Expanding support for its virtual reality (VR) collectible card game (CCG) Dragon Front, today High Voltage Software has announced that the title can now be played through Facebook Gamesroom for free.
Dragon Front came to Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR last year allowing owners of either headset to compete against one another. With the addition of Facebook Gameroom cross-platform gameplay is still supported, enabling even more players to do battle.
“We were the first game to offer cross-platform multiplayer across Rift and Gear VR when we first launched our open beta at Oculus Connect 3 conference last year. Making sure our players were able to match on a Rift against people on a Gear or desktop is an important feature we worked closely with Oculus and Facebook Gameroom team to implement,” said Eric Nofsinger, Chief Creative Officer at High Voltage Software in a statement. “Your level and stats carry over from one platform to another, so people who have been playing on Gear VR or Rift will be able to merge their accounts on Gameroom to continue their gameplay on the go.”
Featuring online multiplayer matches with global leaderboards or a single-player story campaign against AI, Dragon Front players construct a 30-card deck from over 460 characters, fortifications and spells, each with unique powers, traits, and creative strategies. Every deck also holds a legendary champion, whose cost diminishes as his side nears defeat, ensuring an epic comeback in the late minutes of every match.
“High Voltage Software is well-known to pioneer new technologies and platforms. Teaming up with Facebook to bring Dragon Front cross-platform from VR to desktop just made sense,” commented Chief Executive Officer Kerry J. Ganofsky. “Dragon Front represents an important milestone for our studio. Not only have we created a fantastic card game that’s easy to pick up and play, but we’ve also demonstrated the incredible versatility of the game for endless replay value.”
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Dragon Front, reporting back with further updates.
Thanks to ReVive, a hack that lets SteamVR-compatible headsets play Oculus Rift exclusives, anyone with an HTC Vive can enjoy a number of unofficially supported games from the Oculus Store. Here we take a look at 5 of the games you shouldn’t miss—of course with the appended “buyer beware” warning that the Revive hack caries with it.
For non-Rift owners, losing access to a game you bought on the Oculus Store isn’t likely at this point, but it’s not something you should ignore either. Back when Oculus modified their DRM in a way that prevented Revive from functioning, thus blocking Vive users from playing Oculus games in their library, community outcry over the decision eventually led Oculus to reverse that particular stance on DRM, saying that in the future they wouldn’t use headset verification as part of the platform’s security protections. Despite the risk, we still think these Oculus exclusive games are worth playing.
People used to think that fast-paced, high-action games would be too disorienting for new virtual reality users, but in Epic Games’ Robo Recall (2017), you can teleport around at full speed as you blast away at the game’s evil (and hilarious) robot army. If being able to tear your enemies literally limb from limb and beat a robot over the head with their own dismembered arm isn’t astounding enough, the level of detail and polish put into this game will make you reassess what’s possible in VR. This is another Touch freebie you’ll have to pay for as a Vive user, but at $30, you’d be hard-pressed to find something with this level of polish at this price on Steam.
Find out why we gave Robo Recall [8.5/10] in our review.
You can probably burn through this charming, family-friendly 3D platformer in a weekend—providing you’ve got a gamepad on hand—but at exactly zero dollars, Playful’s Lucky’s Tale (2016) is an easy sell. As one of the first third-person games for Rift, Lucky’s Tale helped define the Xbone Gamepad-era of VR gaming that Oculus is leaving behind now that the controller is no longer being bundled. Whether you’re racing with Lucky through lush trees, dodging swamp pits, battling menacing bosses, or mastering mini-games, youʼll feel like you’ve truly gone inside the world of a video game thanks to the magic of VR.
With a fantasy-meets-WW2 setting, this collectible card game takes place on a 4×4 grid battlefield featuring rampaging giants, intimidating war-machines, and soaring projectiles. As a freemium game from High Voltage, there’s still plenty of opportunity to play an exciting single-player campaign if collecting (and buying) card packs in multiplayer isn’t really your thing.
There’s plenty of gun slinging fun in this Western-inspired multiplayer shooter. Darned tootin’ if you can rob a runaway train, defend from zombie hordes, or battle it out in an old saloon—of course with your trusty six-shooters by your side (and a stick of dynamite for good measure). While this is free to Touch owners upon activation, if you’re looking for a well-rounded little shooter with a cowboy flair, the $40 sticker price may fit the bill.
Esper: The Collection gives you access to Esper (2016) and Esper 2(2017)—two finely-crafted and ultimately intriguing puzzlers that give you psychic abilities to solve increasingly challenging tests. As an agent of ESPR, an organization set up to deal with the outbreak of telekinetic powers, you travel to exotic locations (not just your desk); solve puzzles, discover secrets, stop villainous plots, and fall unconscious multiple times. Interact with an array of characters, voiced by notable actors, Nick Frost, Lara Pulver, and Sean Pertwee, and Eric Meyers. Since you’re using your telekenetic powers, this isn’t a game that’ll use Vive controllers to their fullest, but it’s still a great options if you’re looking for a more passive, seated experience.
Two of the most well-received Oculus-funded games—both the campaign mode Lone Echo (2017) selling for $40 and the free multiplayer mode Echo Arena (2017)—are easy for Vive users to play thanks to the games’ native 360-degree setup. If you’re skeptical of the zero-g locomotion scheme, we suggest grabbing Echo Arena first,which doesn’t require Touch activation to nab for free. Either way, you’ll be amazed at how comfortable and immersive flying through space can really be in the first-person (i.e. not Adr1ft).
Find out why we gave Lone Echo [9/10] in our review.
Wilson’s Heart is a gritty first-person thriller from Twisted Pixel that jaunts through gads of sci-fi tropes ripped directly from the silver screen. As one of the most beautiful and visually cohesive VR games out for Touch, the game takes you through a black-and-white universe as experienced by Wilson, a hospital patient recovering from a curious surgery that has replaced his live-beating heart with a strange machine. Ripping it from your chest, you find it gives you a growing number of abilities to help you not only fight against your personal demons, but also some very real ones that have passed into the world thanks to experiments done by the brilliant, but clearly insane Dr. Harcourt
While falling into some overly campy territory, garnering it Wilson’s Heart a [7/10] in our review, the game is definitelty worth a play-through if you can find it for cheaper than its $40 sticker price.
Don’t say we didn’t tell you *not* to button-mash your gamepad before stepping into Chronos (2016), a third-person adventure by Gunfire Games. Slashing at enemies with the long-trained penchant for beat-em-ups will get you exactly nowhere in this Zelda-inspired, Dark Souls-ish-level of difficulty game where dying in the game physically ages your character. Starting out with either an axe or a sword, you leap through a multi-dimensional transport crystal to hunt down a dragon that has ruined your world. As an interesting mix of high-fantasy and a retro post-apocalyptic world, Chronos gives you plenty to gawk at, and even more to worry about as you hack and slash your way through dimensions.
Sitting at 4.5/5 stars on the Oculus Store, it’s a score we can easily get behind.
Edge of Nowhere (2016) is a third-person VR survival horror game created by Insomniac Games that strands you in the icy wasteland of Antarctica, leaving you with only a pick-axe, a shotgun, and some rocks to defend yourself against a bloodthirsty ancient species that lurk inside the snowy caverns. The lack of supplies makes for tense gameplay and forces the players to be creative and conserve resources, creating tense moments when you’re forced to decide whether you should use that last shotgun shell and blow the head off the horrible beast lurking nearby or just try the more risky route and sneak past. As a gamepad game
Find out why we gave Edge of Nowhere one of our highest ratings at [9.5/10] in our review.
Dragon Front developer High Voltage Software has released the latest update for the virtual reality (VR) collectible card game (CCG) on Oculus Rift and Touch, adding a brand-new Conquest Mode on top of more content such as free factions.
Firstly Conquest Mode. This will allow players to compete in six five-battle campaigns for each of the seven factions, with the first campaign for each of the factions being free.
“Conquest Mode lets us tell this fantastical war story that we’ve been writing for years from seven different perspectives, giving life to the world of Dragon Front and personality to each of the seven factions,” said High Voltage Chief Creative Officer Eric Nofsinger on the Oculus Blog. “Completing each of the seven storylines rewards the player with a special new Boss Champion—one that’s normally unavailable in booster packs and can’t be forged.”
To make the videogame even more tempting for new players, High Voltage has made the first four factions – Scales, Thorns, Strife, and Eclipse – completely free. This grants every player entry to a minimum of 20 free Conquest levels. While the new Invasion Forces Expansion Bundle gives players the other factions: Silence, Essence, and Delirium plus 10 boosters for $29.99 USD.
“VR isn’t just a fad,” adds Nofsinger. “We respect the medium by putting out quality content—lots of it—and creating opportunities for deeply engaging fun. People tell us all the time that this is the VR game they’ve spent the most time playing, and considering the sheer amount of strategic options, the visual and audio content, and the competitive elements of the game, I’m not at all surprised.”
The update also lays the groundwork for the studio’s Facebook store, which aims to increase the amount of players getting involved in Dragon Front.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Dragon Front, reporting back with the latest updates.
High Voltage Studios announced a major update for its Oculus exclusive collectible card game Dragon Front.
Update 2.0 is available for download today in the Oculus store. It will bring a new campaign mode, new champions for your favorite faction and new cards via booster packs. According to Dragon Front’s updated store page, the full list of game features now includes:
NEW! Single-Player Story Mode—Live the Conquest through the eyes of the seven factions!
Online Multiplayer – Head-tracking and VOIP brings players from all over the world head-to-head on the battlefield.
7 Thematically Diverse Factions – Each army is equipped with unique powers, traits and strategies.
Collectible Cards – Construct your 30 card deck from over 460 battle-hardened soldiers, defensive fortifications that evolve the battlefield, and a wide array of spells.
Champion System – Legendary champions helm your army to ensure an epic come-back in the late minutes of every game.
The new campaign mode will offer not one, not two but six new challenges for you to play through. Your hard work will be rewarded with boosters that contain the updated new cards and champions.
In Dragon Front, a champion is a special, extremely powerful card that you have from the beginning of each match. Champions have a very high mana cost, however, and so usually can’t be brought out until the middle or end of a match. The abilities and power of these champions effect the meta of Dragon Front significantly and adding new ones will likely force high-level players to rethink their favorite strategies and deck builds.
Dragon Front is one of the few VR games right now that can be said to have a “hardcore” following of players. High Voltage has previously explained to UploadVR that their most committed players are logging in at least once a day and a very competitive scene has developed at this upper echelon of VR strategists.
Are you excited for Dragon Front 2.0? Let us know in the comments below.
At the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017 last week, developer High Voltage showcased its forthcoming update for card battler Dragon Front. Released last October for Oculus Rift, the new update will add Oculus Touch support for Dragon Front alongside a new faction, and is scheduled to arrive next week.
The studio has been teasing what to expect with a series of tweets to eager fans. In addition to more intuitive gameplay with Touch, the faction being included is called Delirium. With it players will gain access to some monstrous new cards, with units like the Starling Watcher, Floating Star-maw and the War Stitcher to command, as well as spells including Unseen Hands and Shifting Worlds.
These add a range of combat options with Starling Watcher offering to soak up damage whilst dishing out four mana to players. While Floating Star-maw is a flying class, and War Stitcher is a mid level fighter with equal attack and defence.
Delirium adds to Dragon Front’s growing roster of factions with Scales, Thorns, Strife, Eclipse and Silence all having launched in quick succession in the last few months.
Dragon Front will be one of the few titles that support Touch to offer cross-platform play with Samsung Gear VR. Touch news has dominated the Oculus platform since its launch in December 2016. The biggest news was last week when Oculus announced a new pricing bundle for the headset and controllers, as well as a price drop for Touch itself.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of High Voltage and Dragon Front, reporting back with the latest updates.
High Voltage Software’s Dragon Front moved from Beta into a full release last November, but that doesn’t mean new content isn’t on the way.
The developer recently confirmed that its VR card battler will be getting a new update next week with two very big additions. The first is a new faction, Delirium, which offers a new set of cards and units to play with. This army is made up of demonic creatures that will use their powers to confuse players, shifting units across the map. High Voltage has been sharing some of the new soldiers you’ll encounter over on Twitter, including the ghost-like Starling Watcher, and the disturbing Floating Star-Maws.
It’s the second new faction to be added to the game, the other being the Essence faction, which is essentially the polar opposite of Delirium, with angel-like units from the heavens.
Arguably more exciting, however, is the inclusion of new Oculus Touch controls in next week’s update. Players have long thought about what position-tracked controls could do for the game, but soon they’ll be able to bring their hands into the experience and pick up cards they want to play. We went hands-on with Touch support at GDC last week and, while inessential, found it to be a fun new way to interact with the game.
Dragon Front is also playable on Gear VR, and supports cross-play between the two platforms. Obviously Gear doesn’t support Touch, but perhaps it could one day support the new controller that’s coming to the platform.
Look for the update to hit in a little under a week from now on March 14th.
At this point in VR’s lifecycle we’ve seen a few different takes on the classic card-based gameplay format. Dragon Front was one of the first, from High Voltage, but it’s exclusive to the Rift and Gear VR’s Oculus Home platform. We’ve also got the likes of Ascension VR, which takes an existing game and adapts it for the immersive space, but it doesn’t bring the creatures to life in the same way. That’s where new indie game, Manastorm: Champions of G’nar by DaGGaSoft comes into play.
Players can achieve the same basic functionality of Magic: The Gathering by playing with the actual rules and cards in something like Tabletop Simulator, but then it’s only simulating the act of playing the standard card game you could already play in real life. It doesn’t really take advantage of VR as a medium. That’s where Manastorm takes the experience a step further.
While playing Manastorm, I stood behind an alchemist’s table in charge of my forces, evaluating the cards in my hand. To play a card, I’d physically toss it out onto the battlefield using a motion controller, similar to how characters would summon creatures in the Yu-Gi-Oh anime series, or how Ash throws a Pokeball in Pokemon. That small flourish alone is enough to immediately make the experience feel that much more visceral.
From there, I watch as my creatures emerge from the abyss with life. They’ve all got a mana cost, an attack value, and a defense value — just like you’d find in Dragon Front, Magic, or even Hearthstone. My resource for summoning creatures is pulled from a collection of mana crystals that slowly increases over the course of the game.
Tossing cards to summon creatures is one thing, but the immersion goes even farther when I’m able to actually cast spells such as a fire beam. To use it, I’d actually hold out my hands in front of me as if I was actually an all-powerful sorcerer lording over my minions. I can even shoot arrows from an actual bow in the game that requires precision, rather than just clicking or pointing to an enemy.
While playing, I ended up feeling more like the mastermind behind a powerful army than just a player in a VR-ified card game. Even though the abilities are still represented as cards, it didn’t prevent me from briefly suspending disbelief.
The final extra wrinkle added to the puzzle is the inclusion of alchemy mechanics. At a table in front of me, I’ve not only got cards to pick from, but also a small collection of ingredients.
This feature isn’t very fleshed out right now — and neither is most of the game in most regards — but it could quickly become a key feature to help set the experience apart even further. Instead of picking a certain class as is typical in a game like Hearthstone or Dragon Front, the alchemy table could allow players to craft abilities and potions on the fly as necessary ingredients are acquired. Developers could build this out to add incredible diversity to the core game.
As it is right now, the blocking system was bare bones. As a big fan of Magic: The Gathering, I’d love to see that system adapted here, in which you can have your creatures block incoming attacks against you instead of unwillingly taking the damage. Generally speaking, Manastorm is in need of a bit more polish and better-explained tutorials across the board, but it’s on the right track.
It’s still early for Manastorm as it just launched in Early Access on Steam last week. So far, the game’s only been in development by a tiny team for a few months. Features such as multiplayer and a marketplace are being considered as development continues. More cards, creatures, spells, and other feature are intended to be incorporated over time.
Dragon Front is an addictive, free-to-play virtual reality trading card experience from High Voltage Studios for the Oculus Rift and Gear VR crafted in the same vein as industry stalwarts Magic: The Gathering and Hearthstone. In the game, you choose one of several factions to play as. Each faction has its own unique cards, abilities, and inherent strategies. So far High Voltage has released Scales, Thorns, Strife, Eclipse and Silence as playable factions for users.
Today, the studio is officially revealing the next army for its players to command: Essence.
Each of Dragon Front‘s factions has its own individual aesthetic that keeps the art of its various cards visually cohesive. For Essence, the not-so-subtle motif at play is angels. According to an email from Oculus — Dragon Front‘s exclusive platform — “the creatures of the Essence faction are celestial beings, golems, and elementals.”
The message also explains that Essence cards will possess two new, faction-specific traits that put an emphasis on board movement and agility in battle. These traits are:
Push – This moves the targeted unit one space away from the owner’s Stronghold. This can be used to move friendly units forward, or enemy units backward. This doesn’t count as a move action, and thus doesn’t initiate combat.
Shift (Self) – Shifting allows units to move left or right into the next Lane, as long as it is open (No Walls or Units). This counts as movement, and is followed up by an attack to Units in front of this one’s new space.
No Dragon Front faction is complete without its Champion and Essence is no exception. “West Wind Anima” will be your ace-in-the-hole if you choose this angelic arsenal for your deck. She packs a wallop with both flight and sprint as well as a spawn effect that refills your mana as soon as she steps into the fray.
Essence seems to be designed as a rush deck perfect for aggressive players that want to play an in-your-face game that focuses on mobility rather than the blast and burn tactics of Strife.
Essence will be available for all players in Dragon Front at no extra charge on January 17th.
Dragon Front, an Oculus VR exclusive title from High Voltage Software, is ramping up for the holiday season. As of right now, all players on Oculus Rift and Samsung Gear VR can earn double XP for all matches played. Later this week, double gold will be available for all players to earn.
Originally launched in beta back in October 2016, Dragon Front has since seen official launches on both Oculus Rift and Gear VR. An expansion pack, Silence, has also been made available in the months that followed. Now, with a steadily growing audience, High Voltage Software is running two special events to thank the videogame’s players.
As of now, all players can receive double XP for all matches played today, 25th December 2016. Next weekend, 31st December 2016 – 1st January 2017, double gold will be awarded to all players for any matches undertaken.
“High Voltage Software plans to support this title for some time to come. We encourage you to reach out to the development team on the Dragon Front Discord chat to let us know how you feel about the game, if you run into any issues, or if you’re just looking to learn from the best,” reads a statement posted by the developer on the official Oculus VR forums. “The developers as well as the top Dragon Front players from around the globe are on the chat around the clock! https://discord.gg/6WBqg4C”
Dragon Front is available for Oculus Rift and Gear VR now, as a free-to-play title. VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest virtual reality (VR) videogames from High Voltage Software.
At Oculus Connect 3 in October High Voltage Studios announced an open beta for its competitive VR trading card game Dragon Front. Now, the studio is announcing that it is transitioning the title from beta to full release. The new update comes complete with new cards, new ways to play, and a brand new faction as well.
The first thing that representatives from the studio revealed concerns the game’s story. As a primarily online multiplayer experience, Dragon Front doesn’t necessarily need any sort of storyline, but High Voltage has provided one all the same:
“In Dragon Front, you play as a deity chosen to travel back in time to the moment of battle, not to prevent the war, but to win it. In this diesel-punk, high-fantasy world, each spell cast, minion summoned, and fortification built is rendered in a fully-immersive virtual reality battleground that has yet to be experienced in a collectible card game (CCG).”
In addition to a more fully fleshed out story, the full release of Dragon Front will include an all new playable class: Silence. We reached out to High Voltage and got the full scoop on the new cards and new strategies this new squadron brings to the battle.
UploadVR: What sort of new cards there will be (how many, what types etc.)?
HVS: Silence is based around the concept of secret operatives during WWII and the ColdWar, mixed with elves, shadows and lizard-folk to appease the high fantasy aspect. What we get here are rogue saboteurs that specialize in poison, stealth and speed. There are 30 Aligned cards and 30 Unaligned cards, with the normal mix of 15 Basic cards.
UploadVR: How will the new cards effect the meta of the game?
HVS: Silence will change the meta in a few ways. It begins to add some of the more complex tactics and strategies such as the STEALTH and SWIFT keywords. Stealth conceals the deployed unit and its position until it attacks. This makes lane defense more difficult to anticipate. Swift is like First Strike, allowing the units with this keyword to attack before the opponent. Dealing damage without losing health is a huge win, forcing the opponents to add direct damage spells, as well as defending units with more health to ensure a retaliatory attack.
Silence also plays a bit more with forts, and we fully expect to see more fort play once Silence is released. There are units that gain power by destroying forts, and spells that let units warp through forts. Forts can also be used to “hunt” for units cloaked by Stealth. Lucky players can prematurely reveal a unit with Stealth if they attempt to spawn a fort on a concealed unit.
UploadVR: What sort of unique advantages does the new faction have?
HVS: Other than Stealth and Swift, Silence also has Poison and Hush. Poison is a simple damage over time effect distributed by units, spells and forts. Poison adds a timer to a unit’s effectiveness and forces action from players that tend to hunker down and play defensively. Hush removes all traits on a unit. This is a powerful ability, so it is used infrequently.
UploadVR: How regularly will we see new factions in the future?
HVS: As our players have pointed out, there are two more locks in our front end, where we display the faction masks. That could be a clue as to the number of total factions, but you never know! We appreciate how engaged our players are, so our plan is to release new content in the most sustainable way possible.
Dragon Front is available now for free with microtransactions on both Oculus Rift and Gear VR.
