it’s always a good idea to stock up on everything within your grasp.
As soon as you enter your town for the first time, start designating areas to deposit specific resources so that you’ll always know where to drop them. Most buildings have shelf space intended for this. Otherwise you’re likely to end up with a messy excuse for a home with bits and bobs littered all over the place. No one wants that.
You Can Rip Recipe Pages Out Of Books For Crafting, And Find Pages In The Wild
Crafting is one of the biggest elements of A Township Tale, but actually doing it is tricky without some help. Most of the buildings in your town will have a book sitting on a table somewhere. The pages of these books are recipes. To make sure you’re actually following them, you need to grab the page and rip it out of the book, then place it in the page holder on the crafting table.
Don’t worry, the pages return to the book if you drop them. You can also find more recipes to make other items in chests out in the world, so get exploring.
Don’t Forget Makeshift Tools Can Work Wonders
One of the cool aspects behind A Township Tale’s realistic approach is that you don’t necessarily need the correct tools for every job. The chiseling tutorial shows you sculpting wood with a professional hammer and chisel, for example, but you can actually get the intended effect with just a piece of flint and a rock attached to a stick, too.
You might go crazy wondering where these tools are early on, so always keep that in mind when it comes to crafting.
Know Your Stones From Your Sandstones
Quick one – you can get different types of each resource and often the only visible change between them is the color palette. Sandstone is a slightly paler version of normal stone for example. Don’t mine 50 of the wrong resource before you learn that lesson – I did it so you don’t have to.
Get Your Form Right
No, you can’t just aimlessly wave your hand around to craft in A Township Tale. Even after gathering all the resources and materials you need to make something, you’ll have to put your back into the work. Misplace your chisel and you can mess up the process and end up with the wrong items. Hammer in a nail at the right angle or you risk breaking the item. This is a physical game, so be prepared to do a little labor.
Always Keep Grass, Flint And Wood At Hand
Fire is a very important part of the early game. You’ll need it to cook and light your way at night and down in the mines. Making fire is actually pretty easy: just grab a few handfuls of grass, a wood chunk, a stick, and two pieces of flint. Place the grass close to the ground and you’ll see an indicator that actually spreads it out like a campfire. Then place a wood chunk down as fuel and start hitting the flint together over it. It should light up and, with that wood chunk, stay that way for some time.
You can then wrap another piece of grass over a stick and use it as a torch which, again, you should always have on you.
Do you have any other tips for A Township Tale? Let us know in the comments below!
Welcome to VRFocus’ regular Friday roundup of the virtual reality (VR) videogames set to launch over the next week. Here are five new titles for those who love puzzle games, sports games, open-world adventures and more. If you’re after some freebies then definitely check out the VRFocus free VR game selection.
Gravitational – Studica Solution
Gravitational is a physics-based puzzle videogame set in a future where gravity can be manipulated. You play Sebastian, a scientist at GraviCorp, one of many companies developing gravitational travel and control systems. After an incident, you have to solve the various puzzles on route with all your locomotion being entirely wheelchair-based. The digital launch is on the 13th whilst the physical retail version will arrive on 16th July.
Supported platforms: PlayStation VR
Launch date: 13th July
Walkabout Mini Golf – Mighty Coconut
Originally an Oculus Quest title, Walkabout Mini Golf is now heading to PC VR headsets. There are seven 18-hole courses to try and master, from snowy, rocky peaks to beautiful, cherry blossom-filled valley’s, with an unlockable Night Mode to ramp up the difficulty. It supports both solo and online PvP multiplayer with cross-platform gameplay.
Making its way from PC onto Oculus Quest (no cross-platform support), A Township Tale is an expansive co-op adventure designed for up to eight friends to team up on one virtual server and go on quests. Everyone has to choose a profession (blacksmith, woodcutter, miner, archer or warrior) to aid the group and make use of the crafting materials found exploring the dangerous landscape to build new equipment and improve their gear.
Love rhythm action videogames but wish more had a rock/metal vibe to them? Enter Ragnarock, a PC VR title that launched late in 2020 and is set to leave Early Access next week. Providing both solo and PvP multiplayer modes where the former allows you to race against your ghost, the soundtrack features the likes of Alestorm, Gloryhammer or Wind Rose.
Little Witch Academia: VR Broom Racing – UNIVRS Inc.
Based on Studio TRIGGER’s anime, Little Witch Academia: VR Broom Racing hit Oculus Quest last year and now it’s time for PC VR headsets and PlayStation VR. Featuring a new storyline within the magical universe, you’re a guest student at the famous Luna Nova Witchcraft Academy. Grab your flying broom and compete across more than ten tracks whilst unlocking customisation options.
Indie developer Alta is set to launch its open-world role-playing game (RPG) A Township Tale for Oculus Quest next week. Originally a PC title, today the studio has released a new comparison video showcasing what some of the fundamental changes between the two versions will be.
Obviously, most of this is centred around the graphics and the decisions Alta had to make to ensure a smooth experience for Oculus Quest players. As you can clearly see in the screenshot above, there’s a massive hit when it comes to detail and the number of objects displayed, especially at a distance. In the comparison video, A Township Tale’s Game Director Boramy Unn pays specific attention to lighting, explaining that it’s all real-time in both versions for a dynamic day/night cycle. However, the Quest isn’t able to handle all the shadows being cast, so they’ve been removed.
Avatars, on the other hand, don’t look too dissimilar to their PC versions, they just lack that extra level of detail. As Alta has previously confirmed, if you are coming from the PC to Oculus Quest then all your in-game items will still be available by signing into your account. Cross-platform play, however, won’t be supported.
There is good news though. One of the benefits of bringing A Township Tale to Oculus Quest is its fixed specifications. On PC Alta makes continual improvements to the performance which is never simple considering the sheer amount of PC variations available. Talking about the Quest’s performance Unn says: “We’re better able to ensure that players get a near-perfect framerate throughout their play session.”
A Township Tale is a co-op adventure allowing up to eight friends to team up on one virtual server and go on quests. They’ll all have to choose a profession to aid each other as they explore the dangerous world around them. They can become a blacksmith, woodcutter, miner, archer or warrior, each vital in their own way. As the team ventures deeper into the landscape, they’ll be able to recover crafting materials to make new equipment and improve their gear.
The Oculus Quest version of A Township Tale will launch next Thursday, 15th July for $9.99. Users will get their own personal server and 1,000 Talems of in-game currency to start spending and customising. VRFocus will continue its coverage of A Township Tale, reporting back with further updates.
A Township Tale is soon to launch on Quest and developer Alta has now offered up a graphical comparison to show how things differ between the Quest and PC versions of the game.
A Township Tale’s stylized art direction might make it look like it wouldn’t be too demanding to run on Quest, but the game’s large open world exists as a nearly seamless space, with sightlines that sometimes allow players to see across vast distances—not to mention tons of physics-based objects, interactions, all happening with up to eight simultaneous players.
Even though the game was built for PC well before the original Quest was even announced, developer Alta has managed to get A Township Tale’s open world running on the low-powered device. It’s definitely a downgrade from PC, but the studio clearly took care to bring the essence of the game to Quest without simply crushing the resolution.
A common technique used to get games to run on lower-end hardware is to employ a dense fog wall around the player in an effort to drastically cut down how much of the game world must be drawn at any given time.
As A Township Tale game director Boramy Unn explains, this wasn’t an option for the game, because the studio wanted to preserve distant landmarks in the world which help players navigate. While the distant landscape is significantly cut down in its level of detail, the core function of guiding players remains intact. Fortunately nearby buildings and objects render in solid quality, as we saw in our recent preview of the Quest version of A Township Tale.
Boramy also notes that shadows and transparency had to be removed from the Quest version because they were too expensive to run on the headset’s low-powered processor while still reaching the goal of achieving a “perfect framerate” on the headset. For the game’s crucial torches, the studio says they’ve “done some wizardy to give the impression of lights on a shader-wider level.”
Going forward, the studio says it plans to focus on improving the game’s graphical presentation.
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Priced at $10, A Township Tale launches on Quest July 15th, or on July 13th for those that pre-ordered the game. On PC the game is already available and free-to-play.
When it came to Oculus Quest announcements during E3 week one of the most exciting was news of A Township Tale, the open-world role-playing game (RPG) from Alta. Confirming a 15th July launch date, today the studio has opened up pre-orders for the videogame which unlock some useful bonuses including being able to play A Township Tale early.
Pre-ordering A Township Taletoday for $9.99 USD will mean that you can dive into its colourful world two days early on 13th July. You’ll also get an exclusive outfit, toolbelt and an additional 1,000 Talems (in-game currency) – on top of the base 1,000 Talems all players receive – to customise your character.
A Township Tale won’t offer cross-platform gameplay between the original PC VR version and Oculus Quest but all the in-game items are cross compatible. So if you already play the PC version you can bring your items across by signing into your A Township Tale account on Quest. Alta is planning to make both versions compatible in a future update.
The videogame is a co-op adventure where up to eight friends can team up on one virtual server, choose a profession and then help each other explore the dangerous world around them. You can choose to become a blacksmith, woodcutter, miner, archer or warrior, each vital to the ecosystem as you recover crafting materials to make new equipment and improve your gear.
“Launching on Quest gives a new way for fans around the world to band together and face the challenges of the magical, medieval VR world of A Township Tale,” said Boramy Unn, game director, Alta in a statement. “Since revealing A Township Tale for Quest and Quest 2 earlier this month, the response has been overwhelmingly positive. We created this pre-order program to provide even more reason for new and current playersto jump right in and connect with friends in the immersive way that is only possible on VR.”
For those not interested in pre-ordering, A Township Tale will launch for Oculus Quest on 15th July priced at $9.99. Users will get their own personal server and those Talems previously mentioned. For further updates on the open-world RPG, keep reading VRFocus.
You can now pre-order A Township Tale on Oculus Quest, unlocking early access to the VR adventure.
The Oculus Quest port — which we revealed during this month’s Upload VR Showcase — is now live on the Oculus Store for $9.99. The full game launches on July 15 but, by pre-ordering, you’ll get early access to the game on July 13.
A Township Tale Quest Pre-Orders Go Live
Pre-order bonuses also include an exclusive outfit and toolbelt (seen above), which you can carry over to your PC VR account too (though cross-play between versions won’t be enabled at launch). Finally, players will also get an additional 1,000 Talems, the game’s in-game currency, on top of the 1,000 everyone that purchases the game at launch will get. You can use this currency to buy more cosmetic items.
A Township Tale is a multiplayer VR game with role-playing elements. You team up with friends to start a town and help it flourish by assuming different roles. You might help forge weapons as a blacksmith or fight monsters out in the wilds, for example. Every interaction in the game is built around VR, too. The game’s built up a strong following on PC VR headsets over the past few years, and we’re looking forward to seeing how it holds up on Quest.
Will you be picking up A Township Tale on Quest? Let us know in the comments below!
A Township Tale, the MMO-like VR game available on PC VR headsets since 2018, is making its way to Oculus Quest next month. In anticipation of its July 15th launch, developer Alta has opened pre-orders today, which includes a few goodies like getting a chance to play before launch.
If you pre-order the game on Oculus Store for Quest starting today (priced at $10), you’ll be able to hop into the game on July 13th. In addition to the standard dedicated server, you’ll get an exclusive outfit, toolbelt, and an additional 1,000 Talems (for a total of 2,000 Talems) of its in-game currency.
We call A Township Tale “MMO-like” because it offers a wide range of activities, crafting, and opportunities for leveling—all of it playable with up to eight players in a persistent world. You can take on tasks like building up your town through blacksmithing, mining, and woodcutting, but you’ll also have to fight all sorts of monsters too. Check out the trailer below to see it in action:
“Exploration is really the name of the game in A Township Tale, both of the world and mechanically,” Lang says. “Very little is handed to you outright, and players will need to work together to discover how it all works as they go. As you explore, you’ll learn how to improve your crafting, learn new abilities, and even upgrade the town for everyone.”
A Township Tale is free-to-play on PC, where Talems are sold in bundles for real-world cash—the lowest denomination costs $10 for 1,000 Talems. The same is true for the Quest version of the game, although that $10 initial purchase price comes with 1,000 Talems already.
Cross-play between Quest and PC isn’t supported at launch. The studio says it has plans to support “one-way cross-play” at some point, which would allow PC players to connect to Quest servers.
A Township Tale is free-to-play on PC but costs $10 on Quest. However, the Quest version includes 1,000 Talems (the in-game currency for premium cosmetics) and the ability to run your own server (which on PC costs $10 per month).
