Category: northway games

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Fantastic Contraption is Bigger Than Ever With New 2.0 Update

In January 2017, Northway Games and Radial Games announced the Anti-Oppenheimer 1.6.0 for Fantastic Contraption, revealing it would be the last for the puzzle experience. As it turns out that’s not the case, with the developers releasing version 2.0 this week.

Fantastic Contraption ThanksForTheFish

The major addition in the update is its expansion, with the studio’s adding double the levels. In a blog posting Radial Games said: “We’ve put a ton of work into our puzzle-set and have created a whole new “B-Side” playlist for you to enjoy! The game now boasts over 100 levels, smoothing out the introductory learning curve and adding some high-end challenges for those Contraptionistas that find the late-game too easy.”

Every version of Fantastic Contraption is now faster, with version 2.0 improving the experience for PC users with min-spec or below minimum spec PC’s. “What we’ve done in Version 2.0 is merge all of our performance fixes into one master build, states the team. “This means that if you have a computer that is below min-spec on any platform, you should still be able to play without our physics engine grinding your CPU to dust! This also means that if your CPU is heavily loaded with other tasks (Twitch streaming, mixed-reality compositing, etc.) the game will keep chugging along at a comfortable 90+ FPS.”

For those Fantastic Contraption experts that have been playing since day one the new update adds a bunch of new gameplay mechanics on those B-Side levels. Now players have access to Cactuses that destroy bits of contraptions on touch and Balloons that give their Contraption buoyancy to float over Cactuses, gaps, and other challenges. These two additions were in the original version before being cut. Players can access these in the Level Editor as well.

Fantastic Contraption PSVR_1

Lastly, version 2.0 comes with a 33 percent permanent price drop making sure Fantastic Contraption is available for $19.99 USD everywhere. For any further updates from Northway Games or Radial Games, keep reading VRFocus.

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‘Fantastic Contraption’ 2.0 Update Brings New Content and Features, Lower Price

Fantastic Contraption (2016), the building puzzler from indie studio Northway Games, is getting its first big update since launch, which includes double the levels and a few new tantalizing features that didn’t make the cut back in April 2016 when it hit Steam.

The free update, dubbed Version 2.0, comes with what Northway calls in a blogpost “a whole new ‘B-Side’ playlist,” which puts the game to 100 levels strong. The creators say the new levels help smooth out the introductory learning curve and add some high-end challenges in the later part of the game.

The ‘B-side playlist’ also includes a number of levels featuring all-new gameplay mechanics: contraption-destroying Cactuses, and Balloons which can carry your creations past obstacles to safety. Northway says the new features should be considered “little teasers […] things that we’ve been working on since version 1.0, way back when VR was just a baby.”

As a result of building support for several different platforms—including Vive, Rift, Windows MR, and PSVR—Northway says that on PC you’ll also be able to play Version 2.0 with a below min-spec computer. Since Valve hasn’t established a minimum spec, and only a recommended spec, we assume the studio is referring to Oculus’ Min Spec, which sets that bar at an NVIDIA GTX 1050 Ti / AMD Radeon RX 470 or greater, and an Intel i3-6100 / AMD Ryzen 3 1200, FX4350 or greater (older equivalents included).

Fantastic Contraption is also seeing a 33% permanent price drop, bringing the game from $30 to $20. Check it out on Steam, Oculus Store, Microsoft Store, and PSN.

The post ‘Fantastic Contraption’ 2.0 Update Brings New Content and Features, Lower Price appeared first on Road to VR.

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Fantastic Contraption Gets an Official PlayStation VR Launch Date

If you love virtual reality (VR) puzzle experiences then Northway Games and Radial Games’ Fantastic Contraption has to be one of the best. An original launch title for HTC Vive and then arriving on release day for Oculus Touch, the lighthearted building title now has a confirmed released date for Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) PlayStation VR.

Back in December 2016 Radial Games’ Stephen Gray announced that Fantastic Contraption would be coming to PlayStation VR in Spring 2017. After that not much else was heard until today, when Radial Games’ Christopher Floyd revealed on PlayStation.Blog that the videogame now has a launch date of Tuesday, 11th July, 2017.

Not only that, but PlayStation VR users will also get exclusive levels found nowhere else and special headset only features that allow players to resize and position their gameworld at the press of a button. “We have a handful of brand-new, PlayStation-exclusive levels in the release,” said Floyd. “Try your hand bouncing around some moguls, attacking a big-bricked wall, and more! We’ve designed a few challenges specifically around seated play, and we know you’ll enjoy them.”

And it doesn’t stop there. If you happen to own a PlayStation VR Pro as well, there are a load of additional enhancements. These include: higher-resolution textures; improved backdrops and scenery; additional special-effects and visual flairs; extra island decorations and 125% resolution oversampling for improved sharpness.

At launch Fantastic Contraption will retail for $19.99 USD with a special launch-week promotion of 10 percent off available for PlayStation Plus users.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Fantastic Contraption, reporting back with the latest announcements.

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Northway Games Release Final Update for Fantastic Contraption, Adds Level Editor

Developed in partnership between Northway Games and Radial Games, Fantastic Contraption has been one of the most well received virtual reality (VR) titles of the past year – VRFocus gave it a respectable 4 stars. This week the studio announced the launch of its latest update, Anti-Oppenheimer 1.6.0 for the videogame, also revealing it would be the last.

In a posting via Northway Games’ blog, the team has unveiled new features as well as tweaks and improvements to polish off the title. The major addition has been the inclusion of a level editor, so that players have a whole new level of creativity to to explore. Puzzles can be created, named, then uploaded for anyone to play, and as an added extra Northway Games has included some extras of its own ‘that didn’t make the official cut, or that we’ve been inspired to create since trying out the new editor’, it said.

That’s it in terms of additional content, the developer has confirmed it doesn’t have any more major updates in the works, instead it’ll be moving on to something new – although no details have yet been released. Fantastic Contraption will still be maintained and support for PlayStation VR is incoming later this year.

Checkout the entire changelog and video below for all the update details. VRFocus will continue its coverage of Northway Games, reporting back with any further announcements.

Full Anti-Oppenheimer Changelog:

  • New Level editor! To use it, first put on the helmet, then put on the creepy mask in the corner and ring the bell for a tutorial. User-made levels can be shared online and loaded via the save table just like contraptions.
  • New Mouthmoth keyboard lets you name contraptions and levels, and search by contraption / level name
  • Added interactive art elements to side of maquette and Kaiju scale
  • Autohide the companion desktop menu and limit desktop display framerate
  • Show purple building bounds if cheating detected during tutorial
  • Hide black sphere during startup
  • Improve look of pins on Neko’s head
  • Adjust some sky characters
  • Sky color variation
  • Sounds for items including non-spinning green wheels and eyeballs
  • Disable musical sounds if you’re holding an item
  • Tweaked throw force for Kaiju scales
  • Improved haptics
  • Improved tutorial text font
  • Optimized first person companion view smoothing
  • Optimized avatar shadows
  • Optimized Twitch panel memory usage
  • Fixed some menus not updating when language changes
  • Fixed models disappearing after you drop them on a save table shelf
  • Fixed Button the Dog ghosting
  • Fixed disappearing Neko eyes and ghosting
  • Fixed obscure crash bug with some webcams
  • Fixed cat skin modding
  • Fixed sticky tutorial messages
  • Fixed laserpointer positioning for Twitch/camera menu
  • Fixed feedback form submission issues
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We Built A VR Puzzle In Minutes With The Upcoming ‘Fantastic Contraption’ Level Editor

We Built A VR Puzzle In Minutes With The Upcoming ‘Fantastic Contraption’ Level Editor

If there’s one thing the past year has taught us, it’s that building in VR is just as fun as playing in VR. Standing toe-to-toe with fast-paced action experiences are expressive creativity apps like Tilt Brush, while long-established development engines like Unity are looking to headsets to revitalise game making in exciting new ways.

But it’s Fantastic Contraption [Review: 8/10] that best understands this principle, combining the joy of play time with the satisfaction that comes from making something functional, a device that achieves something and also has a little bit of you inside it. Northway Games and Radial Games are building (pun intended) on that satisfaction with an update to the game that adds a very welcomed feature: a level editor.

Fantastic Contraption always stood out for its UI, if you can call it that. You don’t sift through items in mundane menus, but instead memorize movements like reaching behind your head to pull out a staff, or putting a helmet on to reach a hub world. In the new level editor, accessed by putting a new mask over your face in that hub world, you’ll enlarge yourself to tower over a start square, and pick items from a Cheese Moon and World Cat to start making your own level. It’s a little like becoming Bob Ross in The Joy Of Painting, only if you’d taken a copious amount of illegal substances first.

Level creation is just as simple and intuitive as you’d expect for a game we already said was “chock full of innovative user interface design ideas”. Once you understand the basics of the game — you have to get an item into a goal zone by transporting it through an obstacle course with a vehicle of your invention — you understand the basics of the world building. Place a goal zone wherever you like, and then design a puzzle around it.

In the space of about 10 minutes I was able to create a simple level that required users to build something that first crawled along the ground, then hung from two railings to get to the goal zone. To do this, I grabbed a rectangular ground block from the World Cat. When you pick an object up, pink flowers will appear on all of its sides. You can grab these to either stretch the item, or move it in a straight line along the axis correlating to its position.

Duplicating one of these blocks is a simple as pressing one of the Vive’s grip buttons while holding it. To give my level just a touch more challenge, I took more blocks and inserted them into my railings so that players would need to keep their contraptions thin if they were to squeeze through. Yellow blocks that obey the laws of gravity could also be placed as obstacles to get in the way.

Once my level was done, I could remove my mask to reenter the hub world, and then take off my helmet to get into a playable version of the level (though it can also be played from the editor mode). The transition from being a giant over my level to standing within it as if it were a challenge in the full game took a few seconds and felt pretty amazing. Switching between modes to tweak levels was fast and intuitive.

Northway Games is looking to release the level editor in January, and I really hope the community rallies around it. Fantastic Contraption currently comes with 50 puzzles to complete, but with these tools that number will now grow and hopefully turn this into something that offers new challenges every week. Similar to recent user-generated content hits like Nintendo’s Mario Maker, Northway is handing the ingenuity of its design over to the players. It’s just up to you to make something worthy of it.

With the game also on the way to PlayStation VR next spring, 2017 is set to be a big year for Fantastic Contraption.

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Fantastic Contraption Coming to PlayStation VR Spring 2017

One of the most well known virtual reality (VR) puzzle titles is likely to be Fantastic Contraption by Northway Games and Radial Games. The HTC Vive had it as a launch day experience, and it featured in a free content bundle for the system for several months. The developers then brought it to Oculus Touch for its launch day earlier this month, and while they maybe a little late to the PlayStation VR launch window, the studios have now confirmed support for Sony Interactive Entertainment’s (SIE) headset.

Radial Games’ Stephen Gray made the announcement via PlayStation.Blog, introducing a new trailer for the reveal as well as a release window, Spring 2017. The videogame is a quirky puzzle solver that requires players to do just on thing, get a pink blob from their location to a giant pink area that can be in front, behind, below or above them. This is achieved by building all manner of weird and crazy inventions that can roll, spin, flip, catapult themselves and the pink orb towards the target. Just as the original title, the PlayStation VR version will feature 50 levels to work through, as well as the most recent Kaiju update.

Fantastic Contraption PSVR_2

The Kaiju update arrived last month bringing with it a new scaling option for those building in restricted areas. This allows users to scale from 50% of regular size all the way down to 10%, which makes everything look like a miniature set of contraption pieces. This should be especially beneficial to PlayStation VR owners who don’t get the freedom of movement that HTC Vive users get with Room Scale. Due to the single camera system that PlayStation VR uses, Fantastic Contraption will most likely be a sat down experience for players, with the Kaiji update allowing them to build directly on their laps.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Fantastic Contraption, reporting back with any further updates.

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Fantastic Contraption Is Coming To PlayStation VR

Fantastic Contraption Is Coming To PlayStation VR

Last month we created a list of the five Oculus Rift and HTC Vive games we wanted to see head over to PlayStation VR. Today, one fifth of our wishes came true.

Fantastic Contraption, Northway and Radial Games’ wonderful building experience that can be traced all the way back to a 2D browser game, is making its way to PS VR next spring. PlayStation Move support will be included (you can see the controller models in the trailer below), as will all of the original 50 levels.

One interesting aspect of bringing any Rift/Vive game over to PS VR is tracking. While PS VR and two Move controllers offer pretty good tracking when facing forward, occlusion becomes an issue if you turn around, as the system only has one camera to refer to your position with. In the past, Fantastic Contraption has made a great showcase for room-scale tracking — it was one of the free launch games for Vive — but how does that translate to Sony’s headset?

“Room-scale doesn’t work on PSVR because of the single camera; turns more than 90 degrees or so can easily cause occlusion as well,” wrote Radial Games developer Andy Moore in an email to UploadVR. “Because PS VR users will play seated, standing, in close quarters, or in an open living room, we had to allow the player to move, position, and scale the island to make maximum use of their space. The further back from the camera you stand, the more you can expand your work area.”

A version of the game was shown at the PlayStation Experience conference recently, and Moore said “players were playing about 10 feet back from the camera and had slightly less than 2 yoga mats worth of play space in front of them; at another station we set up a chair and people played with the entire game contained in their lap.”

Critically for Fantastic Contraption’s jump to PS VR, the developers recently introduced the “Kaiju Update” that allowed for resizable levels. The update adds a ton of flexibility in how the game is played.

 “All these configurations have their pros and cons, but thankfully at these smaller sizes controller occlusion isn’t as big a deal as we first thought it would be,” Moore wrote. “We’ve attained flexibility here, but it still is more fun the bigger you can make it.”
We look forward to seeing how the game works on PlayStation VR. They’ve certainly got some time to keep working on it and refine the experience before launching in Spring 2017.

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Fantastic Contraption ‘Kaiju’ Update Adds New Scaling System, Eye-Cam and More

If you want something different to all the shooting titles available for HTC Vive a good place to start is quirky puzzle videogame Fantastic Contraption. Developed in partnership between Northway Games and Radial Games, it originally came supplied with free with every purchase of the headset until August when its was swapped out. This week the developers have announced a big update for the title, called ‘Kaiju’, which should give players an indication of what to expect.

There are several major features added to Fantastic Contraption, the first being a new scaling option to allow new ways to play. This allows users to scale from 50% of regular room scale size all the way down to 10% room scale which makes everything look like a miniature set of contraption pieces. When using scaling the controller flowers shrink down to smaller precision buds so that players can easily see what they’re doing.

Fantastic Contraption_scale_fling

Northway states on its update listing: “If your VR hardware is configured for a small space, the Room Setup menu will appear automatically the first time you play. You can force Fantastic Contraption into Kaiju Scale and reconfigure your space via the companion menu on your monitor.”

Then there’s the Companion Eye-Cam. Now players can take their eyes out attach them to a contraption then switch on the companion-camera to follow the eyes around. This essentially means viewers watching on a monitor get an even better perspective.

Rating contraptions has got easier with a new way to keep track of them. Now users smooch their favourite contraptions both local and online. Smooching them now adds hearts, causing the to rise up the ranks on the “Online Contraptions for this Level” shelves.

Check out the full changelog below for all the improvements the developers have made, and keep reading VRFocus for all the latest VR news.

Full ‘Kaiju’ changelog:

  • Kaiju Scale: full support for playing in smaller spaces including seated. (Re)configure world size and orientation via the companion menu on your monitor (settings > standing scale > configure standing). Config will automatically run once if SteamVR is set to “Standing Only”.
  • Steam Workshop support for modding Neko skins. See our Steam Workshop and Modding Instructions
  • Workshop support for other languages. See our Steam Workshop and Modding Instructions
  • Japanese language support. Change language via the companion menu on your monitor. Other languages coming eventually and/or create your own using Steam Workshop.
  • Rate and fave saved contraptions by giving them a smooch
  • Throw level from maquette to frog to delete autosave and revert
  • New avatars and improved avatar model physics
  • Change avatar by using the touchpad while grabbing maquette
  • New avatar hats and improved existing hat models
  • Twitch chat voting on avatars and hats with “!avatar wolf” or “!hat 5”, defaults to 60 second rounds. Twitch mods can disable, trigger rounds, or force a change immediately.
  • Avatar shadows
  • Command-line arguments to run in demo mode, eg “-demo”. Contact us for full list
  • Rearranged things in dark world
  • Combined level and contraption save tables into one
  • New look for Neko
  • Highlight Neko’s parts when you’re close enough to grab them
  • Improve Neko animation performance
  • New look and animation for victory spheres
  • Improve stereo shader rendering
  • Tweaks to tutorial messages
  • Hourglass loading indicator
  • Fade out effects
  • Selection highlighting on camera bug and some other things
  • Sound tweaks
  • Tweak and tune all haptic responses
  • Added arrows to tutorial umbilicals
  • Minor tweaks to several levels (must delete autosaves to see)
  • Hide online contraptions made with newer incompatible game versions
  • Fix helmet obstructing first person companion view
  • Fix error on loading corrupt save files
  • Fix Twitch panel error and bloat
  • Fix SteamVR init crash
  • Fix physics issues caused by variable framerate
  • Fix respawn delay after taking items from Neko
  • Fix hitting start/stop while loading
  • Fix several levels so they’ll break less
  • Fix snaps disappearing or being where they shouldn’t
  • Fix and tweaks to camera bug
  • Fix Neko’s missing eyes on blink with helmet
  • Fix spelling “comfortably”
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‘Fantastic Contraption’ Adds Resizable Levels and Seated Option in Massive ‘Kaiju Update’

‘Fantastic Contraption’ Adds Resizable Levels and Seated Option in Massive ‘Kaiju Update’

Ever since Fantastic Contraption [Review: 8/10] released alongside the HTC Vive earlier this year, it’s been a staple of any Vive gamer’s library.

The simple premise of getting the thing to the goal is infectious, especially when combined with the tactile nature of building and tweaking contraptions across the game’s various levels. It’s one of the best examples of “easy to learn, difficult to master” we’ve seen in VR yet.

This week, Northway Games announced a new “Kaiju Update” that includes so many things, it’s arguable enough features to constitute its own game, except this time with a focus on enabling fun even for those that don’t have the space to fully take advantage of the roomscale capabilities.

“We’re devotees of roomscale, but we recognize that not all Vive owners have space for it,” writes Sarah Northway in an email to UploadVR. “Fantastic Contraption is a lot of fun when played at your desk or even sitting on the floor, the way you’d play with Lego or Tinker Toys, which inspired our game in the first place.”

The main feature of this update, as the name suggests, is that you can resize the levels so that you become an enormous giant in the world, similar to a Kaiju from classic monster movies such as Godzilla.

Reach down and manipulate the contraptions like they’re toys on a table or Legos on the carpet instead of large mechanical devices you’re crawling under to tweak and tinker.

It’s still very much the same game, but the switch of perspective dramatically changes the experience. It’s a great testament to how pivotal simply adjusting your view can be for a VR application.

“Another thing that makes this update ‘Kaiju’ is how huge it is,” writes Northway. “We’ve improved nearly everything and added new features like Steam Workshop support. You can also mark saved contraptions as favorites by giving them a kiss, or add a hat to your avatar and take an in-game selfie using a selfie stick made out of contraption parts. These are features we’ve wanted in the game since launch, and there are more still to come.”

The next major update is planned to be the level editor, a feature that’s been requested ever since the game launched. “The level editor’s nearly finished but we decided to wait until after the Oculus Touch launch to release it,” writes Northway. “Probably by the end of December.”

For more details on what else this Kaiju update adds, you can read the blog post here.

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Owlchemy Labs Teases New In-Engine Mixed Reality Tech

Owlchemy Labs, the studio known for the genre-defying game Job Simulator, have cooked up a new way of doing mixed reality that not only promises to be more realistic, but is sure to grab the attention of VR streamers and content creators alike. They’re calling it ‘Depth-based Realtime In-app Mixed Reality Compositing’. It sounds complex, but it seems to simplify the entire production pipeline.

Green screen VR setups have littered expos ever since Northway Games teased mixed reality integration in Fantastic Contraption earlier this year. Requiring little more than a green sheet, an external camera and a few other bits and bobs (Northway published a step-by-step guide), the results are easy to see:

The video above however is the result of extensive polishing and after effects like rotoscoping to correctly occlude items, making it appear that the player is in 3D space instead of flatly sandwiched between the foreground; the contraption, and the background; the virtual environment.

owlchemy-labs-mixed-reality
image courtesy Owlchemy Labs

Owlchemy Labs recently teased a new in-engine method of putting you in the middle of the action, correctly occluded, that promises to eliminate extra software like Adobe After Effects or composition software like OBS from the equation.

They do it by using a stereo depth camera, recording video and depth data simultaneously. They then feed the stereo data in real-time into Unity using a custom plugin and a custom shader to cutout and depth sort the user directly in the engine renderer. This method requires you to replace your simple webcam with a 3D camera like the ZED 2K stereo cam—a $500 dual RGB camera setup that importantly doesn’t use infrared sensors (like Kinect) which can screw with VR positional tracking. But if you’re pumping out mixed reality VR footage on the daily, then the time savings (and admittedly awesome-looking results) may be worth the initial investment.

Owlchemy says you’ll be able to capture footage with either static or full-motion, tracked cameras, and do it from a single computer. Because the method doesn’t actually require a VR headset or controllers, you can technically capture a VR scene with multiple, non-tracked users.

“Developing this pipeline was a large technical challenge as we encountered many potentially show-stopping problems, such as wrangling the process of getting 1080p video with depth data into Unity at 30fps without impacting performance such that the user in VR can still hit 90FPS in their HMD,” writes Owlchemy. “Additionally, calibrating the camera/video was a deeply complicated issue, as was syncing the depth feed and the engine renderer such that they align properly for the final result. After significant research and engineering we were able to solve these problems and the result is definitely worth the deep dive.”

The studio says it still needs more time to complete the project, but they “have plans in the works to be able to eventually share some of our tech outside the walls of Owlchemy Labs.” We’ll be following their progress to see just how far reaching it becomes.

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