Solirax’s latest alpha release of its collaborative “metaverse engine” NeosVR has reached an important milestone, adding the ability to save your VR worlds and experiences to the cloud and enjoy other creator’s virtual projects at the wave of a SteamVR controllers.
Described simply as a “metaverse engine”, Neos is a virtual reality collaboration platform that lets you build worlds and experiences in VR itself, right alongside colleagues or friends who can join you remotely.
The team have been busy assembling the core building blocks for NeosVR‘s innovative approach to collaborative workflows, using a highly scaleable object synchronisation methods to let multiple creators come together and enjoy building worlds in the virtual space, even if they live in physically different locations.
Users can create an online account from within NeosVR, giving them access to a generated home area and save their own content to that private area. Additionally, the NeosVR team have uploaded some example experiences of their own, so you’ve something to play with once you’re logged in.
NeosVR creator Tomáš ‘Frooxius’ Mariančík says that this latest feature addition represents a turning point in the development of NeosVR. “It is the last, bug, non-visual part of the complex system”, he says, “That means that from now on the updates are going to get a lot more visual as we start focusing on proper UI systems and tool sets.”
If you’re interested in signing up for access to the NeosVR alpha, head over to the project’s registration form right here. And if you’re interested in a demonstration of what’s capable in NeosVR right now, here’s a new time-lapse video doing just that.
As one of the first game genres to embrace VR, sim racing has successfully transitioned from the ‘very early adopter’ stage (using Oculus development kits) to the ‘early adopter’ stage (the first-generation consumer headsets). Now that the majority of PC racing sims support VR, there are several compelling options to try.
Update (10/6/17):Following the recent launch of Project CARS 2, this top 5 list has been overhauled. Every title has been re-evaluated based on its current VR features and performance.
From mid-2014 until early 2016, when the Rift DK2 was essentially the only hardware option, software support in racing simulators was a nightmare. Since then, the situation has improved, but each software solution featured here can still be considered a work-in-progress.
The HTC Vive launched on April 5th 2016, a week after the consumer Oculus Rift. The headsets shared similar specifications and, for seated games like racing sims, should have delivered a very similar experience. However, that was definitely not the case. In terms of getting development kits into the wild, Oculus had more than a two-year head start, the effects of which are still apparent today; at launch, the Vive was poorly supported by racing sims, and in some cases remained totally unsupported for months. Assetto Corsa (2014), for example, was functional on the Rift DK1 in Early Access in 2013 and had solid consumer Rift support by May 2016, but only received Vive support in March 2017.
The situation continues to improve; with the exception of Automobilista (2016), every PC racing sim (in active development) now has some form of VR support for the Vive and Rift. Below are our top five recommendations – please note, the list is weighted towards the VR implementation, not the ‘simulation value’. The truth is, depending on your sensitivity to particular contributing factors, one could justify listing these titles in almost any order, as they all feature a functional, competent VR mode – many of their differences are nuanced.
RaceRoom Racing Experience (2013) is the only ‘free-to-play’ sim on the list (most content requires purchasing). After the studio endured a challenging transition from SimBin to Sector3 in 2014, the game began to improve significantly, with a clearer direction towards realism. Today, the presentation is becoming more consistent, with many impressive track environments and detailed cars, representing the DTM series particularly well. Unlike the others on this list, the game offers three different physics models – ‘Novice’, ‘Amateur’, and ‘Get Real’, which are effectively driving assist presets. Even on the most ‘hardcore’ setting, handling is on the forgiving side, but it is a very enjoyable drive, thanks to its powerful audio design and impressive AI.
VR support in RaceRoom landed for Rift and Vive in January, and despite using a relatively old graphics engine, Sector3 delivered a solid implementation. Performance is strong on both headsets, the menus and HUD work well, and it supports supersampling and world scale adjustment.
Photo courtesy Sector3 Studios
However, due to an outdated, 180-degree steering animation, along with an incomplete, poorly-proportioned driver model (with no torso), RaceRoom’s VR experience has suffered. iRacing (2008) also used 180-degree rotation for years, but has since reworked the animations across most of its cars. Sector3 has been improving in this area – every new car they release has an animation that does well beyond 180, and features a complete, more-realistic driver model. But the old steering and driver model still feature in many of the cars, including the popular DTM and GT3 series. The cars with the old animations also seem to be the most inconsistent in their default head position, but the game does allow for cockpit camera/seat adjustment.
There are other signs that this title wasn’t originally built with VR in mind – the cockpit mirrors appear distorted and aren’t very usable (but there is a ‘virtual mirror’ option for the HUD), and there are jarring transitions during loading, and the opening panning camera shots before each race can feel uncomfortable in VR. RaceRoom’s widely praised audio doesn’t come across as well as it could in VR either, as it doesn’t support surround or spatial audio.
Assetto Corsa is a very popular sim, recognised for its intuitive physics and attractive visuals. Unlike most PC racing sims, it gives a significant amount of attention to road cars, giving the title a more mainstream appeal. Many prestigious brands are represented, including a vast collection of Ferrari and Porsche race and road cars. It also supports ‘mods’, and is now the go-to sim for user-created cars and tracks. Sometimes criticised for being a ‘hot-lap sim’ due to its basic career mode features, Assetto Corsa doesn’t offer the best single player experience – although its AI has improved. However, the game’s public multiplayer lobbies are very popular, making this the best choice for those looking for a quick race against human opponents.
The combination of slick visuals and sublime handling meant that even in the Oculus DK2 era—where no in-game menu system meant a limiting and painful setup process—Assetto Corsa was still worth trying. Since May 2016 however, the Rift has enjoyed much-improved support, and now Vive owners don’t have to mess with unofficial hacks for support as the game now natively supports OpenVR. An ‘IPD slider’ in the sim’s OpenVR app offers a solution to world scaling on Vive, and there is quick access to a cockpit camera adjustment.
Today’s VR experience on Assetto Corsa is fairly painless. Unfortunately Kunos aren’t planning to implement a proper VR menu system, so you still need to launch the sim from a desktop view (although it is possible to operate this from a virtual desktop app). Once you’ve loaded a track, Assetto Corsa is stunning in VR, with smooth performance even on large grids, and excellent steering animations across all cars. The motion-to-photon latency is typically very low, improving your connection to the car and delivering a highly immersive experience. If your priority for VR immersion is low latency combined with high-quality visuals, Assetto Corsa strikes the best balance on this list.
Unfortunately, it’s not perfect. The curved HUD and in-sim menu system isn’t the most elegant or intuitive, and the mirrors are inaccurate, rendering a single FOV across all cockpit mirrors. The basic ‘surround’ audio implemented on the Rift is welcome, but it still doesn’t work when using the Vive, and it can’t match the spatial audio system of Project CARS 2.
By far the oldest product on the list (first seen in 2002), Live for Speed’s evolution has been painfully slow at times. In stark contrast, its VR updates across the last couple of years have been remarkably rapid—often industry-leading—implementing Rift and Vive support before either consumer hardware had even launched. The sim remains an impressive example of uncompromising driving physics, but visually it struggles to compete against the more recent titles, particularly with its ageing selection of (mostly) fantasy car models. Live for Speed is an ongoing project; 15 years of development updates have resulted in a unique, feature-laden simulation. The core driving experience is excellent, combining intuitive handling with strong force feedback.
Despite its dated visuals and fictional vehicles, Live for Speed remains a very interesting sim as a VR showcase. Its system requirements are very low, delivering 90Hz performance on sub-minimum spec machines, with a streamlined setup and comprehensive options to fiddle with. There are considerations for VR users not found in other sims, like a HUD-based keyboard (combined with a gaze-based pointer) for entering text, and a dedicated ‘walk’ mode intended to improve the experience of exploring the track environments in VR ‘on foot’.
Since version 0.6Q in September 2016, Live for Speed has featured stereoscopic mirrors, an effect first seen in Codemasters’ experimental VR support for GRID Autosport (2014). Live for Speed remains ahead of the competition here – it is the only racing sim on the list with the feature.
Interior and side mirrors in all other sims essentially appear like digital screens rather than reflections. iRacing and Project CARS 2 manage to move the mirror view relative to head position, but they’re still not stereoscopic. It might seem like an insignificant feature, but the effect of depth in mirrors has a remarkable impact for a number of reasons.
Firstly, it helps to mitigate the low resolution of current VR hardware; it’s hard enough to see distant objects in the main environment, and certainly troublesome to see detail in mirrors (many VR users opt to use a larger ‘virtual mirror’ as part of the HUD). Stereoscopic depth allows the eyes to resolve detail more easily. Secondly, there is the natural sensation of looking in a mirror—we expect them to work in a certain way, and it’s jarring when they don’t.
Due to the close proximity of the mirror itself, your eye’s convergence reflex is in full effect; when the virtual reflection is faked and appears as a ‘screen’, you’re having to look at the details as a close object, messing with your focal distance in an unnatural way. In Live for Speed, you look ‘through’ the mirrors as in reality, and focus on distant objects in the reflection in the same way as looking straight ahead.
The effect is so convincing that I genuinely feel a heightened sense of presence, particularly when leaning up to the rear view mirror and seeing my own reflection (wearing a helmet) making exactly the same movement. All VR racing simulators should have this feature; unfortunately a mirror is one of the most performance-sapping elements to render. But once they do, ‘virtual mirrors’ on the HUD will likely be a thing of the past as they become completely unnecessary when the ‘real’ mirrors are so good.
With huge performance headroom, Live for Speed always feels responsive in VR. Thanks to minimal latency on inputs and the 1:1 head movement in the stereoscopic reflections, LFS achieves a level of body presence that is a step above all other driving sims, despite the fact that the driver model is presented in very low detail by modern standards. It ticks almost every box for VR sim racing nirvana – perfect tracking, low latency, surround audio, 1:1 steering animation, and stereoscopic mirrors all contribute to powerful immersion, but it is let down by its dated visuals and a choppy world movement relative to head position – apparently due to the sim’s 100Hz physics update rate not matching the 90Hz rendering.
SUPERHOT VR is surely one of the best pieces of VR content available today, but has remained exclusive to Oculus since launch. The developers have teased that the game is coming to the HTC Vive this Thursday, May 25th, but you can already play it today thanks to a free and easy to install hack.
Update (5/23/17): After initially teasing that the game would be coming to Vive “soon,” the developers of Superhot VR now have confirmed the game will launch this Thursday, May 25th, on SteamVR. The launch of the game on SteamVR will include the ‘FOREVER’ update, which was released following the launch on the Oculus platform, that adds new challenges and achievements aimed at adding more replayability to the game.
In the original article below (and still applicable today), we described how you can play Superhot VR on your Vive today using the free ‘Revive’ hack.
Original Article (5/1/17): Superhot VR devs today teased Vive support on Twitter showing the Vive logo with the word “soon.” That’s great news because it likely means the game will be launching on Steam, making it dead simple for Vive users to buy and download.
Although Superhot VR is exclusive to the Oculus platform, a freely available hack called Revive will let you buy and play the game in full today on your Vive, which counts the game as fully function on its compatibility list.
Playing the game on your Vive is as simple as following the instructions in the Revive README file, which involves downloading Oculus Home to buy the game and installing Revive which will show your Oculus games inside the SteamVR dashboard.
Reports from players who have played Superhot VR on the Vive with Revive indicate that the game is playable start to finish on the Vive, and quite a blast at that.
In development by indie studio KUKURU3, Panzerwehr: 1949is a mech combat simulator made for VR which imagines an alternate WWII timeline where mechs rule the battlefield as anti-tank hunters in a war that’s dragged on to 1949.
Panzerwehr: 1949 began as a tech demo in June 2016 and began development as a full VR title shortly thereafter, with support planned for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.
Photo courtesy Kukuru3
Developer Kukuru3 has shared a new gameplay video (heading this article) showing the current state of development. The studio offers the following synopsis for the vision of the game, including an inciting three-player co-op mode where players collectively control aspects of a single mech:
It is April 1949, and the Third Battle of Stalingrad is about to begin. Infantry has long been made obsolete in the irradiated battlefield pockmarked with atomic bomb craters. In their place, a new breed of quadrupedal war machine roams the ruined streets of Stalingrad: German Jaegers and Soviet Samokhods. Under the aurora of a nuclear winter, elite pilots of both empires try to score a decisive blow. Panzerwehr 1949 is a hardcore World War 2 era mech simulator exclusively for VR headsets, inspired by classics such as Steel Battalion and Mech Warrior. Walkers in this game handle more like tanks than agile robots, and the equipment available matches the era and the weight of the beasts involved. Leaning more towards the simulation than the arcade, the game features a highly accurate ballistic model. The game requires the player to first master the highly detailed controls of their cockpit before they can bring the full potential of their walkers to bear. Planned features for full release are a procedural single-player campaign, a 1v1 multiplayer mode and a 3-player coop mode where three players in VR control separate crew stations of a single walker tank.
The studio says that “development continues at full pace,” and expects to launch into Early Access in Q4 2017.
Despite a couple of exciting in-development VR mech projects seen over the years like—Vox Machinae and Hawken—VR’s first great mech game has yet to surface. Could Panzerwehr: 1949 be that game? Fingers crossed!
Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality (2017) is finally here, launching today on HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. And yes, it’s all the wonderful weirdness of the show mixed in with some seriously fun object interaction courtesy of the game’s spiritual predecessor, Job Simulator (2016).
Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality was created by Owlchemy Labs and Adult Swim Games. Voiced by show creator Justin Roiland, the VR game is everything Rick and Morty fans need to calm their nerves before the rest of season 3 comes out later this summer.
*insert ‘blaze 4/20’ joke here*
If you’re looking for an extended look at the game or more information, check out our full review here to find out why we gave it a 9/10.
You’re dying for season 3 of Rick and Morty (2013) to come out, and the release of episode 1 on April Fool’s Day isn’t helping. You’ve got a fever that only the drunken ramblings of the genius Rick Sanchez and his level-headed, albeit hopelessly outmatched grandson Morty Smith can cure. The good news: Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality (2017) is here to fill the void in your meaningless existence. The less good news: it’s basically Job Simulator (2016)expertly grafted to an episode of Rick and Morty. And you know what? Th-th-th*ugghhb*at’s just fine by me, Jack. Don’t know why I’m calling you Jack all of a sudden. Let’s just get on with the review.
Developer: Owlchemy Labs Publisher:Adult Swim Games Available On: Steam (HTC Vive, Oculus Touch), Home (Oculus Touch) Reviewed On: HTC Vive, Oculus Touch Release Date: April 20, 2017
Gameplay
In Owlchemy Lab’s new Rick and Morty VR game, you’re lower than the low. Not only are you a Morty, but you’re a Morty-clone who has less purpose (and respect) in life than a butter-fetching robot. The only thing that might be construed as a lower being on the totem pole of galactic intelligence in the game is a Mr. Meeseeks, cleverly renamed Mr. You-seeks for the purpose of the game, of which you have in infinite supply. But all he does is mirror your movements, letting you pick up objects that go out of your teleportation range, making you basically the lowest life form in the entire multiverse.
image courtesy Adult Swim Games
It all starts one day when Rick, in his infinite wisdom, conjures you up to do the simple task of cleaning his clothes. Open the washer, pop in the suds and dirty clothes, hit a button, and you’re done. Game over. But not quite. From there you take on grander tasks, like retrieving “important parts” (for his spaceship), fixing the toilet, drinking gasoline—you know, menial Morty-tasks that need doing while the real Morty goes with Rick on actual adventures.
I genuinely started to feel jealous of my namesake as he flies away on Rick’s space ship, or hops through portals while I’m stuck in the Smith’s garage charging micro-verse batteries, ordering parts online to fix more “important things”, or feeding an alien laxatives. If you can get over the fact that you’ll never truly have that free-wheeling Rick and Morty adventure so tantalizingly close to your grasp, and that you will invariably be the butt of every joke, you’ll begin to see the game for what it is: a true glimpse into the Rick and Morty universe, one that’s masterfully stitched into Job Simulator’s object interaction.
image courtesy Adult Swim Games
Even though your tasks are essentially meaningless—and believe me, there’s plenty of plumbus-bopping and bottle-smashing—the patently absurd story arch playing out before you really makes you feel like you’re in an episode of the show, albeit a subplot to a grander adventure waiting behind Rick’s portal. In unmistakable Rick-like fashion though, eventually the old man’s machinations are revealed, giving the inane object bashing that much more importance and authenticity.
Easter eggs are also everywhere, with 13 collectible mix tapes featuring silly songs and ramblings from the show’s characters. The fictional VR game Roy: A Life Well Lived, made famous in the episode Mortynight Run (2015) in Season 2, also makes an appearance in the guise of a knockoff called TROY complete with cardboard cut-outs to give it that cheap-o feel.
image courtesy Adult Swim Games
Rick’s sci-fi ‘combining machine’ alone will keep you mixing and matching in efforts to create the weirdest object combination (think growth hormone + plumbus). I played through with minimal faffing and completed the main story in a little over 2 hours, but if you’re hunting for every last one of the game’s Easter eggs, it could take you much longer.
Immersion
The brilliance of the Rick and Morty TV show is how it reaches through your television and grabs you by the ears, sometimes directly by breaking the 4th wall, but often times by disarming you with absurdity while delivering powerful messages on mortality, loss—you know, the human condition. The VR game is all of this and more. You only need a few minutes in Purgatory after your first death, listening to the devil’s secretary tell you about why you shouldn’t reanimate back into the game to see what I mean.
From Rick’s lovingly recreated garage-lab, to all of the interactive items ripped straight from the show (including low poly 3D versions of Rick, Morty and Summer), there’s a feeling of familiarity that fans will definitely click with. But there’s something more insidious lurking in Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality though.
image courtesy Adult Swim Games
The show’s characters get in your head in VR in a way the TV show just can’t. Because you’re physically in front of the almighty Rick (voiced by show creator Justin Roiland) you can’t help but seek his approval, if only so he doesn’t dismiss you as just another stupid Morty-clone. You begin to wear Morty’s persona, the sycophant grandchild who just wants to please his ultimately powerful grandfather. If you do a job right the first time, you might get a backhanded compliment like “Hey, it looks like this Morty-clone isn’t a complete pile of flaming garbage afterall.”
And that’s when I started understanding something about the game: you just aren’t good enough to go on a real adventure with Rick. Hell, the real Morty barely is. Sure, there are action sequences with the promise of multiple deaths around the corner, but these are remarkably few in number, and stink of Rick’s characteristic manipulation. It isn’t a real adventure at all. And yet somehow, all of this is okay given the absurdity of both Job Simulator and the show itself.
getting instructions from Rick via wristwatch, image captured by Road to VR
All of this is done in a beautifully rendered environment that easily mashes up with the show’s hand-drawn feel. It’s like living in your favorite cartoon (if Rick and Morty is your favorite cartoon, that is).
Comfort
Getting to the nitty-gritty, Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality offers many of the same features of Job Simulator, including its ‘smaller person’ mode that lets you scale down the size of your environment to let you access things easier. Despite this, the game is very much a standing experience that requires at least 2m x 1.5m (about 6.5 feet x 5 feet). Object interaction is the exactly the same as Job Simulator; bottles have poppable corks, and jars have screwable tops, i.e. almost everything is interactive and articulated enough to seem plausibly real.
There are three nodes you can teleport to, all of them inside the garage. This makes it an ultimately very comfortable experience, one that requires little explaining to master (even a 6-year old can do it).
Strangely enough, the Oculus Rift version doesn’t offer any form of ‘comfort-mode’ snap-turn for people with only a two-sensor set-up, which considering the 360 nature of the game may initially sound like a no-go for anyone without at least 3 sensors. Despite this, I found most interactions to be forward-facing, so I didn’t have to deal with Touch tracking issues all that often. The HTC Vive’s standard Lighthouse tracking predictably handles all room-scale interactions with ease.
Check out the first 10 minutes of gameplay to get a better idea of just what Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality has to offer.
We partnered with AVA Direct to create the Exemplar 2 Ultimate, our high-end VR hardware reference point against which we perform our tests and reviews. Exemplar 2 is designed to push virtual reality experiences above and beyond what’s possible with systems built to lesser recommended VR specifications.
Social VR platform TheWaveVRis now in open beta and delivering weekly DJ sets in its wild and weird environment filled with psychedelic interactive art. Distributing free of charge on Steam Early Access for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive, the platform lets you watch, host, and socialize in shows while music is mixed live.
The company has been developing TheWaveVR for a year, and while it’s basically a social VR platform that lets you invite friends, chat and explore—like AltspaceVR, RecRoom, or VRChat—the software is more centered around hosting weekly virtual concerts where select musicians can mix music live. These so-called “Wave Shows” are said to pick up in frequency over the coming months, likely playing as cornerstones to the platform’s general draw.
To further its development,the company has also garnered an additional $4 million in seed funds led by Upfront Ventures in Los Angeles, bringing total funds to $6.5 million. Other investors in the second seed round include RRE Ventures, KPCB Edge, Greycroft VR Gaming Tracker Fund and The VR Fund.
“We’re hyper focused on creating the most new and engaging social experiences for music content in VR,” said CEO and Co-Founder Adam Arrigo, who spent seven years working for Harmonix, creators of Rock Band and Dance Central. “We think the potential of this new medium isn’t in replicating reality, but amplifying it, so we want to give fans interactive experiences that can only be achieved in virtual reality.”
image by Road to VR
The platform does this via a virtual mixing table, where musicians can grab track samples, represented by actual records, and toss them onto one of two turntables. There’s a fader, volume controls, various filters, and a tempo slider; but in addition to the standard turntable knobs, there are two transparent cubes to the right and left where you can apply effects in real-time ranging from a basic echo to a low-fi bitcrush option that pixelates your vision when activated.
“On the artist side, we’re building out the tools that let musicians and visual artists easily import and distribute their content on our platform,” Arrigo added.
image by Road to VR
I stepped into TheWaveVR right before last night’s inaugural kick-off party and was overwhelmed by the choices presented before me. I could emit a number of effects from my hands, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers—Hunter S. Thompson references aside—plenty of beautiful and mystifying lights that were nothing short of entrancing. The social lobby, a dark rocky world, was populated with interactive ‘entities’ that would either produce music or a cool visual effect. Adding a room of dancing avatars and a DJ standing atop a rocky outcrop to the mix—all shooting off disco balls and crackling streamers—was the sort of impossible and trippy world only possible in VR.
CCO and co-founder Aaron Lemke, also known for his meditative VR experiences Eden River (2014) and Zen Zone (2015), said that they’ve user tested TheWaveVR with “dozens of music creators and fans,” saying that feedback during the open beta “will directly fuel the development of new features.”
Rick and Morty are finally making their way to VR in Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality. Coming to HTC Vive and Oculus Rift headsets on Steam and Oculus Home, you can take part in the dimension-hopping adventure starting Thursday, April 20th for for $29.99.
Created by Adult Swim Games and Owlchemy Labs, makers of the tongue-in-cheek VR game Job Simulator (2016), Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality is said to be a “fast-paced, chaotic VR adventure.” So expect plenty of puzzles and multi-dimensional missions as you, a clone of Morty, navigate and rummage through Rick’s garage and the Smith house for interactive items abound.
Road to VR‘s Michael Glombicki got a hands-on with an early version of the game, saying it’s “full of the same absurdist sci-fi humor that fans of the acclaimed Rick and Morty show know and love.”
In the game, you take control of a Morty clone, ostensibly created for the sole purpose of doing chores for Rick. The first task Rick gives you is to wash his dirty laundry by placing it in the washing machine and turning it on. It’s a very simple task, but everything about it, from placing the dirty underwear in the machine to turning the knobs, felt like a activity in Job Simulator. The reason for the similarity is that Owlchemy built the game using version 2 of their VR interaction system and so they were able reuse a lot of the same technology that powered Job Simulator.
image courtesy Adult Swim Games
Show creator and principal voice actor Justin Roiland has already published a VR experience through his newly created studio Squanchtendo that’s delivered a mix of his signature brand of bizarre and absurdity called Accounting.
Roiland has however had his eye on VR since at least late summer 2015 as he and Owlchemy Labs’ studio head Alex Schwartz (via the official Owlchemy Labs twitter) exchanged a few choice tweets discussing the possibility of collaboration.
Been up all night working on design documents for several VR video games I plan to bring to market for #HTCVive@steam_games I'm so pumped
Owlchemy Labs has developed and published over 20 games spanning desktop and mobile, including Aaaaaculus! (2011), one of the first games with Oculus DK1 support on Steam. As a launch title on HTC Vive, PSVR and Oculus Touch, the motion control-focused Job Simulator has not only garnered critical acclaim since release, but has reportedly surpassed over $3million in sales earlier this year and making it one of the most financially successful VR games to date.
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image courtesy Adult Swim Games
image courtesy Adult Swim Games
image courtesy Adult Swim Games
image courtesy Adult Swim Games
“We really believe fans are going to lose their minds at what we’ve developed,” says Owlchemy Labs CEO Alex Schwartz. “It’s been an incredible experience to develop for one of our favorite shows and see the joy on players’ faces when they get to explore Rick’s garage in VR, physically step through portals, and interact naturally with their hands in the world they’re already so familiar with. Players are interacting with the world of Rick and Morty in a way only possible in virtual reality, and they love it!”
Check back for a full hands-on with the Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality game on April 20th.
Using HTC’s Vive Trackers, Tornuffalo—named after a combination of ‘tornado’ and ‘buffalo’—has been given a ‘Full-Body Action’ mode, an early example of full body tracking in a VR gameplay scenario. This simple action game involves dodging flying debris (which occasionally includes buffalos) heading towards your body, while trying to smash crystals for points.
Launched in December 2016 for SteamVR, Tornuffalo is an active, roomscale-only VR experience (and just $1 to boot). The concept of dodging flying objects through headset and motion controller tracking attempted to give the sensation of full body movement; thanks to additional tracking points on the waist and feet via the Vive Tracker, the player’s body comes much more significantly into the game, allowing more nuanced dodging, and kicking of incoming objects. Check it out in the video heading this article.
Photo courtesy RealityRig
Following the same principle as HTC’s own Vive IK motion capture code, and IKinema’s Orion animation software, three Vive Trackers are attached to the body (on the waist and feet), combining with the existing motion controllers and headset for six tracking points. Using inverse kinematics, a reasonable full-body pose can be generated in real-time.
In the case of Tornuffalo, this enables more precise dodging, and makes jumping over low objects a more reliable technique. You can also kick objects out of the way with both feet. As stated on the game’s news page on Steam, the full body mode is currently available in a beta branch, and will soon become a free update. The developer also notes that the feature works with just two Trackers (without one on the waist), but it isn’t recommended.
Procedural mesh destruction and construction underpins Decoder VR’s first title, Forestry, which just launched on Steam. Built for Vive, Rift and PSVR, the game’s fully destructible world presents a vast forest for the player to cut to pieces, which can then be used to create new objects.
As shown in this whimsical trailer, the game doesn’t take itself too seriously, embracing the inevitable madness that results from letting players loose in a destructible world with a bunch of axes. Behind the simple geometry of the environment is a procedural mesh system that allows for very fine cuts, opening up endless possibilities for new object construction; it is possible to create a self portrait entirely from wood shavings, for example.
“We built the game from the ground up for virtual reality in an attempt to create an experience that utilizes the unique gameplay, visual and audio functions of room-scale VR systems,” says Mike Ferchek, lead developer at Decoder VR.
In addition to this novel crafting system, the game has different chopping tools, hidden items and special powers to discover. As every object in the environment can be destroyed, there is also an adventure element to the game, with “strange obelisks” and “mysterious areas” to find and explore.
If you’re interested, head over to Steam where Forestry‘s available now.
Users can create an online account from within NeosVR, giving them access to a generated home area and save their own content to that private area. Additionally, the NeosVR team have uploaded some example experiences of their own, so you’ve something to play with once you’re logged in.
