HappyGiant dropped Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual! onto Meta Quest and PC VR headsets last summer, indicating at the time that a PlayStation VR edition would arrive in early 2022. And that’s exactly what the team has stuck to, revealing today that the comedy filled title is set to arrive in a week’s time.
If you’ve managed to completely miss Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual! up until this point, the crime-fighting duo were originally created by LucasArts back in the ’90s where you’d help them on their zany adventures. HappyGiant and Big Sugar Games then revived the franchise, bringing some of the original creators back to retain that feeling of authenticity.
Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual! drops you in the shoes of a cadet looking to join the illustrious ranks of the Freelance Police. To do so you’ll need to complete a series of challenges (mini-games), each one more fiendish than the last to test your physical and mental capabilities.
Between the series of mini-games, an overarching narrative will play out where you’ll have to help Sam & Max deal with several dangerous enemies; including monsters from outer space and more diminutive foes.
Reviewing the Meta Quest version of Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual!, gmw3 found the videogame to be: “one of those VR experiences you want to love because the characters are so well defined, amusing and likeable, even when Max is handing you a bundle of lit TNT. That’s not enough to carry the experience when a big chunk of the gameplay is either shallow or frustratingly twitchy.”
Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual! is currently scheduled to arrive for PlayStation VR on 23rd February, priced at $19.99 USD/€19.99 EUR, with a 10% discount for PS Plus Members for a limited time. For continued updates, keep reading gmw3.
A few weeks ago HappyGiant and Big Sugar Games released a demo for the SteamVR version of Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual!, giving PC players a taste of the capers to come. Today, the teams have announced that the crime-fighting duo and their new trainee – that means you – will make their way to PC VR headsets tomorrow.
Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual! originally hit Oculus Quest back in July, seeing the pair return after a 10-year hiatus. Making their VR debut, Sam and Max are once again embroiled in a zany adventure but this time their new cadet will be doing most of the grunt work. This is because you’ve got to prove your worth before officially joining the team.
While the start of the game sees you face off against a giant intergalactic monster, the core ofSam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual!revolves around a selection of mini-games to test those skills, from shooting galleries to escape rooms, the classic point-and-click adventure is taken up a notch thanks to immersive gameplay controls.
Of course, this being a Sam & Max videogame the title is full of their usual humour thanks to some of the original Lucas Arts team including Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell being part of the development team. But it’s not just a mini-game compilation because as you open up more of Cap’n Aquabear’s rotting theme park you’ll discover a greater threat.
“Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual! is one of those VR experiences you want to love because the characters are so well defined, amusing and likeable, even when Max is handing you a bundle of lit TNT. That’s not enough to carry the experience when a big chunk of the gameplay is either shallow or frustratingly twitchy,” said VRFocus in its Oculus Quest review.
Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual!will be available through Steam and Viveport on 10th September priced at $29.99 USD, supporting Oculus Rift, HTC Vive and Valve Index headsets. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual! launched just over a month ago for Oculus Quest, bringing back the duo’s own brand of comedic gameplay which hasn’t been seen for quite a few years. Further platforms are due support, with the first towards SteamVR implementation coming in the form of a free demo over the weekend.
The demo offers up the opening segment of Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual!, starting off with a big monster battle where you have to shoot rockets at its many heads. After that, you’ll be welcomed onto the team as a new cadet and tasked with completing the arduous Freelance Police’s aptitude test. Challenges include making Sam a coffee, punching a clown, and microwaving a corndog. Of course, you’ll also enjoy some of the wit and banter the team is known for.
If you remember the original videogames then you’ll be in familiar territory here as Happy Giant and Big Sugar Games bringing have utilised some of the original team’s talents. Helping bring the virtual reality (VR) to life are Sam & Max creator Steve Purcell, LucasArts alumni Peter Chan (concept art), and Mike Stemmle (writer/designer) among others.
In the full experience, you’ll join Sam & Max in Cap’n Aquabear’s rotting theme park where you’ll have to complete a series of mini-game challenges. In between each segment, a greater story will unfold where the Freelance Police will have to fight demonic entities, Tardigrades and more.
Reviewing Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual!on Oculus Quest VRFocus said the videogame: “is one of those VR experiences you want to love because the characters are so well defined, amusing and likeable, even when Max is handing you a bundle of lit TNT. That’s not enough to carry the experience when a big chunk of the gameplay is either shallow or frustratingly twitchy.”
Currently, Happy Giant and Big Sugar Games have said that Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual! will see an official Steam launch later this year, with a PlayStation VR version due to arrive in early 2022. It’ll also be part of this year’s “Out of the Competition – Best of VR” during Venice VR Expanded in September. For further updates, keep reading VRFocus.
Sam & Max is getting ready to make the big leap to VR this summer in its first original game in over a decade. Developer HappyGiant and publisher Big Sugar announced the action-adventure game is coming to Oculus Quest on July 8th.
Update (June 22nd, 2021): Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual was previous slated to release sometime in June, however now developer HappyGiant says its officially launching on the Quest platform on July 8th, price at $30. The store page is already up so you can wish list it.
If you’ve got more than a few minutes to kill, YouTuber ‘Nathie’ has a 20-minute gameplay video with the Quest version. You can watch that here.
Original Article (April 2nd, 2021): Launching first on Quest, Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual is also slated to arrive later this year on SteamVR headsets via Steam and Viveport Infinity. A version for PSVR is set to arrive in early 2022.
The studios also released a new gameplay trailer featuring some of the dynamic duo’s patented deadpan one-liners along with unique puzzles and a bit of the game’s character-driven story too.
Here’s how HappyGiant describes the upcoming Sam & Max VR adventure:
The dog with the hat is Sam. The naked bouncing rabbity thing is Max. They’re the Freelance Police, and they need your help in their 20th official video game: Sam & Max: This Time It’s Virtual! Thanks to the unholy science of virtual reality, players will finally experience the topsy-turvy world of Sam & Max, joining the enduring transmedia darlings as they prepare the next generation of Freelance Police to inoculate reality against the plague of evil that infests it. Also, there’ll be some giant monsters.
Sam & Max first burst onto the video game scene when LucasArts released the point-and-click adventure Sam & Max Hit the Road in 1993 for DOS.
The VR game’s development team includes several team members that worked on the original Sam & Max: Hit the Road by LucasArts, as well as the Telltale series. Steve Purcell, the creator of Sam & Max, is consulting on the game design, art, and story.
Greetings cards, eh? Who needs them? Once upon a time perhaps a sprinkling of glitter and a paper bow would impress on a special day, but now they just clutter up the place and you’re left wondering how long you’re obliged to leave them up for. Wouldn’t they be so much more interesting with a few augmented reality (AR) features? Damn right they would, and that’s why HappyGiant are introducing new REAL cARds.
REAL cARds are essentially the traditional greetings cards you tolerate, but contained within an AR app so they don’t clutter up your living space. There will even be seasonal updates to the cards, so you can rely on them for more than just Valentine’s Day.
We previously saw HappyGiant release HoloGrid: Monster Battle AR last year, an ARKit enhanced version of their strategy digital board game. Clearly the experience the videogame brought the team has given them the skills and tools they need to build their REAL cARds. HoloGrid: Monster Battle AR allowed players to place digital monsters into the world around them, making the experience more immersive and fascinating than possible with AR features.
You can download the app for free on compatible iOS devices. You can even send the cards to friends and family without the app, though they only receive a video version of the experience. Definitely less impressive and immersive, but better than nothing.
You’ll be able to choose from multiple different animated card sequences, customise decorations, send to your friends and family, and of course the cards feature 3D animation, music and custom messages, all of which can be viewed in AR.
It’s definitely an interesting concept, and makes us excited at the prospect of being able to customise creations using AR devices. But more than that, the AR technology makes it possible for people to customise messages and convey feelings more than what they may have been able to without the technology. For more news on AR messages and experiences, make sure to keep reading VRFocus.
HappyGiant has today has launched its critically-acclaimed HoloGrid: Monster Battle on Microsoft’s HoloLens. A tactical strategy videogame that combines elements of chess, board games, and collectible card games, HoloGrid: Monster Battle is now on five leading augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) platforms.
Tailored specifically to take advantage of the HoloLens platform’s core technologies – spatial mapping and spatial sound, gaze tracking, gesture input, and voice control – this new version of HoloGrid: Monster Battle ‘reads’ the player’s environment and then allows them to place and scale the board and characters into the real world accurately.
“HoloGrid: Monster Battle allows you to see table top games in an entirely new way, mixing digital holograms of chess battle with the real world,” said Brandon Bray, leader of Microsoft’s Windows Mixed Reality Developer Ecosystem. “It’s amazing! I’m excited to see HappyGiant pioneering the path to bring games to life in your own home.”
Inspired in part by the Star Wars HoloChess scene, and created in conjunction with two-time Academy Award winner Phil Tippett, HoloGrid: Monster Battle features gameplay is similar to that of videogames like HearthStone but set on a grid like Chess. Players can play against AI driven opponents.
“Playing HoloGrid on HoloLens is the ultimate experience. It fulfils the purest vision yet of the game we set out to make, and that I was inspired to play 40 years ago when I saw Star Wars as a young kid,” said Mike Levine, HappyGiant Founder and Creative Director. “Phil Tippett called it “magic” when I showed it to him, and I think that says it best.”
HappyGiant continue to support all versions of HoloGrid: Monster Battle with frequent updates. VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest details.
Let’s get it out of the way up front and early: HoloGrid: Monster Battle from HappyGiant and Tippett Studio looks similar to the hologram chess scene in Star Wars because the same guy that created that scene also created the monsters in this game. Phil Tippett (Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Dragonheart, Willow) is an Academy Award-winning visual effects designer with decades of experience creating monsters and visual designs for some of the most iconic film franchises of all-time.
When I visited his studio last year to see a pre-release preview build of HoloGrid in action, he also showed me the real-life models of the creatures from the game that he created first. After making those, they were then scanned with photogrammetry to construct the grotesque and articulated character models you see in the final game. It’s a unique way of building a game world and the results are extremely satisfying visually.
After getting funded on Kickstarter to the tune of over $100,000, the game is now finally released for both iOS and Android devices. The app is available for free, but in order to play you also need to purchase the card packs as well. The card packs are sold on Amazon for $30 and come with two stands for phones or tablet devices, along with a rule sheet, and two decks of cards. This way you can play with a friend locally even if you only purchase one box.
Each deck includes three champion creatures, nine minions, five spells, and a board card used to display the game. Since this is a hybrid card game and augmented reality (AR) holographic board game, you’ll use your device in conjunction with the cards to enjoy the experience. Although if you want, you an disable the AR features and just play it like a standard mobile game.
At the main menu you select to either play against the A.I. alone, with a friend locally or online, or play a random person online. From there you construct your deck by placing cards in front of your device’s camera. Each game deck consists of a single champion, three minions, and two spells. Since you’ve got more than the needed amount in each category, you’re afforded a bit of customization flexibility.
Unfortunately, that seems to be all there is for cards. In the realm of most card games like Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh!, or digital excursions such as Dragon Front or Hearthstone, decks consist of at least twice as many or more cards. When your entire deck is only 17 cards and there are only six different total options of those cards that can be used in any individual battle, it feels limiting.
Luckily the animations are wonderful and the attention to detail afforded each creature really shows through. As a technical marvel, it gets the job done. As a deep, immersive, and engaging card game with AR integration, it isn’t revolutionary.
The goal of each match is to destroy the opposing player’s champion. Every turn, you’ll receive five mana points, which are used to summon new creatures, move monsters, cast spells, and attack with your summoned monsters. In this way, everything you do is part of the meta-game of resource management.
Monsters take the form of one of five different class types, ranging from either Champion, Fighter, Shooter, Specialist, or Tank. Crafting a diverse army is recommended to address whatever your enemy throws at you. Each unit has a defined health pool, attack value, and movement points.
When playing your creature cards, you can only summon a monster in a square that is adjacent to another friendly monster you already own. All attacks provoke counter attacks, unless the attacked monster is killed by the initial attack. You can also swap a card from your hand to your deck.
Each card has some sort of special attribute as well that helps it stand out from the rest. In the case of the Carnifex champion, he buffs all adjacent monsters with extra attack power. The Strut is a ranged shooter minion that attacks any monster located in a straight line in front of it, regardless of distance. Then the Vanguard gets a bonus to its attack if it doesn’t move, making it a great tank minion.
One issue that I found is that you can only see a monster’s health, attack, and movement stats if you scan it into the game. The physical cards themselves don’t actually display any information other than their special ability, name, and class type. It doesn’t impact gameplay, but it seems like an odd stylistic omission. The image below shows the digital cards — the physical ones don’t have the information at the bottom. This could be due to the need for balancing patches and updates that may alter stats slightly.
Final Score:6/10 – Decent
Overall the gameplay gets the job done and the novel aspect of HoloGrid combining both the digital and physical world together is enough to make it a fun distraction for fans of the genre, but it lacks the depth and diversity to really keep you coming back for more. I’d have liked to have seen at least twice the number of cards to build a deck from, some expansion packs of some kind, or at least a bit more tactics in the strategies. If you’ve got someone to play with locally that loves card games, it’s worth checking out.
