Blind, Apex Construct & VR Regatta all Nominated for Viveport Developer Awards

Submissions for the annual Viveport Developer Awards (VDA) 2019 began back in November, looking to celebrate content on the retail platform across four PC categories and three mobile. This week has seen the PC nominees revealed ahead of the official winner announcement later this month.

Apex Construct

A total of 11 virtual reality (VR) titles have been chosen with two nominees for each PC category. While the mobile (Vive Wave) winners have already been selected.

Entertainment – PC

Education – PC

Arts & Culture – PC

Arcade – PC

Entertainment – Mobile

  • Bait! | Resolution Games

Education – Mobile

  • Star Chart | Escapist Games Ltd.

Arts & Culture – Mobile

  • PAINT VR | COSKAMI LLC

VR Regatta - The Sailing Game screenshot

The most popular category Entertainment has two well known – yet polar opposite – VR titles from 2018, Blind and Apex Construct vying for the win. Blind is an eerie puzzle experience from Tiny Bull Studios. Players are completely blind and ‘see’ by making noise – much like echolocation – illuminating the world around them for brief moments. Securing a decent four-star rating in VRFocus’ review we said: “With the likes of Torn on the market and Twilight Path still to come, Blind can certainly hold its own with its design and gameplay mechanics. The echolocation system isn’t unique but it does provide a way for the studio to make a non-horror experience especially chilling.”

Apex Construct, on the other hand, is a far more action-oriented experience set in a futuristic world where you play the last ever human caught in a struggle between two AI’s. Rather than an assortment of weapons the title focuses on one, the bow. While a bow is generally seen as old-fashioned, the one in Apex Construct certainly isn’t featuring a deployable shield as well as a formidable selection of arrow variations. Achieving full five-stars in VRFocus’ review, we said: “Apex Construct is the standard by which future VR titles will be judged, and an indicator that VR has stepped up its game.”

The winners of the VDA’s 2019 will be announced Monday, 18th March during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco. For those announcements, keep reading VRFocus.

The Best HTC Vive Games of 2018

2018 has almost come to an end which means VRFocus is rounding up the best videogames for each headset. Now it comes to the turn of HTC Vive. Probably the one head-mounted display ((HMD) with the fewest exclusives, there’s still no shortfall of great content on the device. Looking back over the last 12 months, it’s time for VRFocus to name its favourite HTC Vive experiences.

The Best HTC Vive Games of 2018

Transpose

Transpose – Secret Location

A truly mind-bending puzzle title from Blasters of the Universe creator Secret Location, Transpose has over 30 levels where you have to bend time and clone your body, in a bid to solve the challenges. Alongside the time loops, Transpose allows players to rotate the environment around them to walk on walls and ceilings, experiencing perspective shifts and multifaceted puzzles in ways only possible in VR. One for the more advanced VR player, nevertheless a highly thought-provoking experience.

Arca's Path

Arca’s Path – Dream Reality Interactive

The debut title from Dream Reality Interactive, Arca’s Path VR takes the gameplay style of classics like Marble Madness and updates it for VR headsets. Featuring a dark storyline where you play a girl tricked by an evil witch, you’ve been turned into a ball and must navigate levels in a bid to free yourself and return home. Great for VR beginners as the controls are gaze based.

In Death

In Death – Solfar Studios

It featured in VRFocus’ Oculus Rift list and we liked it that much that Solfar Studios’ In Death deserved a place here with HTC Vive. With procedurally generated levels, no checkpoints or saving of any kind, the gameplay is as brutal as it is difficult. With just a bow by your side – until you unlock the crossbow – you need to become proficient at dispatching enemies at close and long range. Fail and you return to the start, a little wiser and a little tougher. Just remember that so are the angels and demons you need to kill.

 

BlindBlind – Tiny Bull Studios

While the title may look a bit sinister Blind is simply a puzzle experience with one unique feature, you can’t see unless you make a sound, using an echolocation system to see the world around you. This can be achieved via a walking cane or grabbing anything to hand and throwing it. Clocking in at around fours hours of gameplay Blind doesn’t feel too short, and puzzle fans should like the way most of the challenges are designed.

Tin Hearts image1

Tin Hearts – Rogue Sun

Currently, in Early Access, Tin Hearts is a wonderfully quaint VR puzzle experience from indie studio Rogue Sun. Tin Hearts requires you to guide squads of little tin soldiers through a magical toy filled world, in a similar vein to Lemmings. This time though you need to use the toys to guide the little guys in the right direction. It may still be in development but Tin Hearts is too adorable to not recommend.

Island 359

Island 359 – CloudGate Studio

When it comes to massive adventures for HTC Vive, most may instantly veer towards Bethesda’s Fallout 4 VR which is exclusive to the headset. It may be a good videogame but it’s so 2017, and VRFocus isn’t interested in last year. Instead, how about going for CloudGate Studio’s rather epic Island 359Whether you want to hunt, or just try to survive, Island 359  has something for every dinosaur fan – apart from a visitor centre, just remember there are no fences and they bite back.

Beat Saber POP/Stars

Beat Saber – Beat Games

It doesn’t matter which headset you play Beat Saber on you’re more than likely going to enjoy it. It’s just so frustratingly addictive, bopping and swinging your arms around to catchy tunes, slicing away at blocks. Not only can 30 to 60 minutes pass without thinking about it, but you also get a reasonable workout to burn those calories, excellent for when you fancy another Christmas snack.

Transference

Transference – Ubisoft Montréal and Spectrevision

Love to be scared witless? Either by things jumping out from the shadows or by creatures you can’t see then VR horror is the way to go. Ubisoft Montréal and Spectrevision collaborated on terrifying psychological thriller Transference that blurs the lines between live-action movies and videogame dynamics. With a multi-branching narrative focused on a scientist and his family experiments, this is one title not for the faint of heart.

Sprint Vector Final screenshot2

Sprint Vector – Survios

If you want a VR title that’s energetic but you don’t fancy Beat Saber then it’s worth trying Survios’ Sprint Vector. There’s still lots of arm swinging involved but this time it’s competitive, racing against opponents to find the best line to the finish. With the ability to jump and glide to find new routes, you can also disadvantage opponents with a selection of armaments.

Evasion - PSVR Screenshot

Evasion – Archiact

For those that are looking for an all-out first-person shooter (FPS) then sci-fi action adventure Evasion is what you seek. A frantic sci-fi shooter that can be played in either single-player or co-op multiplayer modes. Players can choose from four classes (Striker, Surgeon, Engineer and Warden) each having their own unique strengths, weapons and abilities, with players able to customise their class as they level-up. There’s a great feel to the gunplay, and Archiact has built in plenty of movement options for those worried about motion sickness.

Review: Blind

There are some amazingly imaginative and novel puzzle titles for virtual reality (VR) headsets, with some effortlessly combining both gameplay mechanics and a rich storyline to drawn you in. Tiny Bull Studios’ Blind hopes to do the same, and in part succeeds, yet there are points where frustration and confusion step in to ruin the enjoyment.

Blind

To appreciate Blind’s gameplay you need to understand its story, which involves you playing a girl who wakes up in a strange mansion alone, her last memory being sat in a car driving her brother somewhere. But there’s something notably absent – and it’s not the bro – it is her sight, which for some bizarre reason has disappeared.

Enter the main mechanic of Blind, the complete inability to see anything. Of course this would make for a rubbish VR title if there wasn’t someway to perceive the environment around you, and Blind uses echolocation. This creates a very stark black and white world that can only be seen by making a noise. This can be achieved in a number of ways, certain objects like a crackling radio help to provide anchored points, while secondary objects littered around can be used (thrown) to create deliberate noise.

The whole procedure not only adds to the atmosphere of Blind, creating a taught and suspenseful feeling throughout, but also becomes an intrinsic part of some puzzles. It’s a system that has both plus and minus points due to the way some of the areas work. To begin with, having to make sure you know where items are so you’re not left empty handed is integral to the experience, yet as time goes on and you’re provided with the cane this becomes a none existent factor. It’s only with the loss of the cane that this mechanic starts to really grate, having to continuously slam things on the floor to then pick them up again and again – especially when the tracking does quite let you reach said object.

Blind

As for the puzzles themselves Tiny Bull Studios has actually done a nice job creating a varied mixture of challenges. There is a bit of difficulty discrepancy between some earlier and later puzzles, where there’s one or two early ones which are vague and convoluted to solve, while other later puzzles seem to be more rudimentary and straight forward. You’d have thought that a videogame which uses echolocation would require it for every puzzle yet that’s not the case with Blind for some unknown reason.

Blind takes a bit of patience, as you wander around many empty rooms looking for the next puzzle. At some point you’ll likely get annoyed and whack the cane into a wall or piece of furniture several times which can in fact blind you. Yes you can be blinded by sound. Blind makes excellent use of audio, so that hitting a hard surface will make a sharp noise ring out, while hitting a bed for example will result in a thud. Get that snap of the cane just right and it’ll illuminate an entire room for a brief second, just don’t do it too much.

With the likes of Torn on the market and Twilight Path still to come, Blind can certainly hold its own with its design and gameplay mechanics. The echolocation system isn’t unique but it does provide a way for the studio to make a non-horror experience especially chilling. Clocking in at just over four hours the main let down comes towards the end which feels like the puzzle ideas were running out. Luckily the story is interesting enough to keep the motivation going.

80%

Awesome

  • Verdict

Blind Review: A Puzzle Game That Leaves You In The Dark

Blind Review: A Puzzle Game That Leaves You In The Dark

I’d love to tell you that Blind’s infuriating puzzles are frustrating for the right reasons, but I can’t. Tiny Bull Studios’ efforts to put you in the shoes of a blind person, giving you a taste of what life is like without sight are thoughtfully delivered and will stay with me for long after this review. Sadly, it’s the more traditional design elements that make Blind such a chore to play.

Simply put, Blind’s brand of puzzling, which sees you trying to escape captivity in an enormous mansion, is the antithesis of Torn, a game that favored simple challenges in order to keep the pace flowing. Tiny Bull has gone to great lengths to introduce a varied set of puzzles, but solutions are often so specific that I felt like I was hitting a roadblock every few minutes.

Take one of the game’s earliest puzzles, in which you need to find a key hidden in a library. It’s not the game’s monochrome color scheme that makes the search so draining, it’s the obscurity of the eventual solution. A grandfather clock embedded in the bookcase seems like the obvious keeper of the key, but it’s completely uninteractive.

It wasn’t until after 30 minutes of exhaustive searching that I discovered I had to, in fact, click a footstall sitting a meter or so away to watch it automatically slide over to the clock. I couldn’t use it unless I was on the stool, even though I could reach everything just fine on the floor. Then I had to put the time in the correct place according to an audio diary. When that didn’t work, it took me yet more time to discover the phrase “nearly quarter past” in a completely separate entry. Puzzles are routinely bloated in this way.

Later on, though, I had to retrieve an item stuck at the top of a fountain and yet I couldn’t use the stepladder sitting in the next room. There’s not much consistency to Blind’s world because you have to play by its rules, and those rules often feel like they’re known only to the developer. There are several more instances like this and, to be frank, I ran out of patience long before the game’s ending neared. A better hint system could have been a real game changer here, as the mystery at the center of Blind had me engaged with its characters throughout and many people won’t get to experience all of it.

It’s a real shame, as Blind’s core premise of experiencing life through the eyes of someone that can’t see is well implemented. Early only you’re given a white cane that helps navigate environments and it gives the game a good deal of authenticity. Small taps will create echoes that visualize a tiny space around you though harder swipes will reveal a much wider look at the risk of overwhelming your senses. It’s a fairly straightforward representation of what I’m sure is a much more complex condition in reality, but its simplicity also helps staves off a lot (though not all) of the potential monotony.

You summon the stick with a pull of the trigger, so it never gets in your way and it reacts with impressive replication depending on the type of material you strike. Tapping a carpeted floor produces a muffled noise, for example, whilst striking stone gives you a much clearer image. Blind is a much better game when leaves you to simply explore using this novel mechanic.

There has to be a better application for this foundation than a puzzle game, though. I can’t imagine how tough it was to find the balance between keeping players engaged in this mechanic and not making it too much of a barrier. To see it paired with a genre that’s notorious for testing player’s patience is bemusing to say the least, especially when a large number of puzzles aren’t really exploring its hook in any meaningful way. What does navigating a ball through a maze have to do with being blind? Why is a puzzle about finding the correct notes in a song only solved through visual representations of those notes?

The truth is there actually are better alternatives out there, including the brilliantly experiential Notes on Blindness, which satisfies your curiosity with a simple five-minute runtime. Blind’s fatal mistake may have been to assume it needed any more than that.

Final Score: 4/10 – Disappointing

Blind is so keen to out-think the player that it too often leaves you, for lack of a better term, completely in the dark. It’s got some fascinating ideas on how to present blindness in VR that give you just the slightest bit of understanding of what life can be like for people that have no sight. But the infuriating puzzles that often carry solutions far too specific to be truly enjoyed keep it from reaching any deeper meaning.

Blind is available now on Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and PlayStation VR for $24.99 Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.

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The Darkness Awaits As Blind Emerges Onto VR

Imagine waking up alone, in a mysterious and eerie mansion house, without your sight and with only echoes to guide you. This is the fate visited about Jean, the protagonist of newly released virtual reality (VR) mystery-thriller Blind.

Blind is the creation of developer Tiny Bull Studios along with independent publisher Fellow Traveller (previously known as Surprise Attack Games). Blind was created to offer players thought-provoking puzzles and challenging exploration of the unknown.

Blind Screenshot 3

As Jean, players awake in a strange room without sight and with a cloudy memory. The only guide they have is the strange and unsettling Warden. Navigating through the mysterious mansion involves using echolocation, which will reveal the outline of objects. Clever use of this ability is needed to solve puzzles and uncover the mystery of Jean’s past.

“Point of view is integral to the first-person gaming experience, since players need to feel like they’re accurately observing and living in the world around their character,” said Matteo Lana, CEO of Tiny Bull Studios. “A lot of first-person games can operate on an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach to the environment, but this wasn’t the case for Blind. Since the fundamental core of our game is based on redefining the player’s sight, we focused on creating an environment where players really get to engage with and keep tabs on their surroundings, becoming familiar with the mansion as they would with their own home.”

Blind is out new in digital format for the PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Open Source Virtual Reality (OSVR) VR headsets. It can be bought from Steam, the Oculus Store or PlayStation Store for $24.99 (USD).

A physical retail release of Blind is being published by Perp Games, which will be available from 28th September, with a North American release to follow.

For future coverage of Blind and other upcoming VR titles, keep checking back with VRFocus.

Seven New Games Coming to PlayStation VR This Week

PlayStation VR owners hankering for a new videogame to add to their collection are in for a treat this week, with seven titles due to launch on PlayStation Store. These cover a range of genres from sci-fi and puzzle to psychological horror and first-person shooters (FPS), there’s a little something for everyone. 

Transference

Some of these are more well-known than others, with titles like Transference by Ubisoft one of the more notable experiences thanks to promotion by Hollywood actor Elijah Wood. This is a story-driven horror videogame which mixes both live-action performances with twisted computer graphics, there players find themselves inside a digital simulation created by the thoughts of a scientist and his family. Of course, being the scary experience that it is, not everything is as it seems. To see that VRFocus thinks, read our Transference review.

Also on the roster is Blind, another somewhat dark puzzle experience from Tiny Bull Studios. There are no scares in this however, with the title’s mechanic being that players are blind. To see they need to use echolocation, making noise to highlight their surrounds and ‘see’ a black and white world around them. Check out VRFocus’ preview of Blind and expect to see a review ahead of launch.

For those after a bit more action then there’s sequel Unearthing Mars 2: The Ancient War by Chinese developer Winking Entertainment. Continuing the story, the studio claims this followup will offer greater freedom over the originals on-rails shooting.

Unearthing Mars 2 - image3

The last of the bigger titles is Downward Spiral: Horus Station, another sequel, offering more sci-fi-based low gravity antics on board a space station that’s been deserted. Having previously launched for PC VR headsets VRFocus reviewed the Oculus Rift version to give you an idea of what to expect.

As for the rest, there’s The Door which sounds like another horror, escape-room style videogame; Neonwall, a pure puzzler; and Trickster VR: Dungeon Crawler, a procedurally generated fantasy adventure. That’s all for this week on PlayStation VR, if anything else pops up VRFocus will let you know.

Blind: VR-Psycho-Thriller erscheint am 18. September für PSVR und PC-Brillen

Entwicklerstudio Tiny Bull Studios verkündeten gemeinsam mit Fellow Traveller den offiziellen Release-Termin für Blind für Oculus Rift, HTC Vive und PlayStation VR (PSVR). Der psychologische VR-Thriller erscheint offiziell am 18. September auf Steam, im Oculus Store sowie im PlayStation Store.

Blind – VR-Psycho-Thriller für Oculus Rift, HTC Vive und PlayStation VR (PSVR)

In Blind schlüpft ihr in die Rolle einer jungen Frau, die in einem fremden Raum erwacht und erschreckend feststellt, dass sie ihr Augenlicht verloren hat. Eine schockierende Situation, die euch emotional wie auch im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes in tiefe Dunkelheit versetzt.

Nachdem sie sich vom Schock erholt, und beginnt die Umgebung zu erforschen, spricht eine geheimnisvolle Stimme zu ihr. Diese gehört Warden, einem unbekannten Mann, der ihr den Aufenthalt in einem alten Herrenhaus eröffnet. Dieser trägt ihr auf, das alte Gebäude und seine zahlreichen Verwinkelungen und Geheimnisse zu erkunden und dadurch der Wahrheit hinter dem großen Mysterium auf die Spur zu gehen.

Blind-Oculus-Rift-HTC-Vive-PlayStation-VR-PSVR

Da euch eure visuelle Fähigkeit genommen wurde, müsst ihr euch auf eure anderen Sinne verlassen. Zum Glück steht euch ein Blindenstock zur Verfügung, mit dem ihr ordentlich Lärm erzeugen könnt. Dadurch entstehen Schallwellen, welche die Umrisse in eurer Umgebung für kurze Zeit sichtbar machen. Dank dieser speziellen Echolocation könnt ihr euch vorwärtsbewegen und die zahlreichen Rätsel lösen, die euch auf eurem Weg erwarten. Insgesamt erwartet die Spieler/innen je nach Geschwindigkeit fünf bis acht Stunden Spielzeit.

Blind-Oculus-Rift-HTC-Vive-PlayStation-VR-PSVR

Matteo Lana, CEO von Tiny Bull Studios, beschreibt seinen seit 2014 in Entwicklung befindlichen VR-Titel enthusiastisch:

“Die meisten VR-Titel setzen auf eine Reizüberflutung, aber wir wollten etwas Besonderes schaffen. Etwas Einzigartiges, welches die Sinne auf einen völlig neuen Weg anspricht. Doch auch wenn Blind unsere Sehfähigkeit hemmt, erlaubt es die Echolocation-Mechanik sämtliche Rätsel zu lösen und mit der gesamten Umgebung zu interagieren. Ein Gameplay, welches nur in der VR möglich ist.”

Blind ist ab dem 18. September offiziell für 24,99 Euro für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive auf Steam erhältlich. Im Oculus Store ist der Titel derzeit für Vorbesteller zum reduzierten Preis von 19,99 Euro verfügbar. Die Konsolenversion für PlayStation VR (PSVR) erscheint zeitgleich im PlayStation Store. Ab dem 28. September können Freunde von handfesten Spielen die physischen Versionen des Spiels im Laden käuflich erwerben.

(Quellen: Tiny Bull Studios Press Kit | Video: Fellow Traveller YouTube)

Der Beitrag Blind: VR-Psycho-Thriller erscheint am 18. September für PSVR und PC-Brillen zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

Sensory VR Puzzle Game Blind Hits Rift, Vive And PSVR This Month

Sensory VR Puzzle Game Blind Hits Rift, Vive And PSVR This Month

Here’s another date to add to your VR diary; intriguing puzzle game Blind is launching on September 18th.

The game, which is developed by Tiny Bull Studios, has been on our radar for some time thanks to its promising premise. You step into the shoes of a young woman that awakens in an unknown room and discovers she can no longer see. It’s your job to guide her through this new world using echolocation which will reveal the outlines of the rooms around you for a short amount of time. You’re given a walking stick that you can tap to get a sense of the world around you, though use it too much and you’ll be overwhelmed.

We went hands-on with Blind earlier this year and came away hopeful for an empathetic adventure, though the black and white color scheme can be draining. Either way, it’s a unique take on the puzzle genre that could give us an insight into what it’s like to live without sight. That alone will make it worth a look.

Blind will launch on PlayStation VR (PSVR), Oculus Rift and HTC Vive for $24.99 with a physical version coming to Europe on September 28th and later on in the US. It’s also coming to Open-Source Virtual Reality hardware because apparently that’s still a thing.

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VR Thriller Blind Reveals Release Date

Horror titles in virtual reality (VR) are terrifying enough when you can see where you are going, VR puzzle-thriller Blind ramps things up by taking away your ability to see and forcing you to navigate using echolocation. Players will soon be able to get the experience for themselves with the announcement of the release date for Blind.

Blind will be heading to HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR on 18th September, with a physical release to follow shortly after.

Blind Screenshot 4

The title was developed by Tiny Bull Studios and Fellow Traveller, and puts players in the midst of an eerie mansion, a twisted place full of mystery, where players must navigate using echo location to reveal outlines of objects.

Players take on the role of a young women who awakes alone in a strange room, confronted with the realisation that she has lost her sense of sight. Using echolocation, players need to solve various puzzles in order to reveal the mystery of the mansion and the secrets that the player character is carrying.

“Most VR titles use the medium to flood players’ senses, but we wanted to do something special and restrict the senses in a way,” says Matteo Lana, CEO of Tiny Bull Studios. “But even as Blind inhibits our standard perception of sight, the echolocation mechanic and fully-encompassing environment engage the player and enhance the puzzle gameplay in a way that only VR can.”

Blind will be available digitally for PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and OSVR from 18th September, priced at $24.99 (USD). A physical retail release is also being published by Perp Games, which will be available in EU territories from 28th September, with a North American release date to follow.

Blind Screenshot 3

Further information can be found on the Steam Store page. For future coverage of Blind and other upcoming VR titles, keep checking back with VRFocus.

Psychological VR Thriller ‘Blind’ to Launch on PSVR, Rift & Vive September 18th

Tiny Bull Studios and Fellow Traveller (ex-Surprise Attack Games), today announced that Blind, the long-awaited psychological thriller, is slated to launch globally on September 18th for PSVR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, and OSVR.

Blind puts you in the shoes of a young woman who has just awoken in a strange room to find she’s lost her vision—well, almost. Instead of seeing, she uses echolocation to reveal the curious world around her. Led by the disembodied narrator Warden, you navigate a sprawling mansion, solve puzzles and uncover the mystery behind it all.

Blind is said to feature around five to eight hours of gameplay.

Image courtesy Tiny Bull Studios

Initially conceived during the 2014 Global Game Jam, Blind has come a long way for the Turin, Italy-based Tiny Bull Studios. Evolving from a concept originally built for PC, dubbed Come See My House, the fledgling studio went on to rebuild the game from the ground-up for VR headsets. The concept won ‘Best Game’ of the 2014 Turin Game Jam, owing to its innovative echolocation mechanic.

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“Most VR titles use the medium to flood players’ senses, but we wanted to do something special and restrict the senses in a way,” says Matteo Lana, CEO of Tiny Bull Studios. “But even as Blind inhibits our standard perception of sight, the echolocation mechanic and fully encompassing environment engage the player and enhance the puzzle gameplay in a way that only VR can.”

Image courtesy Tiny Bull Studios

Blind will be available digitally on September 18th for $25 on PSN (PSVR), Oculus Store (Rift), and Steam (Vive, Rift, OSVR). A physical retail version, published by Perp Games will become available in Europe beginning September 28th, with a North American release date to follow.

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