PlayStation VR owners looking for good bundle deals on physical videogames will be treated to a double-bill in March from Charm Games. The studio has collaborated with Perp Games to bring its two surreal puzzle titles FORM and Twilight Path together in one package.
The first virtual reality (VR) title from the developer, FORM was one of the more inventive puzzle games released back in 2017 for PC VR headsets. The storyline saw players guide Dr. Devin Eli on a surreal journey to unlock the secrets behind a recently discovered ancient artifact, The Obelisk. VRFocus enjoyed every minute in its original review.
2018’s Twilight Path wasn’t quite as surreal, catering for a wider audience with a more character-led experience. Trapped in a mystical spirit world between the afterlife and the real world, you encounter Barque, a talking ship; Singe, a fire spirit who manages to keep Barque’s engines running, and magical faerie navigator Nix. Take a look at VRFocus’ review for more details on this puzzle adventure.
“Charm Games have an incredibly creative and unique take on VR game’s design,” said Rob Edwards, Managing Director at Perp Games in a statement. “It is an honour to bring these two beautiful games together into one VR bundle for people to enjoy. FORM and Twilight Path are a perfect collection for anyone’s PSVR Library”
“FORM and Twilight Path drop you in to a pair of our beautiful, enchanting worlds.” said Alan Jernigan, Studio Director at Charm Games. “We’re thrilled to work with Perp Games to bring this bundle to PlayStation VR users.”
Both FORM and Twilight Path were digitally released for PlayStation VR in 2020. The double pack will be available to European gamers from 5th March 2021. Perp Games hasn’t said if other territories will follow. For further updates on the latest physical releases for PlayStation VR, keep reading VRFocus.
We’ve seen new Beat Saber tracks, implications of inside-out tracking on PSVR 2 & the introduction of OpenXR for Quest – not to mention the many releases! It’s the VRecap.
The first story is Beat Games’ newest track addition: FitBeat! It’s free, it’s fitness-focused, and it fits in nicely with the other tracks in the game. It was developed by the studio’s CEO-turned-music producer, Jaroslav Beck, who has produced many of the iconic tracks for the rythm game.
There was plenty of hype this week surrounding Sony’s DualSense controllers for PlayStation 5, but for us it mainly raised questions for the future of PSVR. With the change in lightbar location, could it be that the PSVR 2 will have inside-out tracking? Our VR senses are tingling!
And lastly, a more robust story for developers and enthusiasts: Android game engine developers can now support Oculus Quest using OpenXR instead of Facebook’s Oculus Mobile API! Heaney gives a great explanation on it all, so make sure to read up for an in-depth report.
Every month we aim to round up each and every VR game release for you in one single place — this is April’s list for 2020. Check the bolded entries for ones we feel are particularly worth your time.
Well, it’s been a while since we did these lists! No real excuse other than I kept forgetting and other stuff got in the way. Aiming to stick with it more this time like before!
And don’t forget to watch VRecap every Friday to stay on top of the top news stories, top new releases, and our weekly VR game giveaway.
If you’re a VR game developer planning to release a game soon that isn’t on this month’s list or will be released soon in the future — let us know!You can get in touch with me directly by emailing david@uploadvr.com or hit all of the editorial team by emailing tips@uploadvr.com. Please contact us about your upcoming releases so that we can know what you’re working on and include you in release lists!
Unless otherwise stated, all PC VR releases are the Steam versions.
Rift, Vive, Index, and Windows VR Game Releases For April 2020
Charm Games’ transfixing VR puzzler is back, now on Sony’s headset. But does it hold up? Find out in our FORM PSVR review.
Making puzzles in VR ‘better’ is, in itself, a conundrum. While coming under enemy fire might be all the more intense and caring for characters is easier, solving a Rubik’s cube inside a headset isn’t exactly a more definitive gaming experience. Putting piece A into slot B isn’t quite the revelation in VR that you might hope; you need to make something that truly stands apart from the years of puzzlers that have lined the path to this new medium. The genre needs its own Portal.
FORM doesn’t just run with that idea; it bends it, remoulds it, makes it bigger, lighter, more dramatic.
Set in an Alaskan research facility, this excellent debut from Charm Games casts you as Dr. Devin Eli, a physicist studying a strange supernatural artifact named The Obelisk. Though the game starts out in a cold laboratory, your environment soon morphs into the impossibly surreal and ever-changing landscape of your own mind, a place where your thoughts appear as comic book-like bubbles that you grab and throw away and puzzles present themselves in the most majestic and curious of ways.
You’ll need to get used to the game’s sheer unpredictability. Form’s puzzles usually boil down to simple and relatively easy tasks, but they come at you in fascinating ways. Small shapes hover in front of you before bleeding out into hulking tapestries at the very touch of a finger, unexpectedly glorious sounds emit from the slightest movements, and dazzling light displays reward your successes. It is, quite literally, a transformative experience in which the smallest of actions has the most dramatic of effects upon your world.
There’s a real joy to just existing in Form’s universe in this way. Charm has done an excellent job realizing something that’s enriched by putting a headset on, concocting an uncanny atmosphere that really feels like you’re exploring a strange new alien world.
PSVR vs PC VR
The beauty of FORM reaching PSVR is that it’s a natural fit for the platform. While, yes, the visually richer experience is on PC, the console experience holds up incredibly well and the gameplay rarely fights with the tracking system. You’ll have great time with FORM now matter where you play it.
It has architecture that you simply won’t understand but nevertheless feels evolved and precious, as if you’re there to preserve it just as much as you are to use it. Its soundtrack is fuzzy and revelatory, pushing a sense of pioneering discovery right the way through. You feel like the starry-eyed movie characters that have just uncovered lost civilizations or made contact with beings from another planet.
That tone carries through to the puzzles. Pretty much every challenge in FORM starts with you picking up a strange alien artefact and wondering exactly what the heck it is. Indentations in panels reveal them to be tools with specific uses, and buttons and levers promise unexpected consequences with every interaction.
As I said, you’ll usually boil them down to simple challenges, many of which you’ve seen before. Memory-based sequences and object rearrangement isn’t exactly groundbreaking, but it’s the sense of picking something ancient and prestigious up and interacting with it that carries the experience. Better yet, they all fit neatly inside the limitations of VR; the game is a standing experience that avoids even the slightest chance of breaking your immersion. There’s no walking around or ducking down, keeping you rooted to the spot means you never risk that trance-breaking wire tug or have to fiddle with your headset as it shifts around your face.
That said there are some highlights. There’s a great puzzle in which a web of holographic shapes must be correctly aligned in front of you, and certain lights reveal hidden objects essential for progression. There’s nothing here that will leave you stumped, certainly not for more than a few minutes, but the delivery makes it all a joy to solve.
Comfort
Form is a stationary game with no movement to worry about. It’s perfectly comfortable
What a shame, then, that it’s over all too quickly. I beat FORM in less than an hour, and its credits rolled long before I’d seen them coming. The short and sweet experience means nothing outstays its welcome, but it also feels like there’s plenty more to explore here. Short VR experiences are quickly becoming the norm and that’s fine, but the game’s pacing never suggested to me that I was nearing the end of my journey.
FORM PSVR Review Final Impressions
FORM is a little too short and lacking in challenge for it to be considered a true classic, but it stands tall as a VR puzzler unlike any other. There’s an understanding of this new medium here that few developers have been able to demonstrate. Its atmosphere is dense and engaging and its puzzles capture a strong sense of discovery, resulting in a brilliant blend of gameplay and experience. The flood of VR puzzle games could learn a lot from the foundations that Charm Games has laid here.
VRFocus presents a brand-new list of five virtual reality (VR) titles being released over the next week. This week’s list features at least one videogame for the owners of all major headsets, including a host of long-awaited re-releases. To help give you a preview of each title you can check out the accompanying YouTube video at the bottom of this article. Make sure to keep following VRFocus to get further news on each one including possible updates, expansion packs or possibly re-releases for other headsets.
Form – Charm Games
Canadian game studio Charm Games first released puzzle experience FORM in mid-2017. Set in a secluded research facility in Alaska, you take on the role of physicist Dr. Devin Eli, who, as a result of childhood trauma, possesses the unique power of geometric visualisation. In an attempt to discover more about a mysterious artefact, The Obelisk, you must explore this doctor’s memories to unlock the secrets it contains. Unlock a series of puzzles within your own mind, which are built to be solved using tracked motion controllers. VRFocus previously awarded the original HTC Vive version a 4/5, describing it as a “mesmerising experience from start to finish.”
Supported platforms: PlayStation VR
Launch date: 7th April
Disaster Report 4: Summer Memories – Granzella
Previously only available in Japan, this action-adventure survival game will be available to PlayStation VR users next week. On a seemingly ordinary summer day, your trip to this city turns into a disaster as a gigantic earthquake terrorises you and your surroundings. You must team up with fellow survivors and fight your way out as collapsing buildings and unstable ground surround you. Your decision-making abilities could be the difference between life and death in a city on the brink of collapsing completely.
Supported platforms: PlayStation VR
Launch date: 7th April
Virtual Battlegrounds – CyberDream
Built from the ground up for virtual reality and set in this war-hungry dystopian island, in Virtual Battlegrounds you must fight to become the last one standing. Featuring an array of physics-based weapons, you can run, swim and jump your way to victory both on your own or with friends in solo and quad modes and also featuring AI bots. VR users can play while standing or seated, with a host of other comfortable playing options available.
In this VR duelling game, utilise a series of physics-based weapons to take on your opponents in both single and multiplayer modes. Choose from several fighting styles including Knight and Ninja. Users can even play a single-player game while waiting for a match! Replay features allow you to watch a playback of your fight, which you can export share to the world.
This educational title aims to help people learn about the importance of personal hygiene. Wash your hands and make use of powerful disinfectants and sprays to fend off viruses, while avoiding touching your face. Indie developer Starcade Arcade, states that they aim to “make a fun and friendly way to share important messages without adding to the fear and panic in the world right now.”
FORM, the VR puzzle game that made a splash on PC VR headsets back in 2017, is now available on PSVR starting today.
Update (April 7th, 2020): FORM is now live on PSN, priced at $19. Since it’s an object-heavy puzzle game, PS Move (and of course PS Camera) is required to play.
Original Article (March 28th, 2020): Originally slated to arrive on the platform back in 2018, FORM is now officially coming to PSVR on April 7th, 2020.
We really enjoyed FORM when we played it for our review of the game, giving it a solid [8.5/10] for its interesting, alien-like 3D puzzles that do an awesome job of demanding curiosity and experimentation.
We called it “like stepping into a machine of pure novelty, and it manages to deliver its intuitive puzzles without the need of a tutorial, i.e. no condescending robot voice guiding you through the world.”
Granted, it’s a particularly short game at a little over an hour of gameplay, and while we wish it were longer, it still makes for a must-play if you can nab it at the right price.
Back in 2017 Charm Games launched its first virtual reality (VR) title, a puzzle experience called FORM. Since then the studio has released Twilight Pathand is currently working on a third videogame. This week it’s been confirmed that FORM will soon be coming to PlayStation VR.
Back when developers were still getting to grips with motion controls and what made an immersive VR experience FORM offered inventive gameplay wrapped around a fantastical storyline.
The title is set in a remote Alaskan research facility, where you play as Dr. Devin Eli, a brilliant physicist who has superhuman powers of geometric visualization – the unintended consequence of childhood trauma. He is trying to uncover the secrets behind a recently discovered ancient artefact called The Obelisk. Delving into the doctors’ memories, you have to assemble puzzle pieces, unlock doors and open rifts to alternative realities as you try to unlock the secrets of the artefact.
FORM was one of VRFocus’ favourite VR puzzle videogames of 2017 when it originally arrived on HTC Vive. Giving it a four-star review we said: “While FORM isn’t perfect, it sure comes close. Yes it’s a bit too easy, and could do with an extra hour or two of gameplay (the latter is really just a moan because you’ll just want more to play), but Charm Games has created a mesmerising experience from start to finish.”
The studio is also working on a third VR puzzler called Trial by Teng. A fantasy adventure set within the Twilight Path universe, here you are “Trapped in the Realm of the Dead and separated from your travelling companions, earn your way back to the land of Twilight by restoring your karma.” Charm Games has yet to confirm which platforms the videogame will support or a release window.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Charm Games and its latest puzzle titles, reporting back with the latest updates.
Long after its initial PC VR release, transcendent VR puzzle game, Form, is on its way to PSVR.
A tweet from developer Charm Games confirmed that Form arrives on Sony’s headset on April 7. Form first released on PC VR headsets in June 2017, nearly three years ago (!). We always knew Charm Games intended to port the game to PSVR but, frankly, we’d long given up hope it would really happen.
Form is a psychedelic puzzle game in which players embark on a surreal adventure. While the game packs plenty of fantastical sights and sounds, what really makes it tick is the interaction and invention of its puzzles, that make full use of the medium.
We’re incredibly glad to find that Form is back on track for PSVR. When we first reviewed the game we said it offered VR puzzling “at its transformative best”, even if it was a little on the short side (less than an hour).
“There’s an understanding of this new medium here that few developers have been able to demonstrate over the past year,” we said in our 8/10 review. “Its atmosphere is dense and engaging and its puzzles capture a strong sense of discovery, resulting in a brilliant blend of gameplay and experience.”
No word on its Charm’s follow-up, Twilight Path, will also be coming to the console. But the developer is teasing a brand new title, Trial by Teng, which is seemingly set in the same world at Twilight Path.
Will you be picking up Form on PSVR next month? Let us know in the comments below!
Twilight Path had a lot of potential. When I first covered the game in a hands-on preview last month, I noted Charm Games’ past success with Form and how it seemed that the core principles that made that VR puzzle adventure so memorable would be carried over into this spiritual follow-up, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. Twilight Path feels like a more ambitious project, but in the end it’s shallow and uninspired.
In Twilight Path you journey across a spirit realm solving puzzles and interacting with the magical world in an attempt to rescue and help spirits travel across the aptly named Twilight Path. Maybe this tells you a bit about my childhood growing up, but it reminded me a lot of Snake Way from Dragon Ball Z. The Path is falling apart here and it’s up to you to restore it and save the Spirit Realm.
While the narrative attempts to be more pointed and clear than it was in Form, it ends up falling a bit flat. The suggestive and otherworldly feeling that Form exuded was one of its defining characteristics, but Twilight Path seems too concerned with explaining things, only it never fully coalesces into a strong story.
All that aside though, make no mistake about it: Twilight Path is a gorgeous game. If the sheer visual spectacle of VR is all that you really look for in a game, then you won’t be disappointed here. The sense of scale is really excellent and I often found myself just standing still in place craning my neck to look around. But that window dressing doesn’t hide an otherwise uneventful journey through an esoteric world.
There are no locomotion mechanics in Twilight Path at all. You’ll stand in your actual play space, move around to reach out and grab things, and then automatically be transported to other areas and puzzles. There is but one section where you ride a device across a bridge. Normally this isn’t a big deal, but sometimes I ran into an issue where my play area wasn’t established in the correct spot physically, causing it to spawn inside of my real life desk without a way to move it.
Puzzles are similar to Form, but as stated, they feel less awe-inspiring. You’ll reach out and tweak objects or even use your spiritual powers to influence far-off creatures and leverage a nifty portal power that lets you peer through into another dimension. It works a bit like the Lens of Truth from The Legend of Zelda games (shown above.)
Form was so excellent because its puzzles were interesting and satisfying enough to stand on their own. In Twilight Path on the other hand, it feels more like they added spirit-babble story to try and pad the game with exposition since the actual gameplay wasn’t interesting enough on its own. I frankly just didn’t care about any of the characters. I can’t know for sure, but it feels overall rushed.
One of the hallmarks of a good puzzle game is when it slowly introduces mechanics that build on themselves and test you more and more as the game goes on. Even though it was a bit on the easy side, Torn does a decent job of this and The Gallery (both Episode 1 and Episode 2) is particularly excellent. Twilight Path was more like a hodge podge of unrelated tasks that didn’t seem to build towards a singular idea. Clocking in at just a little over an hour total, it fizzles out before it ever gets very interesting.
Final Score:4/10 – Disappointing
Twilight Path’s gorgeous visuals and massive world aren’t enough to hide the lackluster puzzle solving and brief journey through the spirit world. Since the adventure is over far too soon at barely more than an hour of gameplay, there really isn’t enough here to entice even the most hardcore puzzle gaming fans. Form was an excellent debut VR puzzle adventure for Charm Games, but Twilight Path feels like a step back. Unfortunately, the inhabitants of Twilight Path’s spirit world aren’t the only things about this game that are lifeless.
Charm Games, the studio known for the critically-acclaimed VR puzzle game FORM (2017), today announced their upcoming puzzle-adventure Twilight Path is slated to release arrive soon on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
Arriving October 2nd on Steam (Vive, Rift) and the Oculus Store (Rift), Twilight Path is a single-player adventure that throws you into a mystical purgatory where you have to escape by solving a variety of VR puzzles while restoring massive stone structures, opening sealed passageways, and rescuing magical creatures from danger along the way.
Twilight Path, at least from our hands-on with an early alpha, appears to have departed entirely from FORM’s inherently dark sci-fi aesthetic, although it has plenty puzzle-oriented gameplay and attention to detail that fans of FORM should recognize despite the new, Studio Ghibli-inspired environment, including anthropomorphic buddies to keep you company along the way.
Here’s a quick blurb of what Road to VR’s Ben Lang experienced while playing the first two chapters of the early alpha:
“My preview lasted about 25 minutes and the interactions throughout were clearly indicated and satisfying to execute. Several moments showed the studio’s FX skill, like when holding the gem from the bracelet and seeing glowing runes floating in the air around it, or when activating the fortune teller machine and seeing a pane of cracked glass appear creating convincing distortions of the image behind it.”
There’s still no word on what sort of gameplay length to expect from Twilight Path, although it’s being priced at $15—the same as FORM, an hour-long experience. The studio’s upcoming game however promises more narrative elements which hopefully will have us puzzling and exploring for a bit longer in what promises to be a richly-detailed world.
However you slice it, if Twilight Path can offer up the same quality of experience seen in FORM, it appears we’re in for a highly-polished game that’ll easily appeal to newcomers and experienced VR users alike.
Form – Charm Games
Virtual Battlegrounds – CyberDream
Virus Popper – Starcade Arcade
