Another long-lost Google Daydream exclusive is making its way to less-dead headsets next week.
Fire Escape, an engaging interactive VR series from iNK Stories, will arrive on Steam with support for the Valve Index, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive headsets. The app originally arrived on Daydream over a year ago, when the platform was already on its way out.
The Steam version will also be available to play without a headset. Not only that, but 25% of the proceeds from sales will be donated to COVID-19 relief efforts.
In Fire Escape, you play as a neighbor to a block of apartments that peers into the lives of others over the course of one night. After a tenant is murdered you’ll need to listen in on other people’s conversations and search for clues to help unravel a murder mystery. The series is split into three parts, each about 20 minutes in length.
When we reviewed the experience, we said it had “complex layers” that viewers could decide how to approach. “A single viewing gave the piece a gripping structure,” we said. “I anxiously worried about what other scenes and puzzle pieces I was missing. At the same time, you could just as easily go back and study each character individually to get the full picture. But it’s to Ink Stories’ credit that Fire Escape works either way.”
iNK Stories itself is a respected game developer behind other narrative-led experiences like 1979 Revolution. Based on what we played on Daydream, this one’s definitely worth checking out if you want to see a unique approach to VR storytelling.
Will you be checking out Fire Escape when it launches next week? Let us know in the comments below!
As VRFocus likes to do every Friday it’s time to take a look at what virtual reality (VR) videogames are due to arrive over the next 7 days. Offering a diverse range of genres from magical adventures and horror to extreme sports experiences, there’s a little something for everyone here.
Wrest – Shaftesbury Lucid Inc
Scary videogames are well suited to VR, so Wrest stepping into a coveted genre. This is a horror title where you play an engineer called Andy Bishop, who wakes to discover a terrifying mystery unfolding in his home. For those that want to test the experience first, developer Shaftesbury Lucid Inc has already made a demo available on Steam.
Expanding Daily Magic Productions’ Witching Tower VRuniverse, this action-packed sequel is about fighting hordes of monsters using an array of weapon styles depending on whether a player prefers close or ranged combat. An Early Access launch, Witching Tower: Heroes will be single-player to begin with, with the studio adding multiplayer options in the future.
An interactive VR cinematic thriller which premiered during the New York Film Festival in 2018, Fire Escape is a Hitchcock inspired tale which takes place across three 20-minute episodes. You watch over a Brooklyn apartment complex from across the street, able to select apartments and listen in to your neighbour’s conversations. When a murder takes place you need to unravel the mystery.
And for those thrill-seekers looking for some excitement Blackwall Labs’ NYC Bungee is just that. Set around the Statue of Liberty, players can climb the famous landmark, enjoy the spectacular views and then bungee off her flaming torch. Or jump in the hot air balloon for a relaxing ride.
The annual VRCORE Awards took place in Shanghai, China today, celebrating the best of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) from around the world. With 15 categories, these cover a broad range of immersive content including videogames, film, education, medicine, real estate and many more. Now all the winners have been announced.
China’s VRCORE Awards aren’t just about winning a prestigious honour, winners are also provided with opportunities to enter the lucrative Chinese market. Winners are able to establish cooperative relationships with Chinese partners, one of the best and only ways to do so.
The 2019 VRCORE Awards winners are as follows:
VRCORE Award – Focus on You – Smilegate Entertainment
Best Game – Fujii – Funktronic labs
Best Movie – Black Bag – VRTimes
Best Industry Content – Virtual Simulation Security Training Platform – MR.ART
Best Creative – Mandala – Sandman Studios
Most Business Potential – Christmas Eve – iQIYI VR
Best Art (PC/Console) – Rogan: Thief in the Castle – Smilegate Entertainment
Best Audio (PC/Console) – Mercenary 2: Silicon Rising – KUKRGAME
Best Interactive (PC/Console) – A Township Tale – AltaVR
Best Narrative (PC/Console) – Black Bag – VRTimes
Best LBE – Levy’s Grimoire-Blade & Magic – Metal Cat
Best Mobile Game – Fire Escape: An Interactive VR Series – iNK Stories
Best Mobile Industry Content – MeshInstruct – Meshicon Software
Best AR Content – Ello AR – Pinta Studios
Best Mobile Interactive – Barren War – Water Bear Studio
Some of these should be very familiar to western audiences like Funktonic Labs’ Fujii. The title arrived for multiple headsets back in July, offering a relaxing, puzzle-based, musical plant adventure. Rogan: Thief in the Castle was another summer release for PC VR devices, pitting players as a thief inside a medieval castle, evading guards whilst trying to steal valuables.
Having originally began in 2016, previous winners including Polyarc’s puzzle adventure Mossgaining the highly coveted VRCORE Award, while Nostos from Netease Games achieved Best Game, both in 2018.
The awards are just one part of VRCORE, a VR developer community in China which acts as a hub for developers and partners at home and abroad to communicate and cooperate with China’s hardware manufacturers, distribution platforms and capital. VRFocus will continue its coverage of the VRCORE Awards, reporting back with all the latest announcements.
Remember Private Eye? It was an early VR demo that captured a lot of attention. The game’s premise had players overlooking a block of apartments and peering into the lives of others to solve mysteries. It sadly never came to fruition but the concept lives on in Fire Escape.
This is a tense interactive VR murder mystery from 1979 Revolution developer, Ink Stories. In it, you find yourself out on the fire escape of your apartment, surveying a group of tenants that are being pressured to leave their homes by a ruthless landlord. Graffitied walls and dingy, dimly-lit apartments make it clear that people aren’t happy. Then the landlord calls everyone upstairs to kick them all out. It doesn’t take a detective to see where that situation might lead. Sure enough, you’ll soon find yourself exploring each character’s backstory and motivations across three episodes. Each window has a story to tell, and it’s up to you who you focus on.
There’s an obvious comparison to be made with Tequila Works’ The Invisible Hours here, though Fire Escape is a more accessible approach to the VR murder mystery. It’s impossible to get the entire story in one playthrough, but you can get a taste of every suspect by listening in on their conversations with each other.
Crucially, there’s authenticity in its depiction of a rundown Brooklyn block and its inhabitants. Each member of the cast has depth and diversity, hiding skeletons in their closets that make them plausible suspects. The loyal but beleaguered Sal finds himself trapped between his boss’s demands and his friendship with tenants. A YouTuber with growing popularity takes flight as things go south. Elsewhere, a successful couple find their relationship unravel. The writing is sharp as is the voice acting, making it easier to invest in the cast and overlook the somewhat dated visuals.
Perhaps the most impressive aspect of Fire Escape, though, is how it keeps you engaged in its story across close to an hour of content. That makes it easily one of the longest VR experiences I’ve yet seen. Each of the 20-minute installments is punchy and generous in its delivery of twists and turns. The developer delivers gripping cliffhangers and the substance in between to keep you engaged. Perhaps it’s down to the freedom each viewer has to follow the stories that interest them, come to their own decisions about the suspects and spread their focus accordingly. You’ll occasionally be forced to watch certain sequences but the vast majority of the story is on you to discover.
It gives Fire Escape complex layers that the viewer can decide what to do with. A single viewing gave the piece a gripping structure. I anxiously worried about what other scenes and puzzle pieces I was missing. At the same time, you could just as easily go back and study each character individually to get the full picture. But it’s to Ink Stories’ credit that Fire Escape works either way.
The night’s events might end on something of a flat note (although multiple endings are available), but it’s of little consequence. Fire Escape’s solid pacing and grip on its engaging characters make it a respectable stab at the VR whodunnit. If you have any interest in the genre, don’t miss this.
Final Say: Worth Watching
Fire Escape is available now on Google Daydream. The first episode is free whereas the others are available as in-app purchases.
Over the past couple of years, film festivals have become more accepting of immersive and interactive storytelling mediums, such as virtual reality (VR) and 360-degree film. Further demonstrating just how far immersive cinema has come, the prestigious New York Film Festival will premiere its first VR Cinema experience by showing interactive VR thriller Fire Escape.
Fire Escape draws inspiration from the work of Hitchcock to create a VR experience where the audience is perched atop a fire escape, making choices about which neighbour to spy on, until unexpected revelations come to light.
The cinematic VR experience was created to add and interactive element to the usually passive act of watching a movie. Players watch over a Brooklyn apartment complex from a fire escape, idly texting a friend and watching or listening in on conversations until it transpires that a murder has taken place. From there, the player’s choices become increasingly vital as they become entangled in what could be a dangerous web of crime as suspicion.
Thirty New York Festival attendees will be able to don a Lenovo Mirage VR headset in order to engage with the experience using the Mirage controller. A Q&A session and group discussion with the creators of the experience will be available after the screening.
Fire Escape is the creation of iNK Stories, a creative studio that recently won the Tribeca Film Festival Storyscape Award for Best Immersive and is best known for its work on 1979 Revolution: Black Friday and HERO.
The New York Film Festival is set to run from 28th September to 14th October. A press preview of Fire Escape will be held on 5th October, followed by showings 11th-13th October. Further information and tickets can be found on the New York Film Festival website.
For future coverage of new and upcoming VR projects, keep checking back with VRFocus.
Fire Escape – iNK Stories
