Category: cubism

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‘Laser Dance’ Coming to Quest 3 in 2024, From Creator Behind One of Quest’s Best-rated Puzzle Games

Thomas Van Bouwel, the developer behind popular VR puzzle game Cubism (2020), is nearing launch of the long-teased mixed reality game for Quest that turns your living room into a moving grid of lasers straight out of Mission Impossible.

Update (October 3rd, 2023): Van Bouwel announced Laser Dance is coming to Quest 3 and Quest Pro sometime next year. There’s no release window yet, however users looking to get early access can become best testers. Check out the new teaser below:

Original Article (October 24th, 2022): Called Laser Dance, the Quest game aims to turn any room of your house into a laser obstacle course—basically recreating the old laser hallway trope you may recognize from a ton of films, TV shows and video games over the years.

There’s no word on release dates yet, although progress is looking good. Check out a work-in-progress level of Laser Dance in action:

Van Bouwel came up with the idea over the two-day Global Game Jam 2022 earlier this year, and has since fleshed out the game to include parametrically-generated laser patterns based on room size and layout, meaning the action should dynamically fit to your space and serve up a challenge no matter how big (or cluttered) your space.

Although the game has been shown working with Quest 2’s monochrome passthrough, the indie dev is no doubt positioning Laser Dance for release on Meta Quest Pro, which is capable of more realistic passthrough AR thanks to its five external sensors, offering a higher resolution color view with improved depth-detection.

We’re looking forward to learning more about Laser Dance, as Van Bouwel is excellent at creating deceptively simple gameplay that really makes you think—look no further than Cubism, which has also kept lock-step with passthrough and hand-tracking updates on Quest since its initial launch in 2020. If you want to follow along with progress on Laser Dance, check out the game’s official Twitter.

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Cubism Passthrough Update für Meta Quest veröffentlicht

Tower Tag auf Steam

Das Puzzle-Spiel Cubism hat ein neues Update erhalten, welches euch in der realen Welt knobeln lässt. Das Passthrough Update für Meta Quest steht kostenlos zum Download bereit.

Cubism Passthrough Update für Meta Quest veröffentlicht

Mit dem Passthrough-Modus könnt ihr eure reale Welt als Hintergrund für das Spiel einblenden lassen. Das neue Update enthält außerdem einen “Tischmodus” für Passthrough. Für den Tischmodus, der für das Spielen am Schreibtisch entwickelt wurde, müssen Sie den Boden auf die Höhe des Schreibtisches einstellen. Dadurch liegt das Puzzle-Menü flach auf dem Tisch.

Das Passthrough Update für Meta Quest steht ab sofort kostenlos zum Download bereit. Die Meta Quest 2 ist unsere aktuelle Empfehlung, wenn ihr eine VR-Brille sucht. Hier findet ihr unseren Langzeittest zur Meta Quest 2 und hier erfahrt ihr, wie ihr schnell und einfach die Brille von Meta bestellen könnt.

(Quelle: Upload VR)

Der Beitrag Cubism Passthrough Update für Meta Quest veröffentlicht zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!

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Cubism Passthrough Update Available Now For Quest Headsets

Cubism’s Passthrough Update is available now for Meta Quest headsets, after undergoing testing and implementing a few additional features that help improve the passthrough effect.

Quest developers have been playing around with a new Passthrough API allowing them to integrate the Quest’s passthrough camera view into their experiences for the first time. Cubism was one of the very first experiences to demonstrate this, with developer Thomas Van Bouwel sharing footage of a very early test version back in August.

cubism passthrough

We got our hands on the feature a few weeks later and remarked that this new mixed reality, AR-lite version of the game might be the best way to play yet. This may be even more true now with some new additions, like hand tracking support in Passthrough – previously not possible due to some now-resolved OpenXR bugs relating to hand tracking. The system cleverly employs some neat visual tricks that let you see your virtual hands at all times, even when they’re behind in-game objects.

The update today also includes a new ‘tabletop mode’ for passthrough. Designed for when playing at a desk, tabletop mode requires you to set your guardian floor at the height of your desk. This lets the puzzle menu lay flat on the desk, giving some force feedback, and allows each piece’s drop shadow to be viewed against the desk area. It’s a fantastic little touch that should give a better sense of presence when playing at a desk or table.

The Passthrough Update for Cubism is available now and can be enabled in the game’s settings menu.

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Cubism To Receive Passthrough Support With Hand Tracking Next Month

A new Cubism update arriving next month will add support for using passthrough as the game’s background on Quest 2, along with a nifty visual effect that allows your hands to display in front of virtual objects.

Cubism was one of the first games to experiment with the Passthrough API back in August, however it didn’t support hand tracking in passthrough at the time due to unresolved bugs in the OpenXR implementation of hand tracking. This new update, coming next month, supports hand tracking and uses some tricks to sell the visual effect.

Most games that implement the passthrough API don’t let you ‘see’ your real hands against the environment. Blaston, for example, puts a subtle black circle around your hands and controllers, placing the game’s virtual hands on top.

However, Cubism allows you to see your hands properly at all times, even if they’re in front or behind any of the game’s objects. You can see this in action in the video embedded above.

Usually, such a trick would also leave with you with distorted hands thanks to the way the passthrough image is constructed from the Quest’s cameras (which is part of the reason for the black circle solution in other games). Cubism circumvents this by applying a faint outline of your virtual hands over the passthrough image, according to a Reddit comment from the developer. The game also uses selective passthrough on top of in-game objects when your hands pass over them, which keeps the hands visible on top of the game’s assets at all times.

Cubism is available now for Meta Quest and PC VR via Steam and Oculus, with the passthrough update coming early next month for Quest 2.

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One of Quest’s Best Puzzle Games Just Got 30 New Levels

Cubism (2020) is consistently one of the best-rated games on Quest, and it just got a mess of new puzzles in a free update today which arrives to all supported headsets.

Called ‘Volume 2’, the free update brings 30 new puzzles to the game, marking the one-year anniversary of its release back in September 2020. This, its creator Thomas Van Bouwel says, brings “several hours of new spatial reasoning puzzles for fans to play through.”

If you haven’t played before, Cubism bills itself as a deceptively simple VR puzzle game where you assemble increasingly complex shapes out of colorful blocks. You’ll need to first unlock Volume 2 after solving at least 30 puzzles in Cubism’s original campaign. Check out the update trailer below:

Van Bouwel tells us that the new campaign is divided into five stages of six puzzles, each arriving with color palette. Puzzles are also underscored by an original piano song which players can gradually unlock as they solve the puzzles.

Cubism’s free update is now available on Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift and SteamVR headsets, with the whole package priced at its regular $10.

The post One of Quest’s Best Puzzle Games Just Got 30 New Levels appeared first on Road to VR.

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Cubism Volume 2 Adds 30 Free new Puzzles

Cubism

When it comes to deliciously simply yet highly effective puzzle gameplay, Thomas van Bouwel’s Cubism for Oculus Quest, Rift and SteamVR is a very good place to start. Officially released back in September 2020, for Cubism’s first anniversary this month the developer is releasing a free content update adding 30 new puzzles into the mix.

Cubism

The Volume 2 update adds a second campaign to Cubism’s roster, split across five stages each with six puzzles apiece. And to give them a bit of pop the puzzles feature a new colour palette. Just like the first campaign, with each puzzle solved players will be able to unlock an original piano song. To access volume 2 you’ll need to have completed at least 30 puzzles from the first campaign.

Cubism captured hearts and puzzled brains because at first, it seems so deceptively easy; take coloured blocks and try to make them all fit with a predefined shape. As the shapes increase in size and with more blocks to try and place the difficulty soon ramps up, providing a mix of logic solving and trial and error to succeed.

While volume 2 is the first content update for Cubism van Bouwel has released other backend updates to improve the experience, especially where Oculus Quest is concerned. He added hand tracking back in March so players no longer required controllers, followed by 120Hz support a month later.

Cubism

Reviewing the Oculus Quest version of Cubism at launch VRFocus said: “Easy to pick up yet difficult to complete, it may take some an hour whilst others will take five. It’s the kind of VR game you can give to anyone and they’ll instantly know what to do, because who doesn’t know how to place a few blocks together.”

Cubism’s free volume 2 update is available today. If you’ve not picked up the puzzle title then it’s only £7.99 GBP on Oculus Store and Steam. For continued updates from van Bouwel, keep reading VRFocus.

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Cubism Gets Free New Levels In Volume 2 Update This Week

Cubism is celebrating its first birthday this week by releasing a free ‘Volume 2’ update on September 23, including a new selection of puzzles.

As you can see in the video,  Volume 2 update will add a new library of puzzles to the game, in addition to the 60 puzzles from the main campaign released at launch. In the video, the Volume 2 progress indicator reads ’15/30′, so it looks like the expansion will feature an additional 30 puzzles, or half the amount in Volume 1/the main campaign.

Previously, we spoke to Cubism developer Thomas Van Bouwel and learned that he was working on and beta testing a series of Cubism DLC levels for launch later this year. We spoke to Van Bouwel and confirmed that the plan has changed, and the Volume 2 update with new levels is replacing the old plan for a DLC release.

Van Bouwel said he pivoted back and forth between a few delivery methods for the new levels, but in the end restructuring the DLC plans into a extension of the main campaign “made the most sense.” Instead of existing and new players having to pay for a DLC expansion of new puzzles, all players will receive these new levels for free when they’re added to the game later this week in the Volume 2 update.

Cubism has consistently received free updates adding new features and implementing new technologies on Oculus Quest over the last year. Not only does it have 120Hz support and sublime hand tracking implementation, but a recent experimental build showed how the game would run using the new AR passthrough API, available to developers on Quest 2.

The Volume 2 update releases for Cubism on September 23.

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Cubism In AR On Oculus Quest Might Be The Best Way To Play

Cubism is a Quest game that has always been at the forefront of the platform, successfully implementing cutting edge new features as soon as possible. The new Passthrough mode, which uses a new experimental API available to developers, is no exception. In fact, it might be the best way to play the game yet.

Cubism developer Thomas Van Bouwel gave UploadVR access to the Cubism build with Passthrough API support, first shown off on Twitter last week. We jumped in and played around with some of the puzzles, as seen in the footage embedded below, and came away absolutely delighted.

When playing in Passthrough mode, the gameplay itself remains completely unchanged. Cubism is a slow, stationary and minimalist puzzle game — the only changes when playing in Passthrough mode is the white (or black) standard background gets replaced with the Quest’s live Passthrough feed of your surroundings. The Quest is suddenly transformed into an AR device, allowing you to manipulate all of Cubism’s familiar puzzles in a live representation of the space you’re playing in.

Somewhat naturally, I started to find myself using my surroundings to help me play — as you can see in the video, I started to use my desk as a plane to work on. I placed the puzzle flat on the right of the desk, while I moved the pieces over to the left side.

Because of Cubism’s slow, stationary nature, I didn’t experience too much rapid warping of the Passthrough image while playing, which happens more frequently during head or body movement. Just like Cubism’s implementation of hand tracking and 120Hz support, implementing the AR Passthrough API feels like a properly natural fit for the game and the type of play that it encourages.

It also harks back to Cubism’s origins as a game inspired by traditional wooden block puzzles, where you’re presented with several Cubism-like wooden blocks and have to find a way to fit them together into a perfect cube. Playing through Cubism’s more complicated, virtual versions of those traditional puzzles in an environment closer to real life feels apt, in a coming full circle kind of way.

In terms of limitations, the biggest at the moment is the hardware itself — the Quest cameras are only capable of producing a black and white image. There’s also no hand tracking support for Passthrough mode in this build — it’s still on the roadmap for a future build, but a few bugs have pushed the implementation out a bit.

The AR Passthrough mode also doesn’t natively provide a way for Cubism to interpret the passthrough image as a 3D space with barriers and objects that would collide with the game elements. This means that when I wasn’t careful, I could go to position a virtual block to rest on my desk, but it would sometimes float down ‘into’ the desk while remaining visible. The same principle applies to walls and other objects– blocks, if pushed, will simply move through or inside of objects, while also remaining visible to the player.

The new Passthrough mode probably won’t be available in a public Cubism build soon because the Passthrough API is still experimental, intended for developers and requires enabling the Quest’s Experimental Mode. Van Bouwel says Cubism’s public build will get the feature eventually, but only once the Passthrough API itself moves from an experimental feature to a public release. Nonetheless, this early Passthrough build of Cubism offers a glimpse of what to expect with future AR content on Quest and other headsets still to come.

New technology aside, Cubism is also set to receive new DLC levels soon. You can read more about the history of the game here.

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Watch: Cubism Using Experimental Passthrough API On Quest 2

Cubism developer Thomas Van Bouwel shared footage of the game running in Passthrough mode on Quest 2, using the new experimental API available to developers.

Last month, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg teased that the v31 update for Oculus Quest would “give developers access to Passthrough API Experimental to build and test mixed reality experiences.” More details emerged a few days later, clarifying that it would only be available on the newer Quest 2 headset and that any apps using the API “cannot access, view, or store images or videos of your physical environment from the Oculus Quest 2 sensors.” Access to the API essentially turns Quest 2 into a $299 AR developer kit.

Since support starting rolling out, we’ve seen several apps and services play around with the API in existing and new VR apps. SideQuest added an option to easily run the ADB command that enables experimental mode to use the API, along with one tech demo using the feature. Just yesterday, developer Mark Schramm was able to get Gravity Lab working with the Passthrough API, allowing the physics-based puzzles to be played out using AR.

Cubism is the latest app to showcase Passthrough support, as you can see in the video embedded above. A game like Cubism, which uses minimal background elements and has a simplistic design, is a perfect candidate for the new feature.

Cubism has frequently been at the forefront of new Quest technology, showcasing and implementing support for some of the headset’s biggest features made available post-launch, such as its sublime hand tracking implementation.

Whether Van Bouwel develops or experiments further with the new Passthrough support is yet to be seen. Nonetheless, Cubism is set to receive new DLC levels soon. Until then, you can read all about the game’s development history here.

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Watch: Cubism Developer Shows New Hand Tracking Features

The developer behind Cubism, Thomas Van Bouwel, shared a video showing an in development feature that will improve the accessibility and ease of use for those playing with hand tracking.

The feature, which Van Bouwel has jokingly dubbed as “force powers”, allow you to pull pieces through the air towards you with hand motions. This will allow hand tracking players to summon pieces to them when they are out of reach, instead of having to lean across to grab pieces.

When playing with controllers, there’s already an equivalent feature that summons all the pieces closer towards you when you press a button. Without any buttons to rely on, Van Bouwel’s solutions lets hand tracking players make a “come here” motion with their hands to any individual piece, which will bring it flying across to your hand’s position. Even better, the tips of your fingers will light up with the color of the targeted piece, so you can make sure you’re selecting the right one if there’s multiple piece in the same area.

Even without this new feature, Cubism remains one of the best examples and implementations of hand tracking technology on Quest that we’ve seen so far. Back in June, we did a deep dive on the history of the game and Van Bouwel’s journey as a VR developer. Coming from a background in architecture, Van Bouwel made the leap to VR in 2016 and released Cubism a few years later.

There’s no confirmation if or when the new force powers feature will make its way to a Cubism update, but we do know that the game is set to receive a set of new DLC levels sometime in the future, so keep an eye out for more news soon.