Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation
What Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality developers are talking about
Apple is reportedly in the early stages of developing its own subscription service "Netflix for games" and it will apparently be courting developers to work with the company as a publisher.
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The Resident Evil game series will reportedly be coming to Netflix. According to Deadline, it will be produced by the same company behind the live-action Resident Evil film series.
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In a letter to shareholders, Netflix explained that it views the video game Fortnite as bigger competition than HBO, with YouTube videos of the game drawing viewers away from the streaming platform.
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Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella referred to the company's Project xCloud game streaming service as "Netflix for games." The service will let users play Xbox and PC games on a variety of devices.
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All the Black Friday hijinks has finally ended for 2018, and with the mad sales dash now over it’s time to enjoy some of those nicely discounted items. One of the good deals this year was for standalone headset Oculus Go, which was the first time the device had been reduced since launch in May. If you happened to pick one up and need a helping hand in the right direction of decent content, or already owned one and just want to expand your library then read on.
What VRFocus is looking at is purely the best content, whether that’s apps for watching movies and TV, playing videogames or simply going online in VR. This is all about showcasing what Oculus Go can do and the reason for buying it in the first place.
One of the best ways to see plenty content, the app gives Oculus Go access to the video platform’s massive library of immersive, 3D 360° and VR180° experience, allowing viewers to watch the videos as intended.
Price: Free
Watch all of the streaming services TV shows, movies and original content anywhere you like, whenever you like. All on one massive screen, binge-watch to your heart’s content.
Price: Subscription based
Similar to YouTube VR, the Facebook 360 app gives you access to social media sites 360 videos, 360 photos, Live 360 and Facebook Shows, all in one convenient location.
Price: Free
With over 300 tours (most of which are free), Gala 360 is a great app to showcase the quality of the 6k resolution images. Drop viewers in exotic locations to see how awe-inspiring VR can be.
Price: Free (premium content costs $3.99 USD)
One of several apps that showcase the social qualities of VR, AltspaceVR allows you to hang out with friends, make new ones, play videogames together and even attend live events with comedians, DJ’s and more.
Price: Free
Virtual Virtual Reality a somewhat bizarre comedy adventure about VR and AI. Use virtual VR headsets to explore over 50 unique virtual virtual realities, uncovering the story as you go.
Price: £7.99 GBP
Experiment 7 has brought this classic board game to VR, offering four-player tournaments online as well as a single-player to learn the ropes. Players take the role of settlers who need to establish colonies on the islands of Catan, acquiring resources to build infrastructure and roads whilst engaging in trade with other players, all with aim of growing large enough to get the ten victory points needed to win.
Price: £7.99
A cross-platform multiplayer experience, Wands puts you in the shoes of an apprentice magician who must do battle in one-on-one matches against other wizards. With a small selection of spells to begin with, as you level up and become stronger you’ll gain access to better spells offering a wider choice of tactical opportunities.
Price: £7.99
An oldie but a goldie, Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes by Steel Crate Games was one of the earliest examples of local social VR multiplayer, highlighting the fact that VR doesn’t have to be a solitary experience. The VR player has to diffuse a bomb, unfortunately, they have no idea how to as each bomb is made up of different modules that have to be solved individually. To do this all the non-VR players have a bomb manual and must guide the person in VR to the correct solution.
Price: £7.99
One of the bigger adventures on this list, République VR is another Oculus Go launch day title. It’s stealth-action videogame that explores the perils of government surveillance in the internet age. With over 10 hours of gameplay, République VR has players controlling the fortunes of Hope, a woman trapped inside a mysterious totalitarian state who must hack her way to freedom.
Price: £7.99
One for the adrenaline junkies out there. Proximity jump off mountains in a wingsuit and race AI competitors to the bottom, just watch out for cliffs, trees, the ground, basically, everything in this adrenaline-fuelled ride.
Price: £5.99
Designed as a pure space combat title, End Space puts players in the pilot seat of the Minos Starfighter that can track targets with their gaze and blast them with Pulse Lasers, or lock on and pound them into space dust with Meteor Missiles. Like any good shooter, players can unlock new weapons and upgrades as they progress through the ranks by taking on increasingly daring missions.
Price: £5.99
Hellboy reboot screenwriter and Boom! Studios founder Andy Cosby has revealed that he's in talks to write and act as showrunner for an animated Diablo series on Netflix. Little else is known about the project.
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Man of Steel and Mission: Impossible star Henry Cavill will play the lead role of Geralt in Netflix's upcoming The Witcher series. The series began as novels and has been given an worldwide exposure through games.
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It has been a good couple of months since the last time I dipped into how immersive technology keeps popping up in fiction, but then again there’s been quite a lot going on. What with Facebook’s F8 event, Google I/O being a bit crap, Mother Nature trying to take immersion in films a little too far, and this year’s E3 expo… well, also being a bit crap to be honest. Since things are a little bit on the quiet side at the moment in terms of topics to discuss let’s turn our attention back to something we last looked at during the beginning of May.
So, in this series I’m looking at how immersive technologies are represented in film and television, in books, comics, videogames, even manga and Japanese anime. In this we’re counting virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and we’re throwing in uses of very obvious head-mounted displays (HMDs) in there as well. Simulated reality, which is technically different to VR we’re throwing in too because hey, why not. It’s still immersive technology – and I don’t want to spend an eternity explaining to people why The Matrix somehow doesn’t count in this series.
So far we’ve looked at a lot of items that featured the idea of VR but from its first commercial period in the nineties. Things like the films Arcade and Hackers. There’s still plenty from that era to touch on, and even more so in between. For today though we’re looking at a couple of works of fiction from more recent times, including one that isn’t actually out yet.
If Ready Player One tickled your fancy when it came to the idea of virtual worlds where you can do anything or be anyone you like – but not, perhaps without consequence – a drama that debuted this year could very well be right up your street. Kiss Me First is a cross-reality drama with very dark overtones created by Bryan Elsley who had previously worked on the drama series Skins and Dates. As with those two Kiss Me First was created for the UK’s Channel 4 but also Netflix so you can check it out there too.
The series, based on the debut novel of Lottie Moggach, takes place both in reality and a VR and follows the viewpoint of Leila Evans played by Tallulah Haddon. Like many she just wants to escape from a reality she doesn’t quite feel she fits in and find some happiness away from it. The answer lies in the online gaming world operated by Azana. Go to via a VR HMD, haptics and the “AzanaBand” – a sensory collar the company has produced that in the words of its own promotional website “was created to turn in-game experiences into real-word experiences with 3 distinctly unique sensory connections”. That those three connections are happiness, fear and pain is probably not the best of design decisions.
The fine print on the site also states that “73% of users reported no long-term side effects”. Uh-oh.
For Leila, Azana is the escape she needs as she takes on the virtual identity of ‘Shadowfax’. Things take a dramatic turn when she finds a digital paradise called Red Pill, hidden away past the edge of her favourite experience. It’s here she discovers a group of individuals that also includes Tess, a.k.a ‘Mania’ who is very much the opposite of Leila’s shy and lonely personality, but troubled in a different way. Then Tess turns up, without invite, in Leila’s real life too and the line between the worlds of reality and Azana begin to blur. Especially when part of the group mysteriously vanishes.
It is strange to think that this will be the third film in the Johnny English franchise. Yes, somehow this is now a franchise.
The spy spoof action comedy starring Rowan Atkinson is set to have its next instalment in October. A whole seven years after its last cinematic appearance and a good two decades removed from the bumbling character’s origins in a series of adverts created to promote Barclays Bank’s credit card, the Barclaycard. Back then the character wasn’t expressly named, although Atkinson’s ‘helpful’ subordinate Boff was a part of the adverts. Only referring to him as ‘Sir’ throughout the series.
Johnny English 3 sees the accident-prone spy enjoying (sort of) his retirement from being an agent of the UK’s ‘MI7’ intelligence agency.
The most important thing about being a secret agent is the secret part, and unfortunately for MI7 their entire database of spies has just been hacked and everyone’s identity exposed. So, if the agency is going to find out who is behind it all they need someone who a) is a spy, b) wasn’t on that list and c) is ultimately no big loss if they get killed. So, English is spirited away from his teaching job back into a world of mystery, intrigue and convoluted gadgets.
As seen in the initial trailer, part of getting English back up to speed is training with VR and what looks suspiciously like a modified Oculus Rift CV1. Of course, things don’t go well and English being English he manages to leave the building while still being ‘in VR’ (or at least he appears to still think this) and proceeds to cause rather a lot of disruption in London. Let’s be honest if you’re going to do a joke about VR this isn’t the most original one. But then again, Johnny English never claimed to not be re-treading old ground.
Much like a certain other spy, VR vs. will return…
Netflix and Telltale Games have partnered to bring an interactive version of Minecraft: Story Mode to the movie and television streaming service. Though not a full game, it will let viewers make their own choices.
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As a kid growing up computers seemed fascinating. They were other worlds, magical electronic lands where – if only you knew how to programme – anything can happen. Where tiny invisible programs made your lives easier or video games entertained you.
If you grew up in the 1980’s you had Walt Disney film TRON to transport you into the world within the computer itself. On the other hand kids who grew up in the 1990’s had ReBoot.
ReBoot. A CGI animated series set within the ficticious computer system of Mainframe. Named after its Vancouver-based production company Mainframe Entertainment it followed the story of a Guardian program called Bob as he protected his new found friends , their hopes and dreams, and defended them from their enemies. Enemies such as the evilly erudite virus Megabyte and his utterly demented sister Hexadecimal. It went on for three seasons, went away for a considerable time, came back for a fourth season comprised of two mini-movies and then left things on quite the cliffhanger.
As is the entertainment world’s want after much false starting on a continuation of the series the decision was made several years back to, well, reboot ReBoot. Not just reboot it but to reimagine it entirely. That series is ReBoot: The Guardian Code and its…er… on Netflix. That is pretty much the most generous thing I can say about it considering the series pretty much went out of its way to insult the original fans for caring about the brand for so long. Which is an… interesting way to get their support certainly. It’s one-part ReBoot to two parts high-school/teen soap opera to one part Power Rangers and the result has left people scratching their heads somewhat.
On the official YouTube channel for ReBoot: The Guardian Code has however released a number of tie-in 360 degree videos showing off various locations from the first few episodes.
Room Zero
Episode 01, ACTIVATION
“See the Guardians arrive on the Codec for the first time and meet VERA in this 360 Experience.”
Episode 02, RESURRECTION
“Vector and Megabyte are battling while Cyberlocusts surround you destroying the Power Plant in this 360 Experience.”
Episode 03, FORTRESS COMMAND
Experience this 360-degree view of the Throne Room and see the Centanals up close as Megabytes delivers a commanding speech.
Episode 05, DISCOVERIES
“You are on the deck of one of Megabyte’s ships when he launches an attack on the Dopple Towers.”