Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
Psychonauts 2, the sequel to the cult hit 2005 game Psychonauts, will no longer be releasing in 2018, developer Double Fine revealed. No new release window has been offered as of yet.
The post Don’t get psyched just yet — Double Fine delays ‘Psychonauts 2’ past 2018 appeared first on Digital Trends.
As a "first playable" build, this area represents a segment of Psychonauts 2. In this area, Double Fine can test new pipelines and workflows from any department, be it art, animation, tech, design, cinematics, or others.
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The words ‘Double Fine have brought out a new game’ are usually enough to make most gamers take an interest. Although Double Fine are the publishers in this case and not the developer, they have cultivated a reputation for knowing good quality when they see it. The is certainly the case with GNOG.
GNOG (pronounced during the title sequence as ‘gun-ogg’) is a puzzle game on the surface. Each level in the game is a box resembling the head of some kind of monster creature, which contains a huge variety of buttons, lights, dials and levels that can be poked, pulled and prodded into doing something. The boxes themselves can be turned in every direction by using a combination of the DualShock trigger buttons and right analogue stick. Everything else is controlled with the left analogue stick and the X button. Curiously, it doesn’t use any motion controls, which is something of a lost opportunity.
The heads/boxes turn out to be little dioramas filled with complex worlds, which may remind children of the 90’s of Polly Pocket or Mighty Max toys. Everything you can interact with reacts to your actions, often with changes in the music and sound effects, resulting in the box-worlds playing a rather excellent tune when a puzzle is solved. The soundtrack in general is amazing, multi-layered and dynamic and really best enjoyed over headphones. Unless you happen to be lucky enough to have an excellent 5.1 surround sound set up.
The graphics are amazing. Developer KO_OP has done an excellent job in creating a very distinctive visual style that makes everything look like it was built out of neon and candy. It’s very crisp and smooth, but the myriad colours can be a little overwhelming after a while.
Solving the puzzles inside the boxes/heads requires logic whilst following subtle clues from the environment. There are secrets and hidden trophies which can be found by performing some slightly esoteric actions within each level. There is occasionally something of a frustration in the trial and error style gameplay – especially when something that should work doesn’t the first time – such as during a sequence with the mother bird (this could have been a bug or a simple mistake).
A downside to GNOG’s visual spectacle is that it’s very short, with almost all the puzzles completed in a single sitting. While there is replay value to be gained from going back to find hidden trophies and easter eggs, there’s really not enough for puzzle fans. There are some other flaws as well, some of the levels feel like they could’ve been developed further, the aforementioned possible bug and the lack of motion control is really inexplicable in a title that relies on moving an object around.
GNOG is an excellent title and well worth anyone’s time. It takes excellent advantage of the PlayStation VR functionality to produce something beautiful and striking, both visually and aurally. While it could potentially benefit from some extra puzzles and a bit more polishing, it is still a solid title and worthy addition to your PlayStation VR library.
Awesome
The PC has received a tremendous amount of adventure games over the years. Here are a few of our favorites, from the all-time classics like 'Myst' to sleeper hits like 'Life is Strange.'
The post The best adventure games you can play on PC appeared first on Digital Trends.
Through the mind of a child, a new toy is more than just an object. Every inch is full of imagination and potential as they play with it in their own way. This joyful experimentation is center stage in the upcoming game Gnog.
The post ‘Gnog’ reveals its release date in latest level teaser trailer appeared first on Digital Trends.
Puzzle videogames come in all shapes and sizes, from dark mysterious adventures to light hearted escapades, if you like a brain teaser there’s something to fit everybody’s ability. Coming to PlayStation VR this year will be a solely puzzle experience from KO_OP called GNOG, taking a fun look at the genre mixing colour, light and sound into a playful experience.
VRFocus originally previewed GNOG way back in 2015 when it was a PlayStation 4 project with aspirations of virtual reality (VR) support for Project Morpheus (as it was called). Now the studio has begun showcasing what this vividly surreal puzzler will bring to Sony Interactive Entertainment’s headset, letting attendees at the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017 delve into two levels out of the nine that’ll be available when fully launched.
GNOG’s levels are individual, self contained puzzle boxes that encourage you to twist, turn, pull and press their seemingly simple, but often elaborate structures to find the solution. The wonderful aesthetics mimic a myriad of childhood toys that are designed to elicit fascination in children, with quirky sounds, large buttons and a rich cel-shaded colour palette.
There’s a beautiful exuberance in each unlock of a particular section, with the puzzles requiring you to use your eyes as well as your ears to look for subtle changes that can indicate what to do next. This isn’t some videogame for five year old’s, there’s no hand holding here. No instructions are given on how to go about solving these brain teasers, but trial and error can be used for the most part, which can work for and against this type of title.
And the screenshots only tell part of the story. These boxes of peculiarity are multi-sided, with intricate secrets tucked away that can be missed at first glance if you’re not careful. This is where the benefit of VR comes into play. You can’t help but peer into the puzzles, getting a much better idea of what’s going inside, which only VR can do. Yes, those that know VR well will probably tell its a videogame made for consoles, and that VR has then been added on, but that still doesn’t detract from the overall feel.
Of concern though is the length of GNOG, with KO_OP having said there’s going to be nine levels, that does feel somewhat short. As a puzzle title it’s also single-player, so the worry is that once completed there’s going to be little to bring players back into the fold. GNOG wouldn’t be the first is this genre to suffer from this issue, so KO_OP might have some tricks yet to be revealed.
GNOG possesses some truly engaging and inventive ideas that might just make it stand out for players. It’s the art style that’ll draw in the crowds, and certainly make you want to play, but it needs more than looks to make it into your library. If the videogame can provide hours of entertainment (without getting stuck) then it could certainly be one of the most interesting to arrive in 2017.
Earlier this week saw Double Fine Productions launch its first virtual reality (VR) title, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin for PlayStation VR. Taking place directly after the critically acclaimed original Psychonauts which launched 10 years ago, the VR version features 12 PlayStation Trophies to unlock, which VRFocus has listed below.
A first-person adventure, players assume the role of Raz, a young psychic and member of the Psychonauts who can utilise various psychic powers – such as Clairvoyance, Telekinesis and Pyrokinesis – to manipulate the world and solve puzzles.
Checkout VRFocus’ interview with Lead Programmer Chad Dawson about the project and its development.
Full Achievement List:
Secret Trophies
Today see’s the long awaited release of Double Fine Productions first virtual reality (VR) title Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin, an exclusive for PlayStation VR. Prior to release VRFocus spoke with Lead Programmer Chad Dawson about the project and its development.
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin takes place directly after the original, filling in the story gap before the release of Psychonauts 2 which is due out next year. A first-person adventure, players assume the role of Raz as his psychic powers – such as Clairvoyance, Telekinesis and Pyrokinesis – to manipulate the world around them.
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin is available now for PlayStation VR for $19.99 USD/£15.49 GBP, with PlayStation Plus members getting a limited time discount. Checkout the interview with Chaz below and for any further updates keep reading VRFocus.
So what sparked the interest in creating a VR title?
I did some VR stuff back in the 90’s during grad school, so early prototype research, mostly little projects, but left that to come do videogames for the next 10/15 years. But recently with the Oculus Kickstarter a bunch of people got excited about it, as Double Fine has always taken on new technology. We made a bunch of Kinect games for Microsoft Kinect, when mobile started becoming popular we made a bunch of mobile games, we did some Leap Motion games, so we always like to play around with new technology and see what it could create.
So we started playing around with doing a VR game about the same time Tim (Schafer) started looking towards us approaching Psychonauts 2. And as we started trying things out in VR, figuring out what types of locomotion, what type of systems we liked from our experiments, it began to feel like Psychonauts might be a good fit for VR as far as psychic abilities mapping on to the mechanics of VR.
Tim also had an idea for a story in the middle of Psychonauts one and two, sort of a lost chapter, as Psychonauts 2 is going to kind of start ‘hey do you remember when we rescued Lily’s father’, it kind of assumed those events had happened, but as we started looking at the story we were building it looked like we could tell that chapter as well in VR, that’s what melded the two together.
What can you tell us about development?
We started about a year and half ago doing some prototypes, as a studio we wanted to explore using a new engine, this is built with Unreal 4, so we wanted to test out new technology with that as well. And initially like most people do in VR it’s a big open space, there’s all types of experiences you can do, we tried a few prototypes of locomotion, moving around with characters, as well as artistic exploration on what would it take to take Psychonauts characters from ten years ago and bring them up to modern standards, as far as materials, animation or detail. We knew in VR you’d probably be up close to them as opposed to the original Psychonauts being a third-person platformer, other than cut-scenes you look from far away, in this case you might have one right up close to your face so the expressiveness of eyebrows, their eyes, facial animation had to be up there as well.
Any particular challenges implementing Psychonauts into VR?
It was tricky to adapt, all of our modelers and world builders we made sure that they had VR headsets. Typically you make something that looks great on your screen then you go into VR and the whole sense of scale and space are different, it maybe feels small on your screen once you put yourself in VR it feels like a life sized room. Initially we new that the Psychonauts would be held captive so we started with some prison cells, we thought we’d made this really small cell that felt small, but once we put you in there it felt like a giant space. So picking up those distances was a learning curve.
Coupled up with that Psychonauts is a weird and wonky art style, none of the lines are parallel, everything’s an askew shape, none of the circles are circles their all kind of bent and twisted ovals, that art style is also tricky to convey in VR. Often times a player needs a point of reference, a floor plane, a ceiling plane that’s level to balance them out, so figuring out how to keep that art style true to the original game while also making an experience in VR was an initial challenge.
Now that Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin has been completed any further VR plans?
It’s definitely been a great experience for our team, we’ve learnt a lot doing it and talking to anyone who does a VR project every few months you learn something new about VR that works and something that you thought works that didn’t work that well. For us we really tried to approach characters and the story, which is different to many VR projects which are more about shooting robots or flying spaceships. So for us the challenge was taking our story and characters and bringing them into the world, and once we got in there with our characters it was such a great way to see them up close like that I think it’s something we’d want to explore again in the future, but at this time we don’t have any announced plans. But we’ve certainly learned a lot, it’d be great to build off of the aspects we’ve learnt from and continue with more VR titles.
I really want to deliver you some good news, here. I want to tell you that the Psychonauts, long thought lost to the fabled realm of cult classics, have made their triumphant return in a game that’s truly worthy of their twisted world of psychic agents. I want to tell you about a mind-bending VR experience that plays with your psyche in clever, astonishing ways, just as Raz did when he climbed into the heads of characters in the first game.
Sadly, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin is not that experience.
There are things to love in this brief spin-off to the 2005 platformer that developer Double Fine made its name with. The cast, for example, is back together and writer and development legend Tim Schafer hasn’t lost his grasp on them. Rhombus of Ruin is VR’s first introduction to the wit, soul, and sheer creativity of Double Fine’s world building, and in that respect it doesn’t disappointment. I’d chuckled to myself multiple times within the first scene, and some of the game’s sights are truly spectacular. No one does weird quite like these guys, and it shows here.
Back in control of Raz mere minutes after the cliffhanger ending of the first game, the developer has crafted a 2-3 hour adventure in which you’ll attempt to save the father of your maybe-girlfriend, Lili. It’s seen clear opportunity in translating the first game’s psychic power-infused platforming into a VR puzzler that more closely resembles one of Schafer’s classic point-and-click adventure games like Grim Fandango or Day of the Tentacle.
As well intentioned and respectable a throwback this might be — clearly influenced by the design challenges of VR that can cause simulation sickness — it ultimately leaves this chapter in the Psychonauts saga feeling decidedly inessential, restrictive, and dated.
Many of the game’s core mechanics are incidental, and not anywhere near as satisfactory to use as they should be. If you’re familiar with VR, then you’ve probably picked things up and moved them with your ‘mind’ before. It’s a mechanic as old as the first full retail VR games like Land’s End on Gear VR; you look at an item, you press a button to bring it towards you, and then you move it by steering your head.
It’s a necessary component of the game, but it would have you think it’s novel and empowering, when really it’s a somewhat laborious way of shifting items around. As harsh as that sounds, it’s consistent with most of the powers you can use; serving a design purpose more than a genuinely fun mechanic to utilize. Body-hopping clairvoyance, for example, is much the same, a mesh of mechanic and locomotion that doesn’t excuse the fact everyone’s rooted to the same spots.
Pyrokinesis, meanwhile, suggests sections in which you can giddily burn your surroundings to the ground, but these never materialize. It’s reduced to often redundant actions like burning specific items that block your path, and feels almost totally useless once the more satisfactory Psi-Blasts come into play, which at least give a kick to their use.
I just never felt like the more powerful psychic agent Raz had grown to become by the end of the first game. There’s an argument to be made for Double Fine’s intentions to deliver a different kind of experience, but it comes off as overly limited.
There are glimpses of what the game could have been, which occur when the puzzle-solving is at its spontaneous best. Rapidly flinging suitcases down a corridor to block a door, or shattering the glass of a fish tank to snap someone out of a trance were impulse-based actions where I reacted naturally to the world around me. When I stumbled with working out which power I needed to use where, however, characters would repeat unhelpful lines of dialogue ad-nauseum.
Psychonauts In the Rhombus of Ruin never really gets inventive with VR, at least not until two sequences towards the end in which you visit the mind of a fan favorite character. Though this involves a trite boss fight, there’s an element of storytelling here that truly capitalizes on the connections VR can enhance with characters, and the clever spins it can take with scale and environments. I had hoped for the trippy, surprising ride these precious few moments delivered right the way through, but ultimately this was all it could muster even in the short run time.
A missed opportunity for sure, then, made all the more bitter by the fact the series didn’t need to radically reinvent itself to fit VR. Lucky’s Tale and Wayward Sky show third-person platforming works in VR, and the latter’s mix of first-person gameplay proves Double Fine could have had the best of both worlds here. Ultimately, it’s just like PSVR’s Batman game, missing crucial elements of what makes the IP so compelling.
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin gives fans a reason to be excited for Psychonauts 2, if only because it shows Double Fine hasn’t lost is grasp of the wonderful world it concocted 12 years ago now and not much else. As a VR game this is most often dated and only rarely the eye-opening adventure that a VR game about characters that can climb inside your psyche should be. I’m happy that the Psychonauts are alive and well, however anyone but the series’ most devoted fans should wait until next year for what will hopefully be the coming home party they so truly deserve.
Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin will be available on PlayStation VR for $19.99 on February 21st 2017. Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.
Tagged with: double fine, Psychonauts in the Rhombus of Ruin
Amazon has announced a new children's series based on Double Fine's 'Costume Quest,' a game about trick-or-treating with magical costumes. The series is being made by Frederator, the studio behind Adventure Time and other shows.
The post ‘Adventure Time’ studio to turn ‘Costume Quest’ game series into Amazon cartoon appeared first on Digital Trends.