Something for the Weekend: Oculus Store Price Drops Galore

The new year is here finally, and we’re kicking off 2018 by highlighting a bunch of deals and price drops you can find on the Oculus Store, just in case you got a fancy new Oculus Rift or Gear VR head-mounted display this Christmas.

We’ve got a bunch of titles here for you to peruse, from strategy titles, racing videogames, minigame collections and much more. Great for your new HMD, or to just add another videogame to your library to show off and play with friends.

Project CARS

The only way to make a modern, realistic driving simulator even more immersive is playing it in virtual reality (VR), and that’s exactly what Project CARS is for. The graphics, dynamic time of day and weather, and a host of different tuning mechanics for car nerds is sure to satisfy driving fans.

Project CARS – Game of the Year Edition is now £10.99 (GBP) on the Oculus Store, down from £39.99.

Nature Treks VR

Ever fancied being a God? Well, we don’t exactly have a VR deity simulator here, but Nature Treks VR comes pretty close in the moments where you can command the weather and set the sun. Nature Treks VR has even more content and environments since the latest update, making it a better deal than ever.

Nature Treks VR is only £4.49 (GBP), down from £7.99.

Loco Dojo

LocoDojo Screenshot 1_Guru

In Loco Dojo, you’ll go up against a variety of bizarre challenges against your friends, such as hooking pigs, shooting targets, knocking out teeth and more. It makes great use of the Oculus Touch controllers, and is a great way to introduce people to VR.

Loco Dojo is down to £7.99 (GBP) from £14.99.

Tethered

Tethered - Screenshot18

In this title from Secret Sorcery, The Peeps have given up hope, and as the Spirit Guardian, it’s up to you to restore life and balance to the world. The Peeps will fight for you, build for you, and lay down their lives on your orders. There are thirteen islands waiting for your help in this VR strategy, and there’s never been a better time to try it.

Tethered is down to £8.79 from £18.99.

Just In Time Incorporated

Just In Time Incorporated screenshot 3

Have you ever wanted to die? No? Well then you need Death Prevention Insurance, and that’s exactly what Just In Time Incorporated provides. You’ll be slowing down time, saving people jumping from buildings, protect them from explosions, or even take a chainsaw to them once you get sick of their attitude. Lovely.

Just In Time Incorporated is now £7.25 (GBP), down from £10.99.

Detached

Detached Race Mode

It’s a race against time. Your oxygen supply is low, your crew is missing, and for some reason every airlock requires solving a puzzle to open. Maddening. But such is the design of the spacecrafts of the future, and in Detached it’s up to you navigate in zero gravity and save your crew.

Detached is now £10.99 (GBP), previously £18.99.

Hidden Temple VR Adventure

hiddentemple3

If you’ve ever wanted to feel like Indiana Jones, but wanted to gracefully skirt around copyright issues, then Hidden Temple VR Adventure might be the perfect experience for you. Essentially a point-and-click for Gear VR, you’ll explore an ancient temple, solve puzzles, collect treasure and – hopefully – survive.

Hidden Temple VR Adventure is now £1.99 (GBP), previously £3.99.

Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe

Travelling through space and billions of miles per hour, your vessel is sucked into a wormhole, and you awaken on an alien desert planet. A bit like Jakku, really. There’s nothing around but desert, and one large building. A casino. Where everyone plays air hockey. Yes. And you’ll play air hockey. This is basically an air hockey videogame, is what I’m trying to get at.

Shufflepuck Cantina Deluxe is now only £2.29 (GBP), down from £7.99.

Augmented Empire

Augmented_Empire_Screenshot_3

In Augmented Empire you’ll take control of six wacky characters and guide them through an “augmented reality” world. Climb the Citizen Grade System, and become much more than just a low-tier thug.

Augmented Empire is now £3.99 (GBP), down from £7.99.

In Car Racing VR

Oh yes, perhaps even better than Project CARS, here In Car Racing VR puts you in a car. And you race it. In VR. How can thing get better, you ask? Well, there’s easy controls, multiple sceneries, and multiple camera modes, of course. You can even set what kind of traffic you like. Amazing.

In Car Racing VR is only £0.79 (GBP), down from £2.29.

December 1, 2017

Loco Dojo Developer Sam Watts on Make[Real] and British VR

Level 39 in partnership with PwC, the London VR and AR Association organized the Great British VR where various companies working in virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR). A list of the companies that participated and a recap video can be found here. One of the companies VRFocus spoke to was Make Real’s Director of Immersive Technologies Sam Watts, who also happens to be voted the 12th most influential VR influencer on Twitter about what Make Real has been doing in the field of VR.

Make Real is the developer behind VR videogame Loco Dojo but it also focuses on corporate training. At Level 39 Make Real showcased a prototype training simulation VR experience for a global telecommunications company. Designed to showcase the long and treacherous climb maintenance crews have to take up mobile phone masts. The prototype acts as an outreach awareness program that allow other departments to understand the role and help change the concept that the job of maintenance crew is easy. The prototype can also be an actual health and safety training programme for maintenance crew members, with health and safety information that appears, spotting hazard interactions and testing of vertigo on the first floor of some scaffolding. If users are unable to handle the first floor, Watts explains that they wouldn’t bring them up the mobile phone mast. They do a sweat test when the user finishes, seeing how sweaty the controllers are to tell how terrified users were or how authentic the experience was. Built in the Oculus Rift, Make Real have showcased this around various events and Watts explains that like all people who try VR for the first time: “they suddenly have their head filled with ideas of things they could use it for.” Make Real try to workshop with clients to narrow down the focus to a valid use case, rather than using VR just for the sake of using VR.

Beside the fact they create VR videogames, work in finance big data as well as building training simulations, Make Real have also done some porting, supporting Immersive VR Education to bring Apollo 11 to Samsung Gear VR and Google Daydream from the Oculus Rift. Since setting up four years ago Make Real have grown from a team of four members to fifteen and are keen for standalone headsets to help reach the consumer market. Watch the video below to learn more about the Brighton VR community and Make Real.

July 29, 2017

Play Loco Dojo for Free this Weekend

Following the Steam launch of Loco Dojo, UK developers Make[REAL] has today made the videogame freely available for all Oculus Rift & Oculus Touch owners for this weekend only. Live right now, the free weekend will end at 6pm BST, 30th July 2017.

Loco Dojo is a multiplayer-centric party videogame. Featuring 16 mini-games for up to four players, Loco Dojo offers a wealth of wacky uses for Oculus Touch. The goal is to win a pile of Golden Suns to please Grand Sensei, earning his temple where overall victory against your friends can be claimed.

Discussing the free weekend promotion, Sam Watts of Make[REAL] stated to VRFocus: “We’re honoured that Oculus have chosen the game to be part of their free-to-play weekends rolling throughout the Summer of Rift promotions and look forward to challenging players online!”

Make[REAL] will be running a series of multiplayer lobbies where players can play against the developers to gain tips on how to achieve the gold trophies within the mini-games. Players should look out for lobbies hosted by Make Real VR to join.

The free weekend of play in Loco Dojo is now live, and will run until 6pm BST, 30th July 2017. The videogame van be downloaded from the official Oculus Store, and VRFocus will keep you updated with all the latest from Make[REAL].

July 28, 2017

Loco Dojo Now Available on Steam

Riotous and whimsical social party game Loco Dojo has been released on to Steam for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

Adding to the attempts to tackle virtual reality (VR)’s image problem as an anti-social and isolating experience, Loco Dojo allows up to four players to compete in this quirky videogame/board game hybrid. Players take turns to spin the dive wheel and move counters across the board, engaging in silly, madcap trials along the way, such as flinging cats or waving around hotdog nunchucks.

There’s also a single-player mode, which allows player to engage in the ‘Ten Trials Test’ for the honour of obtaining the Black Headband. There are 16 different minigames available, complete with a host character voice by the inimitable Large Ham Brian Blessed.

LocoDojo Screenshot 1_Guru

VRFocus have previously reviewed Loco Dojo, where it gained praise for its variety of gameplay and tongue-in-cheek sense of humour: “Loco Dojo perfectly exemplifies British humour and the love for all things daft and quirky – the team secured the vocal stylings of Brian Blessed which is always a plus point. This isn’t a videogame that takes anything seriously, and for that it should be saluted.”

Loco Dojo is available on Steam for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift. Oculus Rift users will need to make sure they own the Oculus Touch controllers, however, since the title requires Tracked Motion Controllers. The title currently has a launch discount of 35%, making it £9.74 (GBP), a promotion that will end on 3^rd August, 2017, after which it will return to the usual price of £14.99.

Further information can be found on the Steam page.

VRFocus will continue to bring you news of new releases on Steam for VR platforms.

July 14, 2017

Loco Dojo Achieves Success at the Develop: Brighton Indie Showcase Awards

Over the past few day the Develop: Brighton conference has been taking place, bringing together industry professional to discuss every aspect of the videogame industry, including virtual reality (VR). As part of the event, organiser Tandem Events also hosts the Indie Showcase Awards, celebrating the best in indie development. Nine titles made the shortlist – four of which were VR – and two have been chosen, one of which was Make[Real]’s Loco Dojo.

Loco Dojo is a multiplayer board game in which players have to compete across 16 mini-games to make it into the Grand Temple and win. VRFocus reviewed the title a short while ago, giving it 4 stars, saying: ‘those who do decide to take the plunge will be richly rewarded with a videogame that is highly enjoyable to play and will keep them coming back for more.’ While the videogame originally launched just for Oculus Rift in April, Make[Real] will be bringing the multiplayer to Steam – and HTC Vive – later this month.

LocoDojo Screenshot 1_Guru

Loco Dojo was chosen as part of the People’s Choice award as voted for by attendees, alongside Abandon Ship, a PC title by Fireblade Software.

The shortlisted studio’s each received a complimentary booth on the expo floor, free expo passes and the chance to demo their game to more than 2,000 developers and videogame industry professionals from all over the world.

Josh Naylor, lead of evangelism EMEA, Unity, said: “The standard of games at this year’s Indie Showcase at Develop:Brighton have been exceptional and we are delighted to see the number of different platforms being developed on, from mobile to PC and VR. The competition is a great opportunity to show the level of creativity in today’s industry. Thank you to all those who submitted and shortlisted and congratulations to the winners.”

Develop:Brighton will return in 2018, from 10th – 12th July, with speaker submissions opening in January 2018.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Develop: Brighton, reporting back with the latest updates.

July 4, 2017

The Loco Dojo Party Heads To Steam Later This Month

You may recall Loco Dojo, the madcap multiplayer party game for Oculus Touch that came out on the Oculus Store back in April. Which saw players either test themselves in solo play or take up to three friends in all manner of whimsical challenges on the ‘Table of Trials’ – a board game come to life. The proceedings take place under the watchful gaze and booming voice of the Grand Sensei. The latter explained by the fact the Grand Sensei is voiced by none other than Brian Blessed; a role for which the actor has been nominated for in the Best Performance category at the upcoming Develop Awards.

LocoDojo Screenshot 1_Guru make[REAL]’s collection of sixteen “ridiculous” minigames is now set to make the jump to Steam, with support given not just to the Oculus Rift and Touch but also to the HTC Vive.

As mentioned by VRFocus’ Peter Graham in his review: “You’ll be swatting bats with nunchuck hotdogs, milking pigs with baby pigs, stacking moles, whacking urchins, flinging cats, throwing biscuits and more besides – that’s a running theme of food and animals that makes you think what other crazy ideas the studio came up with. You’ll soon find your favourite games to gain gold medals in and this can go onto add a real strategic element to the proceedings.”

The Steam release will take place on Thursday July 27th 2017 and will be the same version as that presently available on the Oculus Store – and indeed the same price at £14.99 (GBP) / $19.99 (USD). Multiplayer is however confirmed to be cross-play and those using the Oculus platform will be able to play against those using Steam and vice-versa.

Loco Dojo is also set to be a part of the Indie Showcase at next week’s Develop: Brighton event. VRFocus will be bringing you more developments in the field of VR gaming as we get them.

LocoDojo Screenshot 5_FoggyMarsh

June 22, 2017

Develop:Brighton Unveils Indie Showcase Shortlist 2017

The popular Develop:Brighton conference will be returning for another year next month and today organiser, Tandem Events, has announced the shortlisted videogames which will be part of the seventh Indie Showcase, four of which are virtual reality (VR) titles.

Those selected are:

Loco Dojo (Oculus Rift) by Make Real
SVRVIVE: The Deus Helix (HTC Vive) by SVRVIVE Studios
ARCA (Gear VR) by Dream Reality Interactive
Tin Hearts (Oculus Rift) by Rogue Sun
Rocket Rumble (Android) by Small Jelly
Abandon Ship (PC) by Fireblade Software
Space Krieg (PC) by We Heart Dragons
Dead End Job (PC) by Ant Workshop
From Light (PC) by Faffinabout

SVRVIVE screenshot

SVRVIVE: The Deus Helix is a puzzle adventure game, inspired by classics such as Myst and Riven, while Tin Hearts from Rogue Sun is all about building elaborate Rube-Goldberg machines to help a battalion of magical clockwork toy soldiers escape a series of Victorian rooms. The last VR title on the list is Dream Reality Interactive’s physics platformer ARCA, with players piloting the ‘ARCA Sphere’ through a world of shifting platforms and abstract architecture.

“Every year we’re blown away by the standard of submissions for the Indie Showcase and this year was no exception,” commented Adam Green, chairman of the selection panel in a statement. “We had over 120 games submitted this year, which is the highest number yet. Selecting the finalists from such an incredible range of diverse titles was as challenging as it was inspiring. Be sure to swing by the Indie Showcase and check them out!”

Managing director of Tandem Events, Andy Lane, added: “It’s been seven years since we launched the Indie Showcase, and the creativity displayed by all the indie developers that submit never ceases to amaze me. It’s fantastic to have Unity on board as sponsors for another year. Everyone involved is excited to see the industry reaction when they have hands-on opportunity at Develop:Brighton in a few weeks.”

All the titles will be playable at the Expo and on Thursday 13 July the overall Indie Showcase winner as chosen by the judging panel and the People’s Choice winner, as voted for by delegates through the Develop:Brighton website, will be announced.

Develop:Brighton, is a conference, expo and networking event taking place from Tuesday 11th to Thursday 13th July 2017 at the Hilton Metropole in Brighton.

For any further updates on the event, keep reading VRFocus.

May 4, 2017

VRFocus Spins the Dice Playing Mini-Game Mashup Loco Dojo

If you were ever a fan of mini-game compilations such as Mario Party or Warioware for example but want something a little more immersive then make[REAL]’s Loco Dojo aims to fill that requirement. Exclusively launched for Oculus Rift and Touch recently, the title mixes boardgame ideas with some intense virtual reality (VR) gameplay.

Featuring 16 mini-games, Loco Dojo allows up to four players to compete against each other, gaining points that’ll earn them new belts, all the way up to the coveted black belt. Once secured they’ll then enter the temple in the centre of the board to complete one last challenge.

Should you want to play Loco Dojo but can’t find any tournaments to join then make[REAL] has added the Ten Trial Test, a shorter single-player challenge where you get ten spins to get as far as you can. And that’s the gameplay video VRFocus has for you today, showcasing some of the trials in store and how the whole process works.

For another gameplay video from the latest VR titles, check back with VRFocus tomorrow.

April 28, 2017

Review: Loco Dojo

Party videogames can be a riotous laugh with friends, involving fast paced mini-games that can have you thinking on your feet as you try to out do one another. This is the basic premise for British developer make[REAL]’s first proper virtual reality (VR) videogame, Loco Dojo, bringing everyone together for some laughs and competition, which it does succeed at, (for the most part).

Loco Dojo perfectly exemplifies British humour and the love for all things daft and quirky – the team secured the vocal stylings of Brian Blessed which is always a plus point. This isn’t a videogame that takes anything seriously, and for that it should be saluted. The premise is simple, you find yourself in front of a wooden circular game board with 16 mini-games located in four zones around a grand temple. Succeed at the mini-games and you’ll be awarded tokens that’ll up your belt ranking, with the aim of accessing the temple for the final challenge.

LocoDojo Screenshot 1_Guru

The mini-games make[REAL] has created vary wildly in their difficulty, and time is short to really master them. You’ll be swatting bats with nunchuck hotdogs, milking pigs with baby pigs, stacking moles, whacking urchins, flinging cats, throwing biscuits and more besides – that’s a running theme of food and animals that makes you think what other crazy ideas the studio came up with. You’ll soon find your favourite games to gain gold medals in and this can go onto add a real strategic element to the proceedings. When spinning the dice (numbered 1-4) there’s a question mark that enables you to choose almost any location to move your counter to, thus selecting the games you’re mostly likely to succeed at or just enjoy the most.

This mixture of gameplay elements makes Loco Dojo a great multiplayer experience but just like any online VR multiplayer it does suffer from player numbers. Multiplayer tournaments have been hard to find at this early stage, really you need a few mates with Oculus Rifts and Touch, then arrange a session together. If this can’t be done then there’s always the single-player ‘Table of Trials’ option which is a very wise decision on the studio’s part. This provides an opportunity to actually play Loco Dojo if no other players can be found and to learn and practice the mini-games. If make[REAL] hadn’t included the feature Loco Dojo might have suffered the same fate as many other indie multiplayer’s and died before it had time to shine.

LocoDojo Screenshot 2_Countryside

There’s always that worry when buying a multiplayer focused videogame that everything hinges on player uptake and to a point Loco Dojo is no different – mainly due to the size of Oculus Rift and Touch’s user base. Hopefully this won’t be the case as those who do decide to take the plunge will be richly rewarded with a videogame that is highly enjoyable to play and will keep them coming back for more. There’s also the fact that make[REAL] has already confirmed loads of ideas are in the pipeline for more content additions, vital for keeping that party spirit alive.

80%

Awesome

Verdict

April 27, 2017

It’s Time to Party as Loco Dojo Launches for Oculus Touch

Today British studio make[REAL] – the sister company to Radial-G’s Tammeka Games – has launched its first virtual reality (VR) videogame in the form of Loco Dojo. A party mini-game experience, Loco Dojo supports the Oculus Rift with Touch.

Loco Dojo is a light-hearted multiplayer title that takes its inspiration from vidoegames like Mario Party and Warioware, in which players progress around a board by spinning a wheel to move a counter. Landing on certain areas will activate a quick action mini-game which is just as much about learning the technique of that particular game as it is about winning.

LocoDojo Screenshot 3_RockyDesert

Featuring a Tournament mode for two to four players simultaneous players, if there’s no one available a single-player challenge mode has been included called Ten Trial Test, where players have ten rolls of the dice to try and attain a black belt and be classed a master, or just use the time to practice some of the more challenging games.

Loco Dojo only supports the Oculus Touch controllers and retails for £14.99 GBP / $19.99 USD/ €19.99 EUR on the Oculus Store.

While there are 16 mini-games at launch expect a lot more in future updates. VRFocus previously spoke with make[REAL] Operations Lead Sam Watts about Loco Dojo in which he said: “There’s a whole wall full of post-it notes that haven’t been explored that are ready for DLC and future content.”

Checkout the new launch trailer below, and for further update to the title and make[REAL], keep reading VRFocus.