Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds is one of the surprise hits of the year so far in its Early Access release, but fans will have to wait several months longer than initially thought for the full version.
The post ‘PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds’ delayed until the end of the year appeared first on Digital Trends.
The rise of virtual reality (VR) represents an opportunity for small, independent developers to make a name for themselves and their work as the industry is still growing and developing. One company who has chosen to take advantage of this is Masai Entertainment and developer NyanBlade, whose first title, Space Conquest has just been announced.
Using a bright, stylised 3D setting with a blocky, almost 16-bit effect similar to titles such as Minecraft, Space Conquest is styling itself as a ‘pick up and play’ casual first-person shooter suitable for party play. The title focuses on fast-paces multiplayer gameplay. There is no queue system, players can simply jump into maps as commence shooting.
The online play mode uses a four-player competitive game mode referred to as ‘Arms Race’. Several different weapons are available, with small maps to encourage players to go toe-to-toe. Avatars are customisable with different colour schemes to avoid confusion. Locomotion is free with ‘snap turning’. A left-handed mode is also available for players who are not right-handed.
To support the multiplayer focus, Space Conquest will have both US and EU servers and a voice chat function. AI bots will be available in matches where not enough human players are present.
The developers are planning on launching a closed Beta for the title next week, with plans to release the title into Earth Access some time in July. It has not yet been established what platform Space Conquest will be available for, nor is it known at this time what the price point will be.
An announcement trailer for Space Conquest is available to view below.
VRFocus will bring you further information on Space Conquest and other upcoming VR titles as it becomes available.
Fortnite is set to launch next month as an early-access title, but it has been confirmed that a physical version of the game will be available in North America and Europe four days earlier.
The post ‘Fortnite’ gets a physical release days ahead of its early-access launch appeared first on Digital Trends.
Fortnite, the long MIA survival title from Epic Games, will enter early access on July 25 for PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC, and Mac. If you pre-order, you can start playing four days earlier, and receive an exclusive weapons pack.
The post Surprise! Epic Games’ ‘Fortnite’ is alive and well, enters early access July 25 appeared first on Digital Trends.
Last week we reviewed First Impact: Rise of a Hero, a VR superhero sandbox from Canada-based Red Meat Games. While the game showed early promise, the final product was sadly lacking.
While First Impact had a bright comic book world and some fun powers to experiment with, visual bugs, poor enemy AI and control issues kept us from giving the game more than a 4/10. In the week that’s followed, Red Meat told UploadVR that it has decided to shift the game from a full release into Early Access so that it can work on improving the title. That means the game’s had a dramatic price drop; it’s now $14.99 (with a current discount taking it to $13.49) rather than $34.99.
“One of the most important things you can do with a game launch is to listen to your audience,” company CEO Keith Makse told UploadVR of the decision. “Sometimes they say the things that you don’t want to hear, but that you MUST hear.”
He explained that the game had recieved positive feedback when it was on display at PAX South earlier this year, played by thousands of people and listed in the top 20 games to play at the show. That success propelled the developer to launch on Early Access.
“Our first customer wasn’t happy. Other people commented on the game without playing it. UploadVR released an unhappy article on the game. The news was clear to us by that point; we needed to swallow our pride, admit our mistake and relaunch the game on Early Access.”
The studio now plans to spend the next six to 12 months polishing the game, fixing bugs and making it fit with the original vision. “It’s easy to wear blinders and hard to admit errors. But it’s harder to ignore your mistakes and the consequences (bad word of mouth, dismal sales, disappointed press and angry customers) that will be your downfall,” Makse said.
It’s only been a week, but First Impact isn’t the only superhero sim out there anymore; PowersVR also launched in Early Access last week.
Tagged with: early access, First Impact: Rise of a Hero, Red Meat Games
Das neue Studio Mundo Pixelado hat ihr erstes VR-Spiel namens Outlands Safehouse als Early Access in Steam veröffentlicht. Die Umgebung des Spiels ist inspiriert vom Disney Film TRON: Legacy und weißt daher starke Science-Fiction-Bezüge auf. Weiterhin basiert das Spiel auf der Unreal Engine und befindet sich aktuell noch in der Entwicklungsphase. Derzeit ist es nur für die HTC Vive verfügbar, aber es soll bald eine Version für die Oculus Rift erscheinen.
Outlands Safehouse basiert auf Room Scale VR und lädt daher zur friedvollen Erkundung ein. Innerhalb des Spiels bewegt man sich frei durch das futuristische Haus und kann beeindruckende VR-Erfahrungen sammeln. Hierfür gibt es zwei verschiedene Bewegungsmodi: einmal im klassischen Bewegungsmodus und per Teleportation. Wer eine Auszeit braucht, kann sich im Raum setzen und die ruhige Atmosphäre auf sich wirken lassen. In Zukunft soll das Spiel viele interessante Features enthalten, wie zum Beispiel diverse Möbel und eine Innenausstattung mit interaktiven Möglichkeiten. Zudem soll es spannende Minispiele geben.
Momentan arbeiten die Entwickler an der Verbesserung der visuellen Effekte, der Audioeffekte und an diversen Fehlerbehebungen. Die aktuelle Early-Access-Version des Spiels enthält eine Art Entspannungszone, in welcher der Spieler eingeladen wird die angenehme, futuristische Raumgestaltung zu betrachten. In Zukunft wird das Spiel durch zusätzliche Objekte und herausforderndes Gameplay bereichert. Wie das genau aussehen wird, bleibt abzuwarten. Auch einige Fehlerbehebungen sind nötig, bei der die jetzigen Spieler helfen können.
Der Early Access wird fünf bis sieben Monate bestehen bleiben. Aktuell ist das Spiel für 2,99 Euro im Steam Store erhältlich. Nach der Early-Access-Phase soll der Preis allerdings erhöht werden. Die Entwickler möchten mit der Community zusammenarbeiten, um das Spiel so gut und interessant wie möglich zu gestalten. Wer Interesse hat ein Teil der Entwicklung zu sein, dem sei Outlands Safehouse wärmstens empfohlen.
Der Beitrag Mundo Pixelado bringt TRON: Legacy in die VR zuerst gesehen auf VR∙Nerds. VR·Nerds am Werk!
Everyone begins in The Hub. The sky is purple and full of stars and the ground is rough and hewn from stone. There’s an extra-dimensional vibe going on here as you begin to look around. You spot your friends in one corner and walk over to them. Your group begins to backflip and breakdance by way of greeting, and then Dan opens a portal and you all head out to play some outer space laser tag.
Welcome to VRChat.
VRChat is a new social VR experience that is beginning its early access phase on Steam today, though developers who purchased early Rift developer kit headsets would remember it as one of the first social VR experiences. UploadVR recently had the chance to try the latest version out for ourselves. We found a platform that is full of potential and good ideas. It’s just a matter of seeing how well those ideas are realized.
The basic idea of VRChat is that it is a universe in flux. You, as a user, have the ability to create and import your own avatars, items and even entire worlds for you and your friends to utilize. Want to play cops and robbers in the old west? Go for it. Want to play digital laser tag? Enjoy. Or do you just want to hang out and bowl? VRChat has you covered.
During my experience I saw anime avatars, cartoony people that came up to my knees and even Mr. Duke Nukem himself. I was being squired about by VRChat’s chief creative officer Ron Millar. Millar took me into all of the different experiences listed above. And while none of them felt nearly as polished or as feature-rich as the handful of experiences currently available in other social VR titles like Rec Room, what was impressive about them was the sort of raw creativity they represent.
The bowling, cowboy and laser tag experiences were all put together by Millar and his team for my demo, but other worlds like them could be built by any VRChat user. The possibilities of a user-generated VR universe is enough to get my mouth watering and, according to Millar, the possibilities do seem just about endless for what can be done with just VRChat and development platform Unity. There’s a sort of “creative hacker” feel to that sort of customization and now that the app is entering early access later today, I can’t wait to see what sort of avatars, worlds and experiences the community will unleash.
You move between worlds and experiences in VRChat via portals. You have a menu that lets you change your skin, pick a new world or share one of several emotes. This menu can be pulled up any time and new actions can also be built outside of VRChat and imported to wow your friends.
Outside of its “anything is possible/Ready Player One” promise, there is not too much that separates VRChat from its contemporaries like Altspace, High Fidelity, etc. The main thrill of the app still lies in seeing others, chatting with them and entering activities with friends from far away. The steady increase in these types of experiences may lead to some die-off among less compelling experiences. We’ve already seen one company shuttered in the VR productivity app space this year, and another early VR social platform, Convrge, closed down early last year as its creators moved to other projects. Time will tell if the customization options in VRChat will help it attract enough users to sustain a workable experience and business model as the years go by.
On the heels of its early access launch later today, VRChat also announced a partnership with Morph 3D to create more expressive avatars. Morph previously brought its avatar system to High Fidelity According to a representative from the company, the system is meant to let any user “create avatars featuring dynamic lip sync, eyes that track, hand gestures, full-body IK and speech that uses spatial audio.”
VRChat is available now for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift with support for more platforms coming in 2017, according to the company. You can download it now with a Windows PC. The early-access program will begin today on Steam.
Tagged with: download, early access, launch, today, VR chat