Tucked away on the English south coast, Brighton has become something of a haven of creativity in the videogame and immersive technology sectors. This is amply demonstrated with the annual Develop: Brighton conference, which has just announced its first keynote speaker – Chet Faliszek of Bossa Studios.
Faliszek is the creative director of Bossa Studios, and has also previously worked as a writer of some of Valve’s most iconic titles, including Portal, Half-Life 2 and Left 4 Dead.
Covering the topic of artificial intelligence in videogames, Falizek will be delivering a talk titled: The Future of AI in Games Creation. The use of AI has been growing alongside immersive technologies, in many cases with machine learning and AI complementing virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR), such as with the Microsoft HoloLens.
“I’m excited to be speaking at Develop: Brighton this July,” commented Chet Faliszek. “It’ll be great to share some of what we’ve been learning on AI here at Bossa and to reveal how we see them impacting on the games of tomorrow.”
Other talks that have been announced include a presentation from Michael Hampden of Sony London Studio, who will be delivering a talk called: VR Evolution: Learnings and Strategies for Designing AAA VR Games. So far, VR has largely been the realm of smaller studios and independents, but as larger studios begin to test the waters with titles such as Fallout 4 VR and DOOM VFR.
Another talk with links to VR and immersive technology will be given by Alex Leff, Professor of Cignotive Neurology, who will be speaking about the benefits of therapy apps for patients with acquired brain injuries. VRFocushas previously covered how VR has been used to benefit patients, both to distract from pain and to provide a structure for therapy, with athletes successfully engaging with VR for physical therapy.
Further information and tickets can be found on the Develop: Brighton website. For the latest VR-related news from the event, keep watching VRFocus.
The announcement of the VR Diversity Initiative, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the enabling of underrepresented groups in the virtual reality (VR) industry, supported by VRFocus, has been met with an overwhelming reaction. Today, the organisation is announcing the date and venue of the first event.
The first event hosted by the VR Diversity Initiative will offer a variety of sessions designed to upskill professionals from other mediums, bringing talented individuals from industries such as television, videogames and industrial design into the world of VR. The event will be free to attend and the full programme will be announced in due course.
As support for the VR Diversity Initiative grows, UK development studio and publisher Bossa Studios, creator of the hugely popular Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality, has pledged to provide a variety of assets for this first event.
Tracey McGarrigan, CMO at Bossa Studios, said: “Bossa takes great pride in being inclusive, welcoming, proactive, and transparent with our communities which we work closely with by not just inviting them to share their opinions and stories, but also by making it possible for them to directly contribute to the content of our games!
It’s with this spirit and commitment that we are proud to support the VR Diversity Initiative and are looking forward to working with everyone to create a special event that will leave a long lasting positive impact on the industry.”
The first event hosted by the VR Diversity Initiative will take place on 13th July 2017, located at Digital Catapult, 101 Euston Road, London, NW1 2RA. An application process for individuals interested in attending the free event will launch soon.
My wife is an operating room nurse in her actual real life career. She spends her days wearing scrubs helping doctors deliver babies and perform often complex operation surgeries on all parts of the human body. Blood, guts, and tears sprinkle her floor and clothes while lives literally hang in the balance in her day-to-day occupation. I on the other hand wear goofy VR headsets and bash patients’ heads in with a hammer because it makes me laugh. We lead very different lives.
Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality from Bossa Studios is a VR-based adaptation of the original Surgeon Simulator 2013, first released for flat monitor displays in 2013. A big part of its charm came from the wonky controls, silly premise, and absolutely ridiculous shenanigans that resulted from pairing an extremely serious occupation, such as being a surgeon, with the whimsical nature and dark humor of imprecise video game controls. It was hilarious and garnered a huge fanbase.
Naturally, once VR headsets hit the market, people wanted to experience it all over again, but this time from the immersive view of a VR headset. When the Vive launched, we got Surgeon Simulator VR: Meet the Medic, which was a short demo showing off the basic mechanics. Now, Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality, is essentially the original 2013 game adapted to fit the controls and premise of the Meet the Medic demo. Depending on your sense of humor and expectations, it mostly works.
The entire game is played by picking up and using objects. The very first operation has you cutting into Bob, who lay opened up on the table, ready for business. He needs a heart transplant and the tools of destruction are spread out before you. You can pick up the saw and carve his ribs away one by one, or bash them in with a hammer to reach his insides more quickly. Grab a scalpel and cut away his organs to get deeper, or carefully maneuver the electric saw to remove those pesky arteries.
Make no doubt about it though: Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality is an inherently flawed and conflicted game that struggles with core fundamentals that a VR game released at the end of 2016 probably shouldn’t struggle with. For starters, the tracking feels finicky on all three versions of the game (HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and PS VR) and controls are imprecise and cumbersome pretty much across the board.
On the HTC Vive for example, you have to constantly press the side grip button and track pad together to properly grab things. It feels awkward and uncomfortable. On the PS VR, the camera loses tracking often and until recently the way it translated your hand movements with the Move controllers was essentially broken. Luckily, it’s since been updated to alleviate the main issues on Sony’s VR device.
Oddly, you don’t even need the Move controllers if you’re playing on the PS VR because the game also supports the Dualshock 4 gamepad since it can be tracked by the camera as well. Simply pick either left or right handed and you move the controller around just as you would the Move controller and use the triggers to open and close your hand. Unfortunately this limits you to only a single hand represented in the game. It doesn’t really feel appropriate or useful, but it’s better than not being able to play the game at all I suppose.
But a huge part of what makes Surgeon Simulator so appealing in the fist place is just how precise of a profession actually operating on people in real life should be. The juxtaposition of the gore and gratuitous blood with the completely shifty and unreliable nature of the controls will force even the most stone faced gamer to smile. That is, until you scream internally from frustration. I reach out to grab the saw, then drop it inside of Bob’s chest cavity because my fingers cramped and let go of the Vive wand’s grip button. I try to pick it up and accidentally sever his heart and rip out a lung on PS VR because the tracking skipped out. Blood spews everywhere, but the music keeps on clicking away in the background and Bob is completely unphased by it all. It’s funny, but tends to get old.
If you were a fan of Job Simulator, then you might be expecting something similar here given the title and premise, but it’s quite different. In Job Simulator, there are multiple occupations — Surgeon Simulator is obviously just one. Also in Owlchemy’s title, you are tasked with multiple small tasks throughout the course of each job, keeping you engaged and interacting with NPCs that offer witty commentary and humorous insights. In the case of Surgeon Simulator, you spend a few minutes performing each operation, but then you’re sent back to the desk to pick your next patient. That’s about it.
Final Score: 5/10 – Mediocre
The underlying premise behind Surgeon Simulator in virtual reality is likely enough to get people interested and there is certainly plenty of charm and silliness to keep people entertained for at least a little while. At the very least, it’s a hilarious way to show off the technology to someone with a good sense of humor. But ultimately there are too many debilitating blemishes, such as the poor controls, and lack of content to really make this an experience that stands out above the rest.
Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score. You can purchase Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality on Steam for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, motion controllers required, for $19.99, or on the PSN Store for PlayStation VR also for $19.99.
Earlier this month UK-based developer Bossa Studios launched a full virtual reality (VR) version of its long running Surgeon Simulator series, Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality for PlayStation VR and HTC Vive. For the PlayStation VR version Bossa has 48 Trophies to unlock, all of which VRFocus has listed below.
Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality allows players to perform all of their favourite procedures from the critically acclaimed original, just in VR, with a few extra additions. These include brain surgery in the dark and an extra hand for those tricky procedures.
Full Trophy List:
I Think I Got This – Perform a heart transplant. (Bronze)
Kali Mah! – Perform a heart transplant in under 1 minute 50 seconds. (Bronze)
Don’t In-Test My Patience – Perform a double kidney transplant in under 3 minutes. (Bronze)
How Long Can You Live Without A Brain? – Perform a brain transplant in under 30 seconds. (Bronze)
Blink And You’ll Miss It – Perform an eye transplant in under 2 minutes and 30 seconds. (Bronze)
You May Feel A Light Tapping – Perform a teeth transplant in under 45 seconds. (Bronze)
Nine Nine Nine! – Perform a heart transplant in an ambulance. (Bronze)
Life’s Too Short – Perform a heart transplant in an ambulance in under 1 minute 40 seconds. (Bronze)
A Surgeon’s Merit Is Based On Speed – Perform a double kidney transplant in an ambulance in under 2 minutes. (Bronze)
Brainstorm – Perform a brain transplant in an ambulance in under 30 seconds. (Bronze)
I Can See For Miles… Per Hour – Perform an eye transplant in an ambulance in under 2 minutes and 10 seconds. (Bronze)
Not The Time Or Place For Precision – Perform a teeth transplant in an ambulance in under 45 seconds. (Bronze)
In Space, No One Can Hear You Bleed – Perform a heart transplant in space. (Bronze)
It’s Life Jim, But Not As We Know It – Perform a heart transplant in space losing less than 1300ml of blood. (Bronze)
The Surgery Of The Future – Perform a double kidney transplant in space losing less than 1500ml of blood. (Bronze)
Precision Instrument Time – Perform a brain transplant in space losing less than 2300ml of blood. (Bronze)
Expert Space Stalker – Perform an eye transplant in space losing less than 1000ml of blood. (Bronze)
Maintained Healthy Gums At Least – Perform a teeth transplant in space losing less than 800ml of blood. (Bronze)
I Immediately Regret This Decision – Electrocute and drug yourself at the same time. (Bronze)
What Have I Done?? – Lose the patient within 15 seconds. (Bronze)
Hammer Time – Lose 50,000ml of blood using the hammer. (Bronze)
What A Load Of Bull – Listen to the surgeon rap. (Bronze)
The Goggles Do Nothing – Completely smash up the goggles. (Bronze)
Lumberjack – Cut out the eyes using the surgical axe. (Bronze)
Heterochromia – Give the patient heterochromia. (Bronze)
Keyhole Surgery – Completely remove the rib cage. (Bronze)
Practically Licensed – Complete all procedures. (Bronze)
I Should Never Have Doubted Myself – Get an A++ rating on a procedure. (Bronze)
Like A Wet Paper Towel – Throw the new heart away in the surgery. (Bronze)
I’m Sure He’ll Live – Complete a procedure with less than 10ml of blood remaining. (Bronze)
Vworrrp Vworrrp – Create a Time Lord. (Bronze)
The Beat Of Your Heart – Replace the heart with something else. (Bronze)
Doctor Doctor, Give Me The News – Answer the phone. (Bronze)
Nigel The Secretary – Go about your secretarial duties. (Bronze)
Spaaaaaaaaace – Go where no surgeon has gone before. (Bronze)
It’s In! It’s In I Tell You! – …and it was going so well. (Bronze)
Call Trisha – Now where did you leave her number… (Bronze)
Bin there, done that – Throw any object into any bin in reception (Bronze)
Mass ejection – Eject all the tools into space (Bronze)
Smash TV – Make the TV in the ambulance fall off (Bronze)
Bin Longden – Throw any object into the furthest bin in reception (Bronze)
And They Said It Was Impossible! – Complete a procedure after being drugged and electrocuted. (Must be afflicted within 20 secs) (Silver)
About As Politically Correct As Fur – Give the patient a… scarf. (Silver)
Best Surgeon In The World – Get an A++ rating on all procedures. (Gold)
You Can’t Handle The Tooth! – Complete the tooth transplant only removing the rotten teeth. (Gold)
Nothing But Skull – Complete a brain transplant by throwing it in. (Gold)
Let’s See That Sick Filth Again – Perform a 180° spoon flip. (Gold)
There Is Nothing More To Teach… – Completed every Trophy. Now go save lives! (Platinum)
The PlayStation Experience has begun in California, with attendees able to play all the latest videogames and demos for PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR. The live-streamed showcase kicked off the event, with PlayStation VR announcements including Resident Evil 7 biohazard and a brand new title, Starblood Arena. For the many owners of the head-mounted display (HMD) that couldn’t attend, Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) announced that Bossa Studios’ Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality can now be downloaded.
Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality allows players to perform all of their favourite procedures from the critically acclaimed original, just in virtual reality (VR). A very tongue-in-cheek title, Surgeon Simulator: Experience Reality will take players from the operating theatre, to the back of an ambulance, to outer space, all whilst trying to save the trusting patient.
In addition to the original surgeries, Surgeon Simulator: ER adds exclusive new features for you to experience in VR. How about brain surgery in the dark and some new achievements? What about adding a 2nd hand to perform surgery like delicately remove teeth from a patient using nothing but a claw hammer, or to perform complex eye surgery in Zero-G.
Whether you’re an experienced designer, programmer, engineer, or maybe you’ve just been inspired after reading VRFocus articles – either way, you have stumbled across VRFocus’ VR Job Hub. The jobs listed here are located worldwide, from major game players to humble indie developers – the one thing they all have in common is that they are all jobs in VR.
Look back at last week’s post for ongoing listings. If you’re an employer and are looking for someone to fill a VR or AR related gap on your workforce and would like your role to feature on next week’s VR Job Hub please send details of the role to either pgraham@vrfocus.com or keva@vrfocus.com
Check back with VRFocus at the new time of 3pm GMT every Sunday for the latest positions in this ever growing industry.
