Fathomable Ltd – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

May 11, 2018

Competition: Another Opportunity To Visit Surreal Puzzle Title GNOSIS

In the year 2325, humanity is long gone, and all that remains of its history is the mysterious GNOSIS Archive. This is the premise behind the audiovisual virtual reality (VR) experience that comprises GNOSIS. Developer FATHOMABLE Ltd have created a title that defies the traditional genre definitions, straddling the mechanics of puzzler, rhythm game and exploration.

GNOSIS The player takes the role of a seeker of knowledge in the future where the world has changed beyond all recognition. The task is to explore the vast network of knowledge that unfolds around you, using a combination of artistic performance and retro-style puzzle gameplay as you try to unravel the secrets and learn exactly what the GNOSIS Archive seems so keen to hide.

Last week five lucky winners were lucky enough to get codes to this unusual VR experience, and developers FATHOMABLE Ltd have been kind enough to provide another five Oculus Store codes for VRFocus to give away, and all you need to do to be in with a chance of winning your own copy of GNOSIS is to use the Gleam widget below.

As is customary when using Gleam, you get one entry for each interaction with some form of VRFocus social media. You can snag one entry for following us on Twitter, one for subscribing to your YouTube channel and yet another for visiting our Facebook page, you can even drop us a ‘like’ while you are there.

The competition will be open for a week, and will begin today, Friday 11th May, and will end 18th May, at midnight, UK time. Winners will be drawn shortly thereafter and contacted privately after that date.

If you entered a competition recently, codes have been sent out, so be sure to check your inbox (and your spam folder just in case).

Competition: Another Chance To Unravel The Mystery Of GNOSIS

April 27, 2018

Competition: Discover Humanity’s Fate In Oculus Rift Title GNOSIS

Friday is here once again, and that means it’s time once again for a new giveaway competition here on VRFocus. It is, of course, always a mystery as to what exactly we’re going to reveal but, on this occasion, even we struggle to fully explain GNOSIS. To quote Peter from earlier this month it is the equivalent of “a piece of content that defies explanation, a mashup of several ideas and genres into one cohesive whole”.

At its heart GNOSIS (pronounced ‘no-sis’), or to give its full name GNOSIS: An AudioVisual Ritual is part-puzzle videogame, part-musical experience. You play the role of a knowledge seeker in 2325, the world is now a very different place to the one we now today. You are on a pilgrimage of sorts, seeking clues about the history and purpose of Humanity. A term the guardians of Sophia’s Temple, the ‘GNOSIS Archive’, reveal they have not heard in a very, very long time. Unfortunately, the archive recordings have been damaged by a nefarious source – but the data can be recovered. It’s up to you to do so.

We’ve teamed up with developer FATHOMABLE Ltd to give you the chance to win a code for the title on the Oculus Store. We’ve got five codes to give away, all you need to do to enter is use the Gleam widget below and interact with our social media accounts in some way. You’ll receive a draw entry for being a follower of us on Twitter, one (or another one if you do this as well) for being a subscriber of our channel on YouTube. You can gain a third entry if you visit our Facebook page – and it’d be pretty neat if you liked it while you were there – and the same goes for our Instagram account too.

The competition is open for approximately a week. It starts today, April 27th, 2018, and will end at midnight UK time, the beginning of May 4th. Winners will be drawn and contacted shortly after that period – and if you’ve entered a contest recently we sent codes to a whole bunch of winners the other day. So if you entered a competition recently take a look in your inbox!

Competition: Discover Humanity’s Fate In GNOSIS

April 11, 2018

GNOSIS’ Synesthesia of Music and Data Visualisation is Coming to Oculus Rift

In the world of virtual reality (VR) you occasionally come across a piece of content that defies explanation, a mashup of several ideas and genres into one cohesive whole. Tomorrow, Fathomable Ltd will launch its first VR title for Oculus Rift, a synergy of music and puzzle elements called GNOSIS.

“Dive into audiovisual cyberspace and explore a large network of knowledge unfolding around you,” explains the official synopsys. “GNOSIS is a Virtual Reality artifact and music album combining retroarcade-styled puzzle gameplay, interactive data visualisation and artistic performance, all set to a kaleidoscopic soundtrack by VVDS, Cooptrol, Black Bolt, Psykocosmos and Q P.O.P. Dance performance by BACANTOH.”

If that didn’t help explain GNOSIS then there’s always the bizarre and rather surreal launch trailer (below) which features in-game footage as well as several player impressions from events GNOSIS has been showcased at.

Originally the work of lone developer Robert Bogucki, the Fathomable team has grown to nine. “I’m a marine hydrographer by trade and a VJ /creative coder by passion; those disciplines are not as unrelated as they might seem,” Bogucki wrote on The Virtual Report.biz last year. “Hydrographers usually work five weeks on, five off – leaving me time to engage in passion projects, which included Machineparanoia using Ogre3D game engine, Resolume and Spout. We progressed this by adding a Kinect sensor to allow festivalgoers to mix their dance moves into the projected VJ-mix for a German installation. This led to using Kinects to capture dance performances which became the basis of the project I’ve been working on ever since…”

GNOSIS will launch today for Oculus Rift and Windows PC, with Fathomable Ltd also planning a HTC Vive version for a leter date. Check out the trailer and see you can figure out what’s going on, and VRFocus will bring you further updates from the GNOSIS team as details are released.