Hidden Path Entertainment, the studio behind Brass Tactics (2018) and Defense Grid 2: Enhanced VR Edition (2016), has released a new game for Rift and Quest that takes you to an adorable island filled with story quests and plenty of tasks that fans of Stardew Valley and the Animal Crossing franchise should recognize.
Called Raccoon Island, the multiplayer simulator/adventure tasks you with building a new home for a group of marooned sailors while setting out to “repair the island’s broken heart,” the studio says on the game’s official website.
The game is said to include eight different biomes filled with quests, as well as tasks such as fishing, cooking, farming, mining, painting, and themed decorations.
“We definitely drew a lot of inspiration from games that take time to smell the roses like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing,” lead game designer Steve Kramer says in an Oculus blog post. “One of our big goals was to make sure the game could be passed around to friends to show off how cool Oculus Quest is without having to worry about throwing them into some kind of virtual crisis situation. As Raccoon Lagoon began to take shape, we realized there was a big opportunity for [the studio] to step away from its comfort zone of intense moment-to-moment decision making and explore personal interaction and even nurturing in a VR environment.”
Hidden Path says it’s possible to speedrun the game in about six hours, although completionists could double that time as they explore the whole island.
The game, which costs $15 on Quest and Rift, also includes both cross-buy and cross-play, so you can play with friends on either platform.
We’re back again with another livestream planned for 7/26/19 @1:00PM PT on the UploadVR YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Mixer.
Raccoon Lagoon just released this week as an exclusive on the Oculus platform for both Rift and Quest by Hidden Path Entertainment. It combines Animal Crossing and Stardew Valley type community building and life sim features to offer a cute and quaint experience complete with online multiplayer. It’s the kind of game you can easily come back to daily for a few minutes to check on things if you want.
The stream is planned to start around 1:00 PM PT and we’ll aim to last for about an hour or two. Our last few livestreams were on Twitch, but this time we’re going to use Restream like we used to use. and hit YouTube, Twitter, Mixer, and Facebook all at once. Either way, you can see the full stream embedded via YouTube right here down below once it’s up:
Embedded livestream coming soon
You can see lots of our past archived streams over in our YouTube playlist, which is where you can watch gameplay highlights. There’s lots of good stuff there so make sure and subscribe to us on YouTube to stay up-to-date on gameplay videos, video reviews, interviews, and more original content!
And please let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next! We have lots of VR games in the queue that we would love to show off more completely.
We finally have more details on the next Oculus Studios title, Raccoon Lagoon.
This curious VR farming game popped up for pre-order on the Oculus Rift and Quest stores months back. We knew it was developed by Brass Tactics studio, Hidden Path Entertainment. We knew it would have you building a home for yourself on an island. However, we now know it’s releasing July 25 (tomorrow!) and have our first look at the game in trailer form.
A New VR Farming Sim
Simply put, Raccoon Lagoon looks like Stardew Valley in VR. Critters that inhabit the island give you quests in which you’ll explore different environments, gather resources, craft and more. Animals can be petted and seeds can be sown. There’s also two-player co-op in which friends can hang out and discover adventures together.
It looks absolutely charming and a great place to unwind in VR. When done right, VR farming can offer a cathartic mix of progression and soothing atmosphere. This seems to strike that balance, but we’ll have to get our hands on the full thing to find out.
VR farming fans will also notice the similarities to another recently-launched game, Garden of the Sea. That’s made by Budget Cuts developer Neat Corporation and is currently in Early Access. Whereas Raccoon Lagoon is the full version, Neat plans to expand on its take on VR farming with the help of the community.
Impressively, this will be Hidden Path’s sixth VR game. Whilst its best known for Brass Tactics, it also worked on a port of its popular tower defense title, Defense Grid 2, for Oculus Rift launch.
Raccoon Lagoon will cost $14.99 at launch. Given its a Studios game we’d expect it to support cross-buy. That means if you buy one version on Rift or Quest, you should get the other for free. Based on comments from the developer on Reddit, it also sounds like cross-play will be included, so Rift and Quest players can play together.
Virtual reality (VR) real-time strategy title Brass Tactics was released today and to celebrate its release Oculus have announced a Creators Tournament for the title.
Hidden Path Entertainment have been working on the steampunk-inspired RTS title for quite some time, having previously released the free Brass Tactics Arena to allows users a taste of the experience prior to the release of the full version.
Eight creators from the VR community will be competing in a single elimination style consisting of one match per round with three rounds total. The two finalists will be able to award a Oculus Rift and Touch bundle to their followers and audience, who will be picked at random via social media. The Oculus Rift bundle will be supplied by Oculus.
Taking part in the tournament will be Chary (from Cas & Chary VR), Friskk, PCVR Frank, Reality Check VR, RowdyGuy, VR Dreamer Dude, Virtual Reality Oasis and Zimtok 5.
Brass Tactics received a mostly positive review from VRFocus, saying: “As for the experience itself, Brass Tactics is almost everything you could want out of a VR RTS. Controls have been well tuned to Oculus Touch, allowing precise movement of the table and forces, whether you wish to move a single squad or your entire force in one massive push. One cravat that does pop up up when planning strategic placement of troops comes in the form of selecting the same troop.”
The tournament will take place from 11am PST on 21st February, 2018. There will be a variety of way to tune in via the channels of the creators involved. The following links can be used to watch:
After a long tiring day it can be nice to chill out in virtual reality (VR). As good as roomscale is, there are those times when you don’t want to stand up for several hours playing an adventure experience like Fallout 4 VR, instead sitting back and relaxing in a virtual world. That’s where table top style VR titles come into play, and for those lovers of real-time strategy (RTS), one of the best to come to Oculus Rift is Brass Tactics by Hidden Path Entertainment.
As you may already be aware Hidden Path Entertainment released Brass Tactics Arena a short while back for free, giving you access to most of the online functionality of Brass Tactics plus a brief glimpse at the single-player campaign. With the full launch you’ll now have access to the full campaign as well as every map for online and local skirmishes.
As for the experience itself, Brass Tactics is almost everything you could want out of a VR RTS. Controls have been well tuned to Oculus Touch, allowing precise movement of the table and forces, whether you wish to move a single squad or your entire force in one massive push. One cravat that does pop up up when planning strategic placement of troops comes in the form of selecting the same troop. For example, after a small battle involving some warriors and archers you may want to split them up, warriors in front whilst the archers stay further back. There’s no actual way of selecting just the archers to move them as a group, you’ve got to select each squad individually, making it a time consuming a laborious process. It’s not gameplay breaking, just annoying.
Another usual standard of RTS’ is resource collecting. In Brass Tactics there is none. It’s all automatic depending on how many areas you’ve managed to capture. Again, it’s not something you may miss but it does reduce that extra element to think about, which used to make or break some strategies. What that does mean however is it makes Brass Tactics a far more action oriented title focused on building armies and wiping out opponents, which is no bad thing.
And there’s still plenty to think about in battle. The videogame features a decent number of troops, from your basic archers, to winged wasps, tanks and massive titans. All of which have their particular strengths and weaknesses, especially to each other. Warriors are good against cavalry whilst archers are deadly at taking out warriors at range. This makes for a nice dynamic setup, so that a decent pick of troops can destroy a more focused approach. Then there are all the upgrades for each troop as well as the castle. Unfortunately there aren’t enough slots for them all so you have to plan wisely.
With 20 maps in total, a single-player campaign, single-player skirmish, then online options against other players as well as AI, Brass Tactics should keep you busy for many hours. That and the option to either play it seated or standing makes the gameplay suitable for any play style. Plus it’s not a bad looker either. Most of the time you’ll be wanting to keep a lofty viewpoint to see everything going on but on those quiet moments zoom in and you’ll spot an excellent level of detail.
All in all Hidden Path Entertainment has achieved what it set out to deliver, a well-tuned VR RTS that fans of the genre should be easily impressed by. Sure it’s not perfect, but in comparison to others in the same class Brass Tactics is one of the best.
When the Oculus Rift first launched back in 2016 there was a little game named AirMech Command. It was quite good for the time, especially considering it was played with just a gamepad initially, and it let us experience a more immersive way to play a top-down view game as if we were a General in the sky. Eventually it got hand controller support and it’s still quite solid, but in hindsight it never truly takes full advantage of the medium.
Now we’ve got Brass Tactics from Hidden Path Entertainment. We first played the game at GDC last year, saw a follow-up demo a few months later, and just got our hands on the free-to-play Arena mode variant last week, but now with the full release right around the corner we can confidently say that Brass Tactics may very well be the best RTS we’ve seen in VR yet. What Landfall does for real-time tactics based action games, Brass Tactics does for the RTS market in VR.
For fans of the genre, it’s got just about everything you’d want. The unique steampunk setting serves as a backdrop for a surprisingly solid campaign that boasts approximately 4-6 hours of content. Across the whole game you’ll find over 20 different highly-detailed and varied maps, multiple armies to choose from with branching unit upgrade paths, and a mixture of both cooperative and competitive multiplayer.
Before Brass Tactics, it seemed like VR RTS games would try to boil down the experience as much as possible to ratchet up the “interaction” but scale down the “features” so it became more of a MOBA than a true-to-form RTS. Recent examples like League of War and Skyworld both fall into that category. But Brass Tactics manages to retain the depth and complexity the genre is known for.
Each match generally starts the same with opponents beginning at opposite ends of the map floating as Oculus avatars near their home base castle. Small gathering units scavenge for crystals and gold, the main resources in Brass Tactics, which can be used to build structures, spawn units, and upgrade your kingdom.
Throughout the map are circular nodes that can be captured by placing a unit nearby and once captured you can reach over to place a summoning tower. Once the tower is built, this is how you spawn new units. This is a clever mechanic because it means turtling up and clustering all of your structures together back at your home base isn’t an option — you’re forced to stretch out into the game world to create units and expand your forces. Stretching yourself too thin is a very real and likely scenario.
Each new region you unlock nets you more resource gatherers as well, so the more towers you have the more resources you’re gathering per minute, which means you can build more units more quickly. It’s a very satisfying gameplay loop and really incentivizes you to be flexible across the map.
The way you actually move around the map itself is really creative. By placing your hands on the table, which feels like a giant tabletop game board, you can drag yourself across it or raise and lower it for a better viewing angle. Once you get the hang of it you can slide across the map with a flick of the wrist to quickly access forgotten corners.
Since your avatar is floating over the map from the very start this means that there is no fog of war, which is usually a staple of RTS games. Instead, the developers at Hidden Path have informally coined a term we heard them use dubbed the “fog of attention” which is a uniquely VR thing. The map is always visible at all times, but because of how immersive and involved the game becomes, you end up forgetting about the areas not immediately in front of you — hence fogging up your “attention” span instead.
Each map has a very distinct personality in and of itself, requiring different strategies. Some are very straight-forward with open areas aching for battles to play out, while others are more segmented and varied. Matches usually take around 20 minutes or so, give or take, but the end-game can play out very slowly if two sides are evenly matched. When you’ve got siege tanks and dragons and forces of a half-dozen heavily armored rocketeeers duking it out in a climactic final battle things can get very, very epic very quickly.
The biggest missing piece of the experience as compared to other modern RTS games is that the units themselves lack a bit of the nuance you might be looking for. You can upgrade your units individually back at your main base, but when actually using them you won’t be able to use different weapons, take cover, set traps, or other things that more tactically-designed RTS games let you do. And the lack of “real” base building eliminates some of the personalization so each match ends up feeling vaguely the same for the most part.
The campaign is much more robust than I expected, but it’s not the reason why people should buy this game. It’s a great introductory experience, but the multiplayer is where this one really sings. Playing competitively is just excellent. Since you can visibly see your enemy’s avatar scanning around the map you can tell precisely where they’re attention is occupied which makes flanking much more exciting and head-to-head skirmishes become way more intense this way as well.
Cooperative multiplayer is great fun too if you’d rather work together, but I’ve got a feeling the competitive mode is what’s going to help this one really stand out from the pack.
Final Score –8.5/10 – Great
Brass Tactics is a big step forward for RTS games in VR. The tactile feeling of picking up, directing, and interacting with units using your own hands is excellent and the mixture of single player, as well as both cooperative and competitive multiplayer, all adds up to one of the most feature-rich strategy games we’ve seen yet. It lacks some of the depth and complexity of its modern non-VR counterparts, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a more competent and engaging RTS in VR right now.
Brass Tactics Arena is the free version of the upcoming real-time strategy game Brass Tactics from Hidden Path Entertainment, the studio behind the Defense Grid franchise and Age of Empires II HD (2013). Available today on Oculus Home for free,BT Arena is definitely looking to hook you into getting the full paid game with its unlimited online gameplay and bite-sized campaign.
While more of a demo than a game unto itself, casual and hardcore RTS players will likely appreciate the chunk of content available in the free Arena version, which includes competitive and co-op play, and player vs. AI on single map. For comparison, the full paid game boasts 20 maps and 3 AI personalities, each with four difficulty settings. One of those AI enemies is played by Aidan Gillen, aka Lord Petyr Baelish of Game of Thrones fame.
With dozens of units and upgrades to outfit your tiny army, it’s easy to see from BT Arena that the full game won’t be pulling any punches in the balance department; and it’s definitely a game of balance. You’ll be swooping around the map trying to see what the other player is doing while physically conducting troop movements, creating units, and upgrading buildings—all while trying to crush the enemy. Because you can’t hotkey to home, or parts of your sprawling node-based fortresses, multitasking is a significantly slower experience than traditional PC RTSs, but this actually gives you more time to choose the right units for the right job.
Check out our latest hands-on with Brass Tactics to learn more about the base game. We’ll of course have a review out next week in time for launch that will go into greater depth.
We’ll update this article once the download link for Brass Tactics Arena go live.
There maybe another week to wait until Hidden Path Entertainment launches its long awaited real-time strategy (RTS) title Brass Tactics for Oculus Rift, in the meantime however the studio has seen fit to release Brass Tactics Arena. The release is essentially a demo for the upcoming full version, giving players a decent look at the gameplay on offer.
In this cut down version, Brass Tactics Arena is focused on the multiplayer aspect of the videogame. The main story mode is locked apart from the first two sections which teach you the actual mechanics of the title. These are all fairly similar to other table top style virtual reality (VR) experiences, where you can move the table horizontally with one controller, or anyway you please with both.
Controls need to be sharp and snappy for the type of gameplay involved. Anyone used to playing RTS videogames know that they begin slow and steady, turning into pure chaos by the end – especially if you’re losing. Once areas are captured buildings can be placed from a flick of the wrist menu, troops can be commanded individually or in groups, with orders to defend an area or go on an attack run available. These are simple to execute via the trigger or A button, whether your strategy works as well is another matter.
This free demo only has one map available, it’s actually the first map VRFocus saw when Hidden Path Entertainment first announced Brass Tactics during the Game Developers Conference (GDC) 2017. The full title is set to feature more than 20 maps but as you’re getting this for free you just have the one to practice on.
As mentioned this is multiplayer focused, so you can have PvP, and co-op battles online as well as against AI if no one’s about. The studio has added a nice little touch for those waiting to battle online in the form of an arena. Similar in form to classic Roman gladiator arenas, while the timer is ticking away looking for an opponent you can practice commanding troops and learning which are more effective against one another. Archers are good against warriors for example, however depending on the upgrades warriors can become deadly killers of archers.
Castle upgrades look to be a feature that’s been fully left in. Here you can improve your troops, reinforce your castle and more. Care has to be taken however as the castle onlly has a limited amount of upgrade slots, so maxing out one type of troop could mean having others that are weaker. This gives Brass Tactics Arena a nice balancing act that good RTS videogames are known for. While strategy in battle is key, the build-up before is even more important.
Brass Tactics Arena is a great showcase for Brass Tactics later this month. It does exactly what it needs to to make you consider purchasing. With upgrades on offer, warriors and Titans to use on the battlefield and a range of multiplayer options available, it’s almost unbelievable that Hidden Path Entertainment is giving Brass Tactics Arena away for free.
Brass Tactics Arena, the free-to-play spin-off of Brass Tactics, is launching today on Oculus Home for the Oculus Rift with Touch and we got the chance to go hands-on with it prior to its release for some updated thoughts. We’ve tried Brass Tactics in the past a few times and got to learn how the team at Hidden Path Entertainment channeled their history with Age of Empires into this new made-for-VR RTS, but this was our first experience with the abbreviated Arena edition.
In the video below you can watch in wonder as I, UploadVR’s Games Editor, absolutely destroy Ian Hamilton, our Senior Editor. Things were close for a bit at the start as I settled on a strategy and fumbled with the Scout units, but I eventually overran him and he didn’t stand a chance.
For the match Ian was rolling with the standard “Balanced” loadout, but I picked the “Aggressive” loadout to try and catch him off-guard. My strategy seemed to work.
The flow of a match in Brass Tactics is generally split into two phases that repeat endlessly: preparation and conquest (I just made up both of those terms just now, let me know what you think).
The objective is simple: wipe out your enemy. So during the preparation phase each player is occupied back at their base building towers that can spawn units, summoning defense turrets, and planning out their approach. Then you set out on your course (the conquest phase) and start capturing other towers to summon more units and collect more resources.
Brass Tactics is unique in that to move around the map you simply grab it using the grip buttons and pull or push yourself along the surface. You can even raise or lower the war table to get a better view of the action.
You’ll start out with your standard three unit types, such as Archers, Warriors, and Scout units, before eventually unlocking Rocketeers, Tanks, Dragons, and more. The flow of a match then bounces back and forth between preparation and conquest as the maps evolve and you push down the different lanes of action.
In the video above you can see where I drastically over-calculated the effectiveness of Scouts and suffered a lot of early losses, but was able to bounce back by doubling down on my towers farther away from my main base.
Not having to have an HQ anchoring all of my unit spawns like a lot of more traditional RTS games make you do was refreshing and it expanded the theaters of war by a great deal. One of my other favorite features is that you can visibly see what each user is looking at and doing at any given time. If Ian slid his avatar to my side of the map I knew he was looking at my base, trying to decide his next move. You can’t hide behind a floating camera angle any longer.
One thing I learned from playing Brass Tactics Arena is that the game is deceptively complex, even in this semi-demo version. Arena packs an unlimited amount of competitive, co-op, and single player action on the one single map you see above. A free demo that includes multiplayer is certainly a boon for the VR market.
When the full game releases next week on February 22nd there will be a “six-hour” long campaign, dozens of units to upgrade and customize, over 20 maps, and more difficulty options. Naturally, it’s a greatly expanded game.
Until then, Brass Tactics Arena will just have to do. You can check it out for free over on Oculus Home and here’s the official website with more details.
Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
Virtual reality (VR) gamers that love a bit of real-time strategy (RTS) action will be happy to hear that Brass Tactics is finally getting some new confirmed details. We’ve got information on the price, length, gameplay modes and more – in addition to the announcement of a free introduction to the game, Brass Tactics Arena.
Hidden Path Entertainment’s Brass Tactics has 6+ hours of story campaign, more than 20 maps and three gameplay modes. You’ll hear your opponent’s taunts as you direct the flow of battle with your hands.
Pre-orders for the game are open now at $24.99, and the game will launch on February 22nd for $39.99. You’ll be able to customise your units and army to play the story campaign, with dozens on unit types and upgrades to use.
Other gameplay modes include a single player vs AI mode, an online competitive mode, and an online coop mode. The game will have more than 20 maps to play across its variety of modes, keeping the scenery fresh for a long time.
Brass Tactics Arena has also been announced, which will be completely free for players. It will allow players to play unlimited online competitive, cooperative or vs AI modes on a single map, and still offers dozens of units and upgrades to customise your army.
Brass Tactics Arena will act as an excellent introductory demo to get players interested in the videogame, but can also provide hours of entertainment, as long as you’re satisfied with a single map and no story mode.
Brass Tactics Arena will launch ahead of the main videogame on February 15th, but players can register for it on February 12th.
We’re glad to finally be getting some concrete details on the videogame after the delay. When VRFocus previewed the game, we said; “Brass Tactics is set to feature a single-player campaign and co-op, alongside the shown one-on-one multiplayer which should add enough scope for a good replay factor. As long as Hidden Path can added enough maps and in-depth upgrade options, the title should satisfy the demands of even the most die hard of RTS players when it arrives this year.”
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