Back in December 2016, Climax Studios launched a quirky little, self funded title called Balloon Chair Death Match on Steam Early Access for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Putting players in the seat of a balloon propelled office desk chair, where the objective is to shoot opponents balloons, the studio has just released its v1.0 update, bringing the title out of early access whilst adding new features.
In the new update Climax Studios has added three new weapons for players to utilise. There’s the explosive homing Pigeon Launcher, the fully automatic Nail Gun and the long range Laser Gun, each with its own strengths and weaknesses.
Alongside weapon and gas caches to find whilst playing, five new pickups are now available. These consist of the Laser Shield, Pigeon Repellent, Emergency Inflate, 2x Score Multiplier and Mr Spongy Face the Clown.
And the additions don’t stop there. A new 2v2 game mode brings team gameplay into Balloon Chair Death Match, with the boundaries of maps reduced to a more intense, action-filled match. For those playing the single-player mode, four more levels have been added to the campaign, while new players will find an overhauled basic tutorial along with a new combat tutorial to get them up to speed quicker.
Balloon Chair Death Match is available to play for free now until Sunday. And until the 20th July, Climax Studios will be running a 20 percent discount, dropping the price from £10.99 GBP, down to £8.79 on Steam.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Climax Studio, reporting back with the latest VR news.
We really, really like Balloon Chair Death Match here at UploadVR, and we think you would too. Pay attention, then, because you can get your hands on a free copy today.
Starting 10am PST (that’s now) and running through until 6pm, the first 1,000 people that post on this subreddit, Facebook channel, Steam page or Discord will get a free copy of the game. On Steam the game sells for $14.99.
Balloon Chair Death Match is currently in Steam Early Access, so the expanded player base will help developer Climax Studios stress test its various multiplayer features before a wider release. The game takes a unique approach to VR shooting, getting players to sit on a chair and treat their left controller as a flight stick. In the virtual world they’ll find themselves suspended in mid-air on a chair held up by balloons. Other players must shoot these balloons to take you down, and you’ll need to do the same to them.
We had great fun with the game when it launched late last year, but as with a lot of VR releases a lack of content was holding it back. The giveaway, then, is also the team’s way of celebrating the impending launch of a new update to the Early Access edition to the game. In this update, the team is adding two new modes. The first is a co-op survival mode in which anywhere between one and four players will be pitted against waves of incoming enemies, and you’ll have to last as long as you can against them. You can see it in the trailer above.
There’s also a new shooting range challenge mode for solo play. Here you’ll have to shoot down balloons that appear around you as quickly as possible. Climax also has a handful of AI and menu improvements for players.
Developers will be playing the game during the giveaway time slot, so make sure to pop in and say hello. Currently, we’re expecting the full version of the game to hit sometime this year.
The year is rapidly approaching its climax. So it is somewhat appropriate that we are bringing you a new competition in this, the week running up to Christmas, in partnership with UK virtual reality (VR) developer Climax Studios.
We are offering you the chance to win a copy of Climax’s recently revealed title Balloon Chair Death Match, which was the cause of much discussion around the VR water cooler last week. A multiplayer-orientated arena shooter, Balloon Chair Death Match sees you take to the skies courtesy (as the title might suggest) of a highly modified chair attached to a number of helium filled balloons. You have a gun. Your opponents have a gun. Balloons are vulnerable to gunfire.
I think you can see where this is going…
We’ve got five codes to giveaway for the game which is compatible with both the HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift all you need to do to enter is use the widget below and enter via one (or more) of the various methods. Be it being a follower of ourselves or of Climax Studios on Twitter, watching the trailer or even finding out about another game from Climax Studios – Gun Sight.
The contest ends as Friday ends at midnight UK time. You can enter the competition via the widget below.
Climax Studios has today launched its first self-funded virtual reality (VR) videogame, Balloon Chair Death Match. A multiplayer-orientated arena shooter, Balloon Chair Death Match has players flying through the skies as they attempt to gun down their rivals.
Balloon Chair Death Match sees the players sat upon a chair held aloft by giant balloons. Able to navigate by way of a control stick in their left hand, a revolver in their right is the key to bringing down their foes – literally. Players are tasked with shooting the balloons on their opponents’ chairs to break their flight path, eventually sending them downward in an uncontrollable freefall.
Though designed for multiplayer gameplay, Balloon Chair Death Match also features a single-player gameplay mode in which players will face specific preset challenges. Climax Studios also suggest that further development is planned post-launch, which will bring more gameplay modes, maps, guns, power-ups and hats.
“Balloon Chair Death Match is without a doubt one of the most enjoyable gaming experiences I’ve ever had, which makes me all the more proud that it’s a product of our talented developers,” states Simon Gardner, Climax Studios CEO. “We’ve given the team their own space to realise their creative vision and to help them grow a great idea into an even greater game.”
Balloon Chair Death Match is playable on the HTC Vive or the Oculus Rift with Touch controllers, and is now available via Steam Early Access for $24.99 USD/£18.99 GBP. An early adopter discount of 40% is available until 20th December 2016.
Balloon Chair Death Match is the third original IP designed for VR from Climax Studios, with previous successes including Bandit Six, Gun Sight and the critically acclaimed Oculus Rift adaptation of Codemasters’ DiRT Rally. VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest VR developments from Climax Studios.
Everyone’s got their own ideas on how to solve locomotion in VR. Climax Studios’ is to tie a bunch of balloons to a chair and give you a virtual joystick to control yourself as you float through the air. They’ve also given you a gun so that you can shoot down other player’s balloons and cause them to hurtle to their deaths. It’s like Up, only instead of tying balloons to your house and seeing the world, you fix them to your seat and go on a rampage.
That sounds alright, doesn’t it?
Balloon Chair Death Match is better than alright, though. Based on a few early rounds of this new first-person shooter, it’s one of the most fun and frantic multiplayer games coming to VR headsets right now and totally unlike any other FPS yet seen.
Though Climax has already worked on four VR games, this is its first to land on the HTC Vive, as well as the Oculus Rift. It’s also only releasing on Steam for now and not on the Oculus Store, where all its previous releases have hit. As such, there’s a sense of the developer taking off its VR training wheels and going at it alone here, which is exciting territory for a team that also handles ports and spin-offs for publishers like Sony and Ubisoft, such as with Assassin’s Creed Chronicles: China.
Not too surprisingly, Balloon Chair Death Match was born from a joke. “We were looking for VR ideas based around a moving character, but with emphasis on user comfort and reducing motion sickness,” Designer Russ Earwaker tells me. “In one of these sessions, we had a few really nice ideas and the discussion was going well. At the end of the session I threw in Balloon Chair Death Match as a bit of a joke to try and get the guys laughing.”
As you can tell, the joke went down pretty well. Six months on from completing a tech demo, Balloon Chair Death Match is ready for release in Early Access. It features a cityscape map that up to four players can dart around in. The aim is to rack up kills by causing other players to crash into floors, bridges, or oncoming vehicles. Instead of aiming at other players, you’ll instead shoot their balloons. Each pop brings them closer to the ground below, though they’ll also be able to refuel with a gas meter that can be topped up with pick ups.
Balloon Chair Death Match is a brilliantly vertical shooter. While being closer to the floor means increased risk of death, you might also find it easier to sneak up on opponents from below. To that end, you can even shoot your own balloons to manipulate your height. Having fewer balloons also makes you harder to hit.
In fact, aiming is one of the game’s biggest challenges. While it’s easy to get the first few hits in on a player with lots of balloons, the less targets you have the harder you’ll find it to hit them. This is especially true when moving, as you’ll often find that looking down your sights with your target in view isn’t as effective as anticipating where your target will be next. It takes a lot of getting used to, but it ends up making direct hits much more rewarding and Earwaker says they find players quickly improve.
These combined elements make Balloon Chair Death Match a very different beast from anything that’s come before. Though matches might start off quiet as you skim the skies for enemies, the building tension literally bursts a few seconds in as one player spots another. It can be tricky to locate where you’re being attacked from, but that’s because Balloon Chair Death Match is one of the first VR games where you really could come under fire at any angle. You’ll twist your head around in desperation, and then hopelessly return fire as you begin to descend.
Over time you’ll learn to become more aware of your surroundings and hone in on sounds that might give away the enemy’s position. You’ll know when to go into fight mode and when to go into flight mode, making a quick escape so that you can get some breathing room and come back for more. More often than not you’ll either be grinning as you gun one player down, or biting your lip as you struggle to survive.
All of this is possible from the comfort of a seat, not using room-scale. Earwaker points out that this means more people will be able to play the game, rather stripping down the already small VR install base to just those with big enough play areas for a chair.
Besides, Balloon Chair Death Match is more about going up and down than it is walking around a room. “We want the verticality of the map to make a notable difference to gameplay and strategy,” Earwaker says. “When you’re down to your last balloon and the enemy is raining bullets down on you, you want to be able to escape. A city level naturally has more cover low down, so players in a disadvantaged position will have a chance to dodge and weave, to flee and prepare a counter-attack.”
Players with more balloons will also travel slower, giving those on their last legs a real advantage over others. Get low, and you’ll be able to duck and weave through the city to make a hasty retreat.
Another way to get some practice in is with the single-player challenge mode, which lets you take on time and score-based trials. It’s a neat extension to the base multiplayer gameplay, though Climax is potentially considering other types of single-player content at the moment.
Going forward, Climax plans to add more maps, modes, and weapons to the game, with a full release aiming for around mid-2017. Earwaker expectedly tells me that the team would like to bring the game to PS VR, though it’s focused on the PC version for now.
There are plenty of multiplayer VR shooters available, especially with the arrival of Touch last week. Based on what I’ve played so far, Balloon Chair Death Match is still one that deserves your attention, especially if it’s to grow into the game Climax wants to to be. I, for one, hope it gets that chance.
Balloon Chair Death Match is currently available on Steam with official support for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift at a discounted price of $14.99/£11.39. The standard price from December 20th is $24.99/£18.99. Tracked motion controllers are required to play.
