‘Quill’ Review: Changing Art as We Know it One Line at a Time

‘Quill’ Review: Changing Art as We Know it One Line at a Time

I’m not an artist. I mean sure, in my day I’ve been known to doodle a killer cube and my wildlife paintings have been called “What is this supposed to be?” and “Seriously, your mother and I are worried about you,” from time to time. For the most part, however, I am hopeless with a brush or pencil in my hand.

I didn’t think someone like me would every be able to truly enjoy artwork beyond commenting on how real the landscapes looked in the latest Pixar movie, but here we are. Fortunately for me, and people like me, a new virtual reality experience is being released by Oculus. It’s called Quill and it is changing how the world creates, views, and enjoys art. Welcome to high society, right in your living room.

Quill is a creation of the Emmy-award winning Oculus Story Studios. It was reportedly developed as an in-house design suite for the group’s upcoming VR animated feature, Dear Angelica. As production on the new film progressed, the studio realized that they’d stumbled upon a creation program that the whole world could enjoy and so they decided to spin it out in beta as one of the many free VR titles releasing alongside Oculus Touch tomorrow.

The Touch controllers give you unprecedented control in the creation of three dimensional artwork. By simply holding down a trigger and moving your hand you can birth your creative visions into existence in a fully immersive digital environment.  Quill is not the first VR art program to hit the market, but it differs significantly from competitors such as Tilt Brush and its brother Oculus Medium when it comes to style.

Medium is more like a sculpting tool and Tilt Brush is similar to 3D painting, whereas Quill is like stepping inside of a sketchbook. Relatively two-dimensional, pencil-esque lines are the standard for Quill creations. The set of options in Quill is simple but powerful. You can change the opacity and size of each tool you’re using as well as the color. There are also dedicated undo and delete buttons that make creating in Quill feel speedy and intuitive. Serious artists will also enjoy the option to choose different layers, a la Photoshop, for even more detailed creations. The most important and versatile feature, however, is the “scale” ability.

Everything you make in Quill can be gripped and rotated using your controllers. Once you grab the world you’re creating you can also shrink or grow the scene by tilting the analog stick up or down. Scaling means that you can draw a simple rectangle at one size, and then scale down until that rectangle is the size of a house and start building the interiors, for example. All of these tools combine to give Quill creations an immediately recognizable appearance that looks impressive on your flat computer monitor, but becomes downright enchanting inside of a VR headset.

Creating will always be the main thrust of Quill, but the most enjoyable part from my perspective was simply loading up already made artwork and ogling at the unbound creativity of others given life by the power of VR. There are a few snippets from Dear Angelica that are included in the files section of the experience and loading these up was one of the most emotionally stirring moments I’ve ever had inside VR.

What makes the striking visuals of Quill even more powerful is the program’s ability to natively import sound files to run alongside your artwork. Booting up an underwater reef scene while the sounds of the deep ocean play all around you turns incredible art into an incredible experience that you’ll remember long after you take the headset off. Quill is smartly designed and surprisingly powerful as a VR creation suite, but it also represents a potential shift in the way we view and enjoy artwork as well.

I’ve been to art museums and for the most part I struggle to find myself discovering what others seem to feel when they look at a few geometric shapes dotted with color on the wall. Inside Quill however, my emotions were activated in ways I didn’t think possible by static images. Art was something that has escaped my understanding my entire life, but after using Quill, I finally understood.

Final Recommendation: Must Try 

VR has the potential to change just about every type of media and with Quill it now seems that high art is firmly on the table for that platform shift as well. Art exists to move people and after thousands of years of two dimensional attempts to do so, Quill and programs like it are showing how much more powerful the 3D space can be for creativity.

Tagged with: , , , , , ,

‘Dead and Buried’ Review: Get Ready To Sweat In This Highly Physical VR Shooter

‘Dead and Buried’ Review: Get Ready To Sweat In This Highly Physical VR Shooter

Reload quickly, aim carefully, and in the name of all that’s decent keep your head down. This is the mantra that every Dead and Buried player should recite if they want to be successful in the latest multiplayer virtual reality shooter.

Dead and Buried is one of the first game to be developed almost completely by Oculus Studios — the in-house content creation arm of the Facebook-owned Rift manufacturer.  It was created in a partnership with Gunfire Games, the team behind Chronos. Dead and Buried is a multiplayer shooter with a wild west theme. You play as one of four otherworldly desperadoes battling it out with other undead gunslingers for supremacy in these literal VR ghost towns. The action is fast and frenetic; the gunplay is well designed and satisfying; and the combat mechanics are immersive and technical enough to keep matches consistently engaging. In short: this game is fun.

There are five game modes to chose from in Dead and Buried: a shooting gallery that’s only really useful for target practice, your standard wild west shootout, the objective-based robbery, quick draw in the streets, and wave-based cooperative horde mode. All of these are enjoyable in their own right, but combined together under one title they make Dead and Buried one of the most versatile multiplayer VR titles available.

Horde, Shootout, and Robbery are the real standouts here. Quick draw is fun as well, but it is dramatically more limited as just a “3…2…1…FIRE” reflex test with quickly fading novelty. The former three modes, however, are consistently fun and highlight the strategic, and highly physical, gameplay that Oculus Studios has been working so hard to perfect.

Horde mode is exactly what it sounds like: a wave-based challenge where you and up to three friends try and last as long as possible and defeat the big, supernatural bad of each map. Shootout is a team-based firefight pulled straight out of any famous western’s saloon, or town square fight scene. Robbery might be the most innovative of the lot.

In this mode two teams of two play as either lawmen or outlaws. The job of the robbers is to push forward by winning consecutive death matches on a linear map and make their way to, and open, the final safe. The lawmen, conversely, want to push the outlaws back until they lock them up in the brig. Each separate match has a pool of shared lives for each team. When your team’s lives run out you lose and are forced either forward or back depending which team you’re on.

Shootout and Robbery are the two best use cases for the unique mechanics that make Dead and Buried fun and are where most players will likely spend the majority of their time. Cover and precision are the bread and butter of Dead and Buried combat. There’s no intentional locomotion system in any of the game modes listed above. Instead, you spawn into one of several cover points on a given map and remain their until you die.

This, unfortunately, means that some games have a fair amount of luck involved in order to win. If you’re going 1v1 against a rival it often comes down to who spawns in a more optimal location. These problems are less noticeable in bigger team fights, where no spot is truly safe, but the absence of some sort of teleport mechanic hurts the game overall.

Being rooted to one spot doesn’t mean that you’re without movement options completely, however. Each spawn point has its own cover for you to hide behind in most cases and so a good portion of matches in Dead and Buried center around knowing when to peak out and fire and being able to dive behind cover quickly.

This makes Dead and Buried one of the most physical VR games we’ve ever played and you’ll rarely end a match without sweating. This isn’t an issue, as the physicality of the game is what makes it so satisfying. You honestly feel like a skilled marksman when you’re able to bait your opponent into showing his face just to blast it into the after, after-life with a well timed shot. Being required to physically hide from opposing fire also makes defense feel more immersive in this game than in any traditional 2D shooter. Your survival is directly related to how smart and fast you can be while playing and that never really gets old.

Final Score: 8.5/10 – Great

There’s a loose progression system in Dead and Buried. The game offers you four different avatars to play as, unlock, and customize with new aesthetics as you gain more experience. This provides some limited incentive to play more but it’s not quite enough to answer this title’s most significant question: is there enough here to keep the servers humming and the matches well populated?

From a pre-launch perspective the answer seems to be yes. There are enough enjoyable game modes and physical, enjoyable gameplay mechanics to keep things interesting, but time will tell whether or not the limited number of Rift users with Touch will choose to spend their time sweating it out in a Dead and Buried gun battle when there are other, less intense experiences to chose from. But, If they can take the heat, this one will be well worth the effort.

Read our Game Review Guidelines for more information on how we arrived at this score.

Tagged with: , , , ,

VR Drawing Program ‘Quill’ Will Be Available Free On Dec. 6

VR Drawing Program ‘Quill’ Will Be Available Free On Dec. 6

A lot of corporations out there have picked up the annoying habit of charging for their products. Thank goodness Oculus is here to buck that trend. This week, the Facebook-owned virtual reality company is announcing that yet another launch title for its highly anticipated Touch platform will be completely free of charge.

Quill is a VR art experience that is being designed and released by the award winning team at Oculus Story Studio (Henry, Lost). In a blog post, the group revealed that the “illustrative storytelling” tool will be available as a beta “for free when Touch launches December 6.

This means that Quill is the latest to join a growing list of Touch experiences offered free with pre-orders, including highly anticipated titles such as Dead and Buried, VR Sports Challenge and The Unspoken.

By making this type of content, and releasing it free of charge, the young company is betting big on its software’s ability to drive people toward its hardware. The company announced at OC3 that it had spent $250 million to help fund content for its platforms and that it planned to spend at least that much again in the future.

You get a free game! And YOU get a free game!

Quill itself was created out of the need at Oculus Story Studio for in-VR art tools while making its newest production: Dear Angelica. According to the company:

“Quill was born out of the creative needs of Dear Angelica’s Writer/Director Saschka Unseld and Art Director Wesley Allsbrook. The unique style and story of Dear Angelica required it to be painted and shaped entirely inside of VR, something that has never been attempted.

In October of 2015, during one of our 48-hour hack-a-thons, Inigo—the lead engineer on Dear Angelica and a mad genius with code—created the first version of what would eventually become Quill.”

Oculus Touch releases on December 6 at $199.

Tagged with: , , , ,

Dead and Buried will be Free for Oculus Touch

The Oculus Touch motion controllers for Oculus Rift are due to launch in just over a month with 30 titles scheduled to arrive. One of those is Dead and Buried, a co-developed title between Oculus Studios and Gunfire Games (Chronos). In a blog posting this week Oculus has revealed the videogame will be available to all Touch owners for free on launch day.

Wild west themed Dead and Buried brings the old school barroom shootout into VR, with teams of two players duelling the death. Armed with pistols, shotguns, grenade launchers and other available weapons littered around the area, players have to use cover to survive as long as possible. Get killed and they’ll be moved to a different location to continue the battle. Whichever team achieves the most kills wins.

Dead and Buried GIF

In the blog posting Oculus Software Engineer Ryan Rutherford gave further details on the upcoming title including a game mode called Robbery. “In this mode, one team tries to rob a train while the other attempts to stop them,” said Rutherford. “The safe is located in the caboose and players battle it out through multiple train cars – sleeper cars, box cars, even a shootout on the roof! When one team wins a skirmish, that team advances while the other falls back.”

Shooting experiences are going to feature quite a bit for Oculus Touch, the controllers are ideally suited to waging gunfights. These will include: Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope by Croteam; Arizona Sunshine by Vertigo Games and Epic Game’s recently revealed Robo Recall.

Unveiled at Oculus Connect 3 last month, Robo Recall is another gallery style shooter, this time with players facing hordes of robots. The title is due to arrive in early 2017 and will be another free experience for gamers to enjoy.

VRFocus will continue its coverage of Oculus Touch, reporting back with any further updates.

Major ‘Dead and Buried’ Update Brings Heists, Zombies and Co-Op To The Oculus Touch Shooter

Major ‘Dead and Buried’ Update Brings Heists, Zombies and Co-Op To The Oculus Touch Shooter

When Oculus Touch launches in December it may already have its killer app releasing right alongside it. Dead and Buried is one of the most exciting titles coming to the already jam packed platform. Developed in-house by Oculus Studios, Dead and Buried is a multiplayer shooter that takes place in a literal ghost town. You assume the role of an other-worldly gunslinger brought back from the grave in order to shoot some bad guys…or some good guys.

We first saw the game demonstrated at an Oculus press event during GDC 2016. At that point, the only gameplay option available was a 2v2 deathmatch that took place in an old-fashioned saloon. Even in its unpolished state, Dead and Buried was still one of the most memorable and enjoyable demos that Oculus showed off at that event. Months later, at Oculus Connect 3, the company pulled back the curtain on the new and improved version of this hotly anticipated title.

The new version of Dead and Buried steps up an already interesting experience with the addition of two new game modes: horde and co-op. The horde mode, which Oculus Studios co-developed with Gunfire Games, lets you take your guns off of your friends and aim them instead at wave after wave of undead enemies.

The main antagonist of horde mode is a banshee-esque witch and her zombie army. You and three friends spawn into one of four cover points set up horizontally from one another. Your job is to gun down monstrosities trying to peel away your cover, and have you for dinner, while keeping yourself and your friends alive.

If you’re killed during the round you remain out-of-service until the next one begins which means there are some true hero-moments where one player can save a session for the rest of the team. There are a variety of enemy types to be aware of including standard zombies, suicide bombers, and even snipers. Each wave gets successively harder and the demo we saw culminated in a boss fight with the witch herself.

The horde mode had our team shouting like maniacs in the middle of a crowded convention hall without hesitation. It’s challenging, entertaining, and a fantastic example of co-operative multiplayer gaming, which is something we have not seen much of on VR platforms just yet. Anyone who’s ever played “what would we do in the zombie apocalypse with their friends will enjoy this immensely.

Every great western needs a great heist and Dead and Buried is no exception. In heist mode you and a friend will compete against two other human opponents as either a duo of lawmen or a posse of outlaws. The robbery, of course, takes place on a train that is divided into several different levels. In each level you need to kill your opponents a certain number of times to either advance up the train as the bandits, or push them back as the sheriffs.

If the ne’er do wells reach the front of the train then they must accomplish one last objective by breaking into a safe using a classic dial-style combination lock. But it won’t be easy as Johnny law is still hot on their tail, guns a-blazing. In this final level one outlaw takes on the safe while another takes on the fuzz with a large shield to aid him or her in that ignoble quest.

Trying to physically spin a dial in real time while bullets are exploding all around you is…stressful to say the least. During our attempt at the great train robbery we dominated all the way until the safe and then lost in spectacular fashion. But maybe we wouldn’t have if DAVID KNEW HOW TO USE A FREAKING SHIELD. Deep breaths Joe, deep breaths.

As fantastic as these two new gameplay modes are, Oculus Studios confirmed on the show floor that there is still more content to be packed into what is shaping up to be a must-have title for day one of the Oculus Touch launch. These other updates include more heists, more guns, and we’re sure, a whole lot more fun.

Dead and and Buried releases on December 6, the same day as Oculus Touch.

Jason Rubin On Facebook’s VR Content Investments: ‘We’re Learning As We Go’

Jason Rubin On Facebook’s Content Investments: ‘We’re Learning As We Go’

On stage at Oculus Connect last week Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg promised his company would spend at least half a billion dollars on content people can see inside an Oculus-powered headset.

The $250 million Zuckerberg promised to spend going forward will be paid in a smarter way than the roughly equal amount the company already spent funding developers, according to Oculus head of content Jason Rubin.

Though Rubin didn’t say this specifically in an interview with UploadVR, we took his comments to mean we are likely to see fewer games like Feral Rites from Insomniac Games, which Upload rated as a 5 out of 10 before the price was dropped from $50 to $30 (and discounted on sale all the way down to $10). Additionally, Oculus provided six free games to people who paid the full price. The incident was the most visible time Facebook/Oculus and its development partners building titles exclusive to Oculus have so greatly missed buyer expectations. According to Rubin, it seems these types of mistakes are informing the way Facebook doles out cash for the next set of projects.

“We’re doing a lot more exploration and I think now we know a little bit more about what people want. So there’s things that we put a decent amount of money into that may not have necessarily resonated,” he said. “So they’re not in your head right now as something that we got out of that money, so to speak. I think in the future, dollars will get to impact in a much more efficient way just because we’re learning as we go and we’ll be smarter with those investments in the future.”

With the Rift in people’s hands, Touch shipping before the end of the year, and support for room scale experiences, it seems Facebook is on the cusp of delivering a more fully realized vision for its Rift system. We asked Rubin whether the realization of that vision means things are slowing down internally. In fact, he said, “it is an explosion of work and an incredible amount of change that we’re seeing inside one company,” and he seemed to indicate the $250 million Zuckerberg promised to spend going forward was merely a placeholder number that could easily be surpassed.

“[Zuckerberg’s] not putting a finite number on it, he’s saying we spent $250 million and we’re going to do it again,” Rubin said.

Rubin reinforced a theme Zuckerberg expressed on stage that he believes the next phase of VR is great software experiences. According to Rubin, second and third generation VR games are likely to be far and away better than what we have now.

“There’s so much work to be done,” Rubin said. “Even if we just all agree in the industry to just stick with this product for eight years along the lines of the old console cycles — there’s still a night and day difference between what you would see on the same hardware today and what you would see in five years.”

Oculus Touch Launch Title Dead and Buried Being Co-Developed by Gunfire Games

The Oculus Touch motion controllers are set to have an extensive line-up of software available for when launch day arrives. At the Oculus Connect 3 conference yesterday Oculus’ Head of Content, Jason Rubin outlined 35 titles that would support Touch at launch and one of those was first-person shooter (FPS), Dead and Buried. Being made internally by Oculus Studios, its now been revealed that Gunfire Games has been co-developing the title.

Gunfire Games, the studio behind Chronos and Herobound: Spirit Champion for Oculus Rift, has announced that its been lending its virtual reality (VR) skills and knowledge to the upcoming title.

Dead and buried image 2

“When Oculus Studios approached us about getting the group behind Herobound, our second Oculus title, back together to work on Dead and Buried, we knew it would be a good fit because we already know the talent of the team they have at Oculus and how well we all work together,”  said Gunfire Games President David Adams.

For the last several months the studio has been assisting the internal Oculus Studios content team in the development of Dead and Buried, by helping them build out additional content and features for the game.

Wild west themed Dead and Buried brings the old school barroom shootout into VR, with teams of two players duelling the death. Armed with pistols, shotguns, grenade launchers and other available weapons littered around the area, players have to use cover to survive as long as possible. Get killed and they’ll be moved to a different location to continue the battle. Whichever team achieves the most kills wins.

The official Oculus Touch price and launch date were revealed this week, along with new incoming features for Oculus Rift and Gear VR, including Rooms, Avatars and Parties.

For all the latest Oculus Rift and Oculus Touch news, keep reading VRFocus.

‘The Order: 1886’ Dev Ready At Dawn Teases OC3 Reveal For New VR Game

‘The Order: 1886’ Dev Ready At Dawn Teases OC3 Reveal For New VR Game

We’re already expecting at least one big game reveal at Oculus Connect 3 this week, but it looks like another is on the way.

Ready At Dawn, the developer behind 2015 PlayStation 4 exclusive The Order: 1886, just teased that it will be revealing a new VR game at the developer conference in San Jose. In the below tweet, the studio notes that it’s on the way to the event and that fans should “Expect some cool stuff from us this week. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve been working on!”

That’s a pretty obvious and exciting giveaway.

Ready At Dawn was confirmed to be one of the Oculus Studios partners back at E3 2015. That means it’s more than likely working on an Oculus Rift exclusive title, but that’s about as much as we can speculate on at this point. The developer is known for cinematic games that get the most out of the platforms they’re appearing on; The Order is still one of the best looking PS4 titles while its God of War spin-offs for Sony’s PSP were technical marvels given the hardware they were running on. That’s a pretty useful skill set to be bringing to VR, where performance is everything.

Eslewhere, the developer is working on a non-VR game named De·formers.

Ready At Dawn isn’t the only studio we’re expecting to make its VR debut at OC3. Metro: 2033 developer 4A Games has been teasing a reveal of its own title during the event too. Could these two be the latest additions to the growing library of Oculus Touch compatible games? We’ll more than likely see both of these announced during tomorrow’s keynote speech, which gets underway at 10:00 am PT. We’ll of course be bringing you all the news from the show.

New games aren’t all we’re expecting to see from OC3 this week. Here are four other topics we’re expecting Oculus to talk about during the show.

Oculus Slash ‘Feral Rites’ Price, Gift 6 Free Games to Existing Owners

In an interesting twist to Insomniac’s VR brawler Feral Rites‘ recent release, Oculus have slashed the price of the game to $29.99 from $49.99 stating the price was “too high”.

See Also: ‘Feral Rites’ Review
See Also: ‘Feral Rites’ Review

In an unusual move, Oculus have seemingly taken on board the critical and fan reaction to Incomniac Games’ recently released fantasy brawler Feral Rites. The title received a lukewarm critical reception on release and it seems those gamers who bought were none too happy with the product they received for the original price of $49.99.

In response however, not only have Oculus slashed the price of the game on the Oculus Store to $29.99, they’ve also emailed all of those who purchased the game at full price informing them that they have been gifted 6 free games as compensation. Those customer also have an option to a full refund as well.

Furthermore, Feral Rites has also now been added to the Fall sale on Oculus Store at an even lower price of $9.99. Oculus’ letter to customers (a copy of which was shared on reddit by user ChrisCypher):

Hi,

Oculus Studios, its developers, and its players are all pioneers in the new world of VR content. As such, we’re all learning as we go.

As you know, Oculus Studios and Insomniac Games recently released a game called Feral Rites. Our teams felt the product was of high quality and, due to the depth and length of play, a price of $49.99 was chosen. You were one of the dedicated VR enthusiasts that tried the game at that price. For that, we thank you!

After listening to the community the last few days, it has become evident to us that this price was too high. So we’ve decided to drop the price.

Today you’ll find Feral Rites for $29.99 on the Oculus store. We’ve also added the title to our Fall Sale at $9.99.

For pioneers like you, who gave the game a chance at the original price and gave us the valuable feedback we need, we’ve decided to add six Oculus Studios’ games to your account at no cost: 

  • AirMech Command
  • Damaged Core
  • Defense Grid 2: Enhanced VR Edition
  • Chronos
  • Edge of Nowhere
  • The Climb

The games should automatically appear in your library by Sunday, September 18. If you have questions, or if you’d rather have a refund of the purchase price, please contact the Oculus support team at support.oculus.com and click “Contact Us”.

We thank you for your trust in Oculus Studios and Insomniac Games, and appreciate your continued help as we bring VR to the world.
— Oculus Studios

Developers of Feral Rites, Insomniac Games, have posted an update to their website announcing the price change and compensation stating:

As we do with all our games, we’ve paid careful attention and responded to player feedback so far. We appreciate the support from everyone who has experienced Feral Rites, and we understand the concerns as well — especially about the game’s price. Effective immediately, the price of Feral Rites is $29.99. The game’s original price was largely based on all the work that went into it. We’re proud that Feral Rites is among the largest VR games of its kind available today.

It’s heartening to see Oculus, who are slowly but carefully building up a valuable user base for their Oculus Store content portal, to not only listen but react so swiftly to a game’s reception. Feral Rites was one of Oculus Studios’ key exclusive titles for the Rift and acknowledging there were issues with the way it was sold and taking action hopefully bodes well for the future.

The post Oculus Slash ‘Feral Rites’ Price, Gift 6 Free Games to Existing Owners appeared first on Road to VR.

Get Access to High Voltage’s Dragon Front Beta When You Buy Damaged Core For Oculus Rift

It was reported not too long ago that Damaged Core, developed by High Voltage, was to release yesterday. Along with this release it was also announced that consumers would also get access to the beta build of High Voltage’s upcoming collectible card game (CCG), Dragon Front.

Not much was shared before about Damaged Core, but in the latest Oculus blog post there is much more detail, and the concept might be something that sparks interest for its unique twist. The title is a first person shooter (FPS) where the player takes the role of a human-friendly AI where they can teleport into enemy robots and effectively self destruct them, following a hostile machine uprising.

damaged core screenshot

The title is described as “well-paced”, where it offers a balance of risk and reward. As you take over your enemies, you must take them down and jump to safety before you yourself are taken down.

Dragon Front, however, is a completely different kind of title, but it is still High Voltage working with Oculus Studios, so this partnership seems to be much more deeply set than a one-title partnership. This CCG lets players battle it out against each other where all that matters is skill level and how well their units perform when they come to life. There are boss battles between players and competitive leader boards, and players can choose from 280 characters, 80 different encampments, and more than 100 spells.

Dragon-Front-Screenshot700

However, time’s running out as this offer for Dragon Front is only available during its launch week, which will finish on 6th September at 11.59 PT. Damaged Core is available for the Oculus Rift for $29.99 (USD).

For more on the latest releases, as well as all the news, updates, and features in the world of VR, make sure to check back with VRFocus.