Pinball FX 2 VR (2016), the VR pinball simulator, is getting a host of new tables in a paid DLC pack, brought over from its flatscreen sequel, Pinball FX 3 (2017). Tables based on E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial (1982), Jaws (1975) and Back to the Future (1985) first became available on the Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, and Gear VR back in May, and are now available through the PSVR and SteamVR (Vive) versions of the game.
Update (6/26/18):Pinball FX2 VR owners on any platform can now access the new ‘Universal Classics’ DLC, priced at $20 on tethered headsets, which brings three new tables based on iconic movies from the ’70s and ’80s. The title, and the new DLC, is now available on Oculus Rift, Oculus Go, Gear VR, PSVR, and SteamVR (supporting Vive and Rift). Prior DLC packs for the game offer up an additional six tables, over the base game’s three original tables.
The SteamVR version of the game is currently on sale for $6, a 60% discount over the usual $15 price, and the prior DLC packs are on sale at the same discount.
Original Article (5/15/18): The tables, licensed by Universal, come along with immersive environments including the forest behind Elliot’s house (E.T.), a beach villa looking out to an Amity Island sunset (Jaws), and Hill Valley’s historic town square (Back to the Future).
A few other goodies await too, says developer Zen Studios, including “a curious E.T. peeking at your table to see how you’re doing, a shark fin circling around your Jaws table, and the classic DeLorean flashing across the Back to the Future table.”
“Everyone seemed to really love what we did with the non-VR version of Universal Classics Pinball (we’re especially flattered by the 90 on Metacritic for the Xbox One version). The Pinball FX2 VR version features every bit of film-adapting gameplay that resonated so well with critics and fans alike, from E.T. collecting candy in a cornfield to Marty McFly showcasing his skills at arcade shooting and players braving the open waters in a shark cage for an exciting multi-ball mode.”
There’s no word yet when/if either the Steam version, which supports both Rift and Vive, or the PSVR version, will get the update. [See update above]
Los Angeles-based White Elk Studios, a team founded by former members of the God of War team, and Oculus Studios today announced a new co-op game called Covert. The couch co-op game is said to feature asymmetrical gameplay that will let one player play inside either an Oculus Go or Gear VR while the other user plays outside of VR.
Working with the infamous League of Thieves, your mission is to steal a mysterious artifact from an impenetrable safe inside Capital City’s museum. You’ll hack your way past the security systems, using high-frequency glass breakers, ziplines, and more to work your way into the vault.
Image courtesy White Elk Studios, Oculus
Asymmetrical gameplay is accomplished by including another player, your friendly neighborhood hackerman, who plays on their mobile device. This other player feeds you details such as notes on museum blueprints, information on guard locations, laser movements, and the safe’s internal mechanics.
Oculus and White Elk say Covert features a “pass-and-play style,” which makes is a good candidate for easy group play, putting your communication skills to test.
Image courtesy White Elk Studios, Oculus
Ever since the success of Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes (2015), the asymmetrical VR game genre has been in need of more love, so we’re definitely hoping Covert can approach the sort of fun these games can provide in group settings. The choice of launching on Oculus Go, the company’s $200 standalone VR headset, is a decisive move that will hopefully raise a few curious eyebrows.
Covert is slated to arrive on Oculus Go and Gear VR “later this year.”
Coatsink, the studio behind VR titles A Night Sky (2017) and Augmented Empire (2017), announced they’re bringing their first mobile VR title, Esper (2015), to PlayStation VR, Oculus Go and Xiaomi Mi on June 29th. Esper is also slated to launch on HTC Vive via Steam on July 6th.
As one of the first great titles on Samsung Gear VR, Esper puts you in the shoes of a not-so-ordinary citizen undergoing an aptitude test to determine if you can control your rare and potentially threatening extra-sensory telekinetic abilities—moving things with your mind. Using your gaze to control objects including balls and blocks, you’re urged to solve a number of puzzles, all the while chided by an E.S.P.R. training program instructor.
“Esper is where the VR journey began for Coatsink and it holds a dear place in our hearts. Having Oculus approach us in the early days of modern day VR and trust our then small team to build and create an acclaimed VR game for Gear VR was nothing short of incredible,” said Coatsink CEO Tom Beardsmore.
Esper will launch on Oculus Go, PSVR and HTC Vive for $8.
Launched initially on Daydream in early 2017, and now available on Gear VR, Oculus Go, and Oculus Rift, Virtual Virtual Reality’s smart interaction design gives players freedom and control which—combined with a narrative tying it all together—makes Virtual Virtual Reality one of the most immersive mobile VR games to date. This guest article by Mitch Mastroni, Interaction Designer at Tender Claws, the studio behind the game, explores how the game achieved significant immersion even on more restrictive mobile VR headsets.
Guest Article by Mitch Mastroni
Mitch Mastroni is an Interaction Designer at Tender Claws, where he handles all aspects of systems design and programming across both VR and AR experiences. He pulls from his background in performance art—ranging from improv comedy to jazz percussion—to create compelling interactive experiences. He holds a B.S. in Computer Science: Game Design from UC Santa Cruz, where he developed the 2016 IndieCade finalist Séance. You can find him in the corner of a networking event, waxing poetic about theme park design.
Our game Virtual Virtual Reality is a comedic adventure that is both love letter to VR and playful commentary on the tech industry. Players are welcomed by their manager Chaz to Activitude, a virtual service where humans are tasked with assisting AI clients. These AI, which appear in various forms ranging from a tempermental artichoke to a demanding stick of butter, have increasingly bizarre requests for the player to perform. The story unfolds as the player travels between virtual realities, diving deeper and deeper into the machinations of Activitude.
If you haven’t had a chance to play Virtual Virtual Reality, check out the trailer below to get a taste of the game, which also recently launched on the Oculus Rift:
Object Interaction: The Leash
When players pick up objects in Virtual Virtual Reality, they see a curved line connecting their VR controller to the object in question. This ‘leash’ is the only tool that players have at their disposal for the full duration of the game. All other object interactions in the game (plugging a plug into a socket, watering flowers with a watering can, etc.) are performed with the leash. Even simple interactions—like tossing a ball in the air or dragging your manager by his robotic legs—are very satisfying to perform with the leash.
The leash helps the player understand the relationship between the controller’s movement and the object’s movement. It also enhances game feel by giving virtual objects weight. Instead of instantly moving the object to the position where the player’s controller is pointing, the leash applies a constant force to the object in the direction of that position. Heavier objects will take longer to arrive at their destination and will sag the leash downwards. By swiping the trackpad forward and backward, players can also push and pull objects towards and away from themselves, enabling 6DOF object control from a 3DOF controller.
Virtual Virtual Reality was originally developed for Daydream VR and its 3DOF controller, leading us to consider control schemes found on other devices with 3DOF controllers (see this article for an introduction to 3 DOF vs 6 DOF ). We were inspired by the ‘Capture Gun’ in Elebits, Konami’s 2006 Wii-exclusive title. Elebits achieved a surprisingly intuitive use of the 3DOF Wiimote that we had yet to see implemented in any game: VR or otherwise. We were pleasantly surprised to find that the leash is also comfortable while using multiple controllers and 6DOF controllers. We designed unique visual and haptic feedback for the leash to fit each of Virtual Virtual Reality’s platforms and to leverage their respective control schemes.
The choice of the leash was also informed by the distance between players and the objects that they interact with. Early VR experiments at Tender Claws resulted in us constraining object interactions to the “mid-range.” Most objects that the player grabs are at least one meter in front of the them and and no further than six meters away. This tends to be the most comfortable range for modern VR headsets. Some players have trouble focusing on objects closer than one meter. Further than six meters away, there is no clear sense of depth and small objects are clearly pixelated. The leash closes the mental gap between the player and their object of focus, allowing that object to become an extension of the player.
World Interaction: Headsets
The most recognizable gameplay mechanic of Virtual Virtual Reality is the ability to put on and take off any VR headsets in the game at any time. Virtual reality inside of virtual reality. Yes, in fact, it is kind of like Inception.
Early into our development of the headset transition mechanic at a 2015 hackathon, we realized that the experience of taking off and putting on headsets had potential beyond a narrative framing device. We wanted players to interact with headsets as often as possible.
One key characteristic of headset transitions is that they are completely seamless without any perceivable loading time. To achieve this, every accessible virtual reality, or level, is loaded into memory before its associated headset appears. Although this required significant performance optimizations to reduce the memory footprint of each level, it also lead us to an artistic direction that reduced the workload of our artists.
We experimented with various visual transitions to reduce the jarring effect of leaving one level and entering another. Ultimately we chose a fisheye lens effect that warps the edges of the screen, paired with a single frame cut between the two levels at the peak of the warping. The fisheye effect is accomplished through the use of a vertex shader: the geometry of the world is actually stretched away from the player to emulate the familiar look.
The interaction language and logic is consistent for the VR headsets in the game. They can be picked up like any other object in Virtual Virtual Reality. To take off their current headset, the player points their controller at their head and grabs that headset. Drawing attention to the presence of the player’s real headset does not compromise immersion, in fact it reinforces their connection to the experience.
We decided that the action of moving between virtual realities should be a valid choice at any point. Any headset in the game can be picked up and put on, and at any point you can take off your current headset to ‘go up a level’. These choices are also recognized and validated by other systems in the game. For example, characters will comment on you leaving and returning to their virtual realities, which helps reinforce the relationship between the headset system and the narrative.
Localization and Subtitles
We began the process of localizing Virtual Virtual Reality into eight languages after the game launched on Daydream. The spoken and written words of Virtual Virtual Reality are central to the experience and we wanted to give more players an opportunity to comfortably enjoy the game.
The decision to use subtitles instead of recording dialogue in new languages was a matter of resources and quality control. We worked with an extremely talented cast of voice actors who recorded over 3,000 lines of dialogue to bring the characters of Virtual Virtual Reality to life. The task of re-recording and implementing that dialogue in eight additional languages was simply beyond the scope of our team. Instead, we focused our efforts on creating the best subtitle system ever conceived by god or man. Or at least by a mobile VR game in 2017.
The Virtual Virtual Reality subtitle system was designed with two guiding principles. First, subtitles should be comfortably visible at all times. Second, it should always be clear who is speaking. Neither of these are novel concepts (see the game accessibility guidelines and this excellent article by Ian Hamilton), but at the time of development there were virtually no examples of these principles being applied in VR.
The key to our approach is dynamic positioning. The subtitles are repositioned to best fit the direction that the player is looking. When the player is looking at a speaking character, the subtitles appear directly below that character. When the player is looking elsewhere, the subtitles appear at the bottom of the player’s view with an arrow pointing in the direction of the character. The arrow is particularly helpful for players who are hard of hearing. Subtitles smoothly transition between the two states so that reading is never interrupted. Scenes with multiple speaking characters utilize different colored text for additional clarity.
Next Steps
Designing Virtual Virtual Reality was an incredible learning experience for our whole team. We all have backgrounds in gaming but none of us had ever worked on anything quite like this—a dense three-hour narrative adventure in VR. We are currently working on several new projects that leverage our lessons learned from Virtual Virtual Reality and further our integration of systems and narrative. The state of interaction design ih VR has come so far in the past few years, and we’re excited to continue exploring and innovating as we create new experiences.
Virtual Virtual Reality is one of mobile VR’s best games to date, and you can now play an enhanced version on the Oculus Rift.
Created by studio Tender Claws and initially launched back in 2017, Virtual Virtual Reality goes far beyond the expectations set by most mobile VR titles by delivering strong visuals, great sound, intuitive interaction, locomotion and a proper narrative, culminating in a strong feeling of immersion.
Having played through the entirety of the game on a mobile VR headset, it’s no wonder to me why the time and effort has been put in to bring it to the Oculus Rift. As of today, Virtual Virtual Reality is available on the Rift priced at $20 (also available on Oculus Go, Gear VR, and Daydream for $10). The game is rated nearly five stars on each of its available platforms.
Image courtesy Tender Claws
Virtual Virtual Reality tells the story of a far future where a company called Activitude offers up human labor to artificial intelligence personalities for the novelty of human imperfection. Sort of like an ‘Uber for human labor’. Virtual reality headsets, which act as the access points for performing your human service tasks, are littered throughout the game’s world, and players can put them on and take them off at will, going deeper and deeper into virtual reality as they explore the depths of Activitude. It’s an exploratory adventure—with a dash of puzzle solving and meta-humor—and one that’s worth taking without having too much spoiled for you.
Limbic Software’s popular Zombie Gunship franchise is finally making its way from Android to VR in Zombie Gunship Raptor (2018), a first-person, helicopter-based zombie shooter for Oculus Go and Gear VR.
As the gunner of a heavily-armed gunship helicopter, you’re tasked with defending your base from an oncoming onslaught of zombies from all directions. Featuring active node sites where you can zip over to shoot, you’ll need plenty of gear, vehicles, and firepower to fend the waves of mindless brain-eaters.
You’ll have a powerful main machine gun, rockets for taking out groups of zombies, and large area of effect missiles for taking out the robust Titan zombies. You can take down the hordes using night vision, thermal vision, and IR camera vision.
Zombie Gunship Raptor also features an upgrade system “to ensure players can take their own path to increase their arsenal,” the studio says in a recent Oculus blogpost.
Besides the campaign mode, the game also boats a Survival mode which pits you against a never-ending swarm of zombies.
Check out Zombie Gunship Raptor, which is selling for $4, on Oculus Go and Gear VR.
The upcoming game, which is developed by Dream Reality and published by Rebellion, is targeting PSVR, Steam VR, Oculus Rift, Oculus Go and Gear VR, with launch slated for later this year.
Rebellion says in a recent blogpost that no controller is needed to play, as the game relies solely on the VR headset for input.
The studios haven’t released much more information around Arca’s Path, only saying it has puzzle elements, and requires “a little bit of skill but not too much, and that it’s incredibly easy to pick up and play.”
Dream Reality Interactive’s core team previously worked at Sony’s London Studio, with titles such as PlayStation VR Worlds and AR games for Wonderbook.
Oculus Venues, the social app that allows ‘thousands of users’ to watch live events en masse in VR, is now available on Oculus Go and Gear VR starting today. The company has also published a full list of upcoming live events (below).
Announced last year at Oculus Connect 4, Venues lets you connect with friends and thousands of other VR users to watch live events like concerts, sporting events, stand-up comedy, movies, and more.
Many of the live events are captured specifically for VR headsets by NextVR, including stand-up comedy from the Gotham Comedy Club, live concerts from bands via School Night, content from the NBA and MLB, and the International Champions Cup pre-season friendly soccer matches.
Concerts by Vance Joy, Chromeo, Nathaniel Rateliff and the Night Sweats, and Everclear are hitting Venues all throughout the summer. Other events hitting Venues later this summer include films screenings from Lionsgate Films, featuring Reservoir Dogs (1992), Sinister (2012), Apocalypse Now (1979), and National Lampoon’s Van Wilder (2002).
Most Gear VR-compatible smartphones work with Venues, excluding Samsung Galaxy Note 4 and Samsung Galaxy Note 5. Oculus’ Code of Conduct is also in full force, with community moderators on-hand in Venues.
Oculus says they’ll be highlighting Venues events in Oculus Go and Gear VR’s ‘Explore’ section where you can subscribe to upcoming events and launch them from there.
Check out this summer’s Oculus Venue showtimes below:
May Showtimes
May 30 // Vance Joy // 7:30 pm PT
May 31 // Gotham Comedy Live // 7:00 pm PT
June Showtimes
June 4 // School Night! Live from Hollywood // 8:00 pm PT
June 6 // MLB: Arizona Diamondbacks @ San Francisco Giants // 12:45 pm PT
June 7 // Gotham Comedy Live // 7:00 pm PT
June 9 // Nathaniel Rateliff & The Night Sweats and The Head And The Heart // 3:55 pm PT
June 11 // School Night! Live from Hollywood // 8:00 pm PT
June 13 // MLB: Los Angeles Angels @ Seattle Mariners // 1:10 pm PT
June 14 // Gotham Comedy Live // 7:00 pm PT
June 15 // Chromeo // 6:50 pm PT
June 18 // School Night! Live from Hollywood // 8:00 pm PT
June 20 // MLB: Atlanta Braves @ Toronto Blue Jays // 9:37 am PT
June 21 // Gotham Comedy Live // 7:00 pm PT
June 22 // Everclear // 10:00 pm PT
June 25 // School Night! Live from Hollywood // 8:00 pm PT
June 27 // MLB: Kansas City Royals @ Milwaukee Brewers // 11:10 am PT
June 28 // Gotham Comedy Live // 7:00 pm PT
July Showtimes
July 2 // School Night! Live from Hollywood // 8:00 pm PT
July 5 // Gotham Comedy Live // 7:00 pm PT
July 9 // School Night! Live from Hollywood // 8:00 pm PT
July 12 // Gotham Comedy Live // 7:00 pm PT
July 16 // School Night! Live from Hollywood // 8:00 pm PT
July 19 // Gotham Comedy Live // 7:00 pm PT
July 23 // School Night! Live from Hollywood // 8:00 pm PT
July 25 // International Champions Cup: Manchester United v AC Milan // 8:00 pm PT
July 26 // Gotham Comedy Live // 7:00 pm PT
July 28 // International Champions Cup: FC Barcelona v Tottenham Hotspur // 8:00 pm PT
July 30 // School Night! Live from Hollywood // 8:00 pm PT
vTime, the social VR platform, today announced the closure of a $7.6 million (£5.4 million) Series A funding round led by Deepbridge Capital with included investment from Liverpool, UK-based institutional loan and equity provider MSIF.
vTime founder and CEO Martin Kenwright says the investment will “accelerate global growth and product development, and fuel R&D for the brand’s augmented reality (AR) experience coming later in the year.”
“The advent of consumer AR at scale is allowing us to use decades of expertise to develop another unique way to connect and engage with friends and family in alternate realities,” says Kenwright. “Crucially, Deepbridge share our vision for the future – both in delivering a matchless social XR experience and our expansive plans to monetize and build upon the vTime framework with future technologies.”
According to the developers, vTime has had “almost a million downloads” since launch in December 2015, something the company can claim thanks to its many platforms; vTime supports Oculus Rift, Windows VR headsets, Google Daydream, Gear VR, Google Cardboard, as well as non-VR modes through both respective Android and iOS apps. You can find links to all of those here.
The app itself is organized similar to non-VR social platforms; vTime allows you to create a profile, chat with friends and family, and even discover new friends by browsing by common interests or languages. vTime also puts an emphasis on sharing both 360 and conventional ‘flat’ images. It (of course) comes with a pretty robust avatar creator so you can create your own unique you.
vTime’s core development and management team tallies over 40 people in both its UK Liverpool headquarters and in the USA.
In partnership with Google, developers Squanch Games have revealed Dr. Splorchy Presents: Space Heroes, the first in a series of exclusive games for the Daydream VR platform. Announced today, the game is playable on the GDC show floor at Google’s booth.
The game centres around scientist Dr. Splorchy, who evidently has no interest in what we say here, as in his own words, his experience with VR is “so beyond the capability of your understanding that if I were to try to explain them to your primitive earth mind I would have to rip out most of your brain and replace it with a computer so powerful it hasn’t even been invented yet, so no, I will not send you a blurb for your stupid press release.”
Image courtesy Squanch Games
This particular brand of humour comes from Squanch Games co-founder Justin Roiland, best known as the co-creator of animated comedy series Rick and Morty. He formed a VR development studio with Tanya Watson in 2016 called Squanchtendo, changing their name to Squanch Games late last year. Their first game, Accounting (2016), developed with Crows Crows Crows for SteamVR, launched in enhanced form as Accounting+ (2017) on PSVR.
Roiland and Watson appear to have been superseded by “Senior Lead Master Game Developer” Dr. Splorchy, saying “we’re tremendously fortunate to have found such a creative and experienced partner in Dr. Splorchy, an incredible genius that we have definitely not grown to be deeply concerned about or afraid of over the course of our relationship” under what they both describe as “definitely not duress.”
Image courtesy Squanch Games
As Dr. Splorchy isn’t being forthcoming with information, not much is known about his new game, but we’ll try to check out the project at Google’s booth at GDC to learn more. Going by the teaser and the screenshots, it could feature adventure elements as well as first person shooter action. In the meantime, you could follow Dr. Splorchy’s various social media accounts: his blog, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
