Depending on the videogame, ports of Samsung Gear VR titles to Oculus Rift or HTC Vive can go one of two ways; either they look and feel basic and dated or they have just the right design and gameplay to be a worthwhile addition. Turbo Button has just released its puzzle title Floor Plan: Hands-On Edition on Steam, and while the premise is as good as it ever was the title does fall into the former category.
If you’ve not heard of Floor Plan before it took a novel approach to the puzzle genre by putting you inside an elevator – which ideally suited the mobile headsets technology – with each floor a small part of the larger overall puzzle. The goal is to acquire parts of a space suit, with some easier to locate than others. What made the original title unique was the interlinking element of the floors, so an object had to be activated on one to do a corresponding action on another.
For example on one floor there’s a shivering snowman – slapstick comedy runs throughout – who just so happens to have a space boot on. You may have found the coffee earlier on which you’d have thought would warm him up, but that’s not the case, as you’ll need to head to other floors to find what you actually need.
In this port that quirky gameplay is still there, just this time you have moveable hands. Unfortunately adding the motion control mechanic to proceedings hasn’t actually changed or improved Floor Plan: Hands-On Edition in any way. Pushing buttons on the elevator or grabbing items is still done via a pointer, so on the HTC Vive pressing the trigger highlights an object then pressing the touchpad grabs it. Sure once it’s in your hands it seems like you’re holding whatever item you’ve selected, it just feels like a wasted opportunity, Floor Plan: Hands-On Edition could’ve been more ‘hands-on’ than it is.
Having the option to peer into the rooms is a nice little touch but it doesn’t really add anything to the experience as a whole – there’s nothing hidden round the side. Also it’s still the base videogame that launched over a year ago for Gear VR, no additional features have been included. Once you’ve completed it – around 30-40 minutes – there’s nothing really to entice you back in – unless you want to finish quicker.
That being said, Floor Plan: Hands-On Edition is still as enjoyable as the original was. It’s not one of those virtual reality (VR) videogames that’s an essential pickup for PC VR users, more of a throwaway experience when you want to kill half an hour. Thankfully it’s been priced accordingly, so it’s perfect if you’ve been after a smaller title that doesn’t cost major bucks.
Awesome
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Verdict
Taken at face value, 
When playing in VR your on-screen avatar will be depicted wearing a HMD (a nice visual touch, though purely cosmetic) and while no bonuses are offered for doing so, the VR player does have one distinct advantage: viewpoint. When using a HMD the player has the opportunity to pan the camera in line with their head movement, thus allowing for a significant amount of control over the angle at which they view the action.
