What To Download With A Viveport Subscription

What To Download With A Viveport Subscription

It might be Vive’s birthday, but owners of the headset are getting the presents. HTC today launched its Viveport Subscription service, allowing players to choose five of a select range of VR apps every month. Usually the service costs $6.99 a month, but you can get started for free in April with over 30 titles from which to choose. These aren’t just games but a wide range of experiences.

Looking through the list, it can be hard to know what to choose, so we’ve pulled out some highlights depending on what kind of VR user you are. Whether you like to play, explore, learn or something else entirely, these apps should give you just a taste of the power of VR.

For The Creators

Those of you that like to use VR to build things are in luck; some of Vive’s best experiences are available in this category. Titles like Northway Games’ Fantastic Contraption do a great job of showing you just how creative VR can be, while Space Draw lets you visualize whatever comes into your head in a 3D space. Sketchbox, meanwhile, is a VR design tool that lets you edit images and more. There’s plenty here for creatives.

For The Players

Viveport may favor experiences over games, mainly letting Steam handle the latter, but it is not without its own offerings for playtime. If you’re quick, you can grab Vive Studios’ Arcade Saga completely free of charge today only, but it’s a great pick in this category too. Indie action game Dimensional is also worth a look for its excellent use of room scale, while Albino Lullaby‘s first episode is a chilling example of what VR can do for psychological horror.

For The Explorers

If there’s one thing VR does best it’s almost certainly explore, and Viveport’s offerings have some great destinations. If you haven’t already tried it then you have to head to the icy peaks of EVEREST VR for Solfar’s stunning, informative trek up the mountain. But why stay on Earth? Mars Odyssey gives you a chance to step onto the red planet and explore for yourself, while the beautiful iOMoon gives you some of the most stunning sights yet seen in VR.

For Historians

VR isn’t as quite as good as a time machine but we’re pretty sure it’s as close as we’re ever going to get. If you’re considering a trip back in time then you have to try Airborne VR 1944, which places you in the shoes of a paratrooper making a dramatic jump on D-Day. Remembering Pearl Harbor, meanwhile, transports you to another part of the war, allowing you to live one of the most decisive days in the global conflict. Finally, the Apollo 11 VR Experience documents man’s historic mission to the moon like never before.

For The Learners

VR’s ability to educate is arguably its most important asset, and Viveport has plenty of apps that showcase that potential. 3D Organon VR Anatomy gives you a detailed run down of the human body with startlingly accurate 3D models, while We Are Stars is an imaginative and entertaining way to learn about the history of our universe. Or, hey, if you just want to learn how to be a more interesting cook then Chinese Cook VR has you covered.

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Second Viveport Developer Awards Nominations Announced and Some Frightening Deals

It’s almost time for Halloween and the virtual reality (VR) industry has been getting into the spirit of the occasion with events and spooky deals. Oculus has discounted several scary titles and HTC’s Viveport is doing the same. HTC has also announced the second wave of nominations for the Viveport Developer Awards.

Currently experiences on offer through Viveport are:

A Chair in a Room: Greenwater by Wolf & Wood Interactive – 25% off – £14.24 (£18.99)

Daylight’s End VR Edition by Groove Jones – 80% off

Emily Wants to Play by SKH Apps – 80% off – £0.70 (£3.48)

The Night The Carsons Disappeared by NostalgicBear VR – 50% off – £0.70 (£1.39)

AChairInARoom3

As for the Viveport Developer Awards this second round of nominations featured:

Allumette, by Penrose Studios; Cloudlands: VR Minigolf, by Futuretown; Mars Odyssey, by Steel Wool Game and Arcade Artist, by Groove Jones. These join the first selection: Altspace VR, by Altspace VR; Pearl, by Google Spotlight Stories Soundstage, by Hard Light Labs and The Body VR, by The Body VR.

This week HTC has made several announcements, earlier today the company revealed a partnership with InterContinental Hotels Group to allow guests to demo the HTC Vive in their rooms or in special areas. And there was the unveiling of Vivepaper, which creates a range of interactions for print content, allowing users to activate of 360-degree photos and videos, 3D models, 2D content, and audio thanks to the headsets front-facing camera.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of HTC Vive and Viveport, reporting back with any further announcements.

Explore the Red Planet with Mars Odyssey for HTC Vive

Virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMDs) have quite an abundance of space videogames and apps available, letting users explore and learn about our solar system. Today Steel Wool Games has launched a simulator experience for HTC Vive called Mars Odyssey.  

Mars Odyssey is a single-player experience that takes players to the red planet, allowing them to explore the surface and learn about its history and geography. Whilst on the surface players will need to repair NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers – including Viking, Pathfinder, Curiosity, and Opportunity.

Mars Odyssey image 1

Steel Wool Games developed the 20 minute title using exact engineering schematics and locations of the rovers as well as NASA’s publicly-available terrain and height map information to create a realistic surface of Mars.

The experience is available to download now through Steam and the developer is currently offering a special introductory price. From now until 15th September there’s a 40 percent discount off the regular price, dropping the cost down from £5.59 GBP to £3.35.

This isn’t the first VR project from Steel Wool Games. Earlier this year the developer released Quar: Battle for Gate 18, a turn-based strategy launch title for the HTC Vive. And last month the team announced that HTC had invested $5 million USD in a Series A funding round to help the studio continue its VR development.

For all the latest HTC Vive releases on Steam, keep reading VRFocus.

HTC Invests $5 Million In Series A Funding In Steel Wool Studios

No matter the studio, no matter the application or experience and no matter the hardware that it is being produced on, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) continues to generate investment from both inside the industry and from grants, individuals and consortiums outside outside of it.

The latest to acquire funding is independent Steel Wool Studios, a team with more than an a little bit of an interesting background.
Founded five years ago Steel Wool Studios has within its staff alumni from Telltale Games, Lucasfilm and Pixar Animation Studios which many video game aficionados would consider something of a dream team development. Steel Wool Studios began to use VR in 2014 on and earlier this year this work produced Quar: Battle for Gate 18, a turn-based strategy launch title for the HTC Vive which VRFocus described in its review as “genuinely fun and often tense”.

Their next project Mars Odyssey sees you take on the needed maintenance roll for the (in-game) long abandoned Mars exploration rovers. Teaming with NASA, Steel Wool Studios have produced a realistic environment based on the known martian terrain and the likes of Pathfinder and Opportunity will be found in their current locations and need to be repaired using their actual schematics. is launching on Steam on September 9th 2016, also for the HTC Vive. It is this along with other VR related projects “which span game, simulation, and narrative-based concepts” that will be supported by HTC through $5 million (USD) in Series A funding.

Steel Wool Studios

Speaking on the deal, HTC Corporation’s CEO Cher Wang said, “The Steel Wool Studios team carries an impressive pedigree of creative talent that has already proven its ability to build cutting-edge content for the nascent VR category. Taking a look at Mars Odyssey and Steel Wool’s other projects under development, it’s immediately clear that this studio will drive VR adoption with great content that balances amazing visual fidelity with strong storytelling.”

“After earning our stripes with Quar, we went all-in on creating content for VR, a medium we’ve been waiting for our whole lives.” Added Andrew Dayton, who co-founded Steel Wool Studios. “HTC’s investment gives us the ability to explore and push the limits of VR through the completion of projects we hope will excite everyone as much as we’ve enjoyed building them.”

VRFocus will bring you more information on the release when we have it.