Sports titles in virtual reality (VR) have proven to be very popular, especially if they have a strong multiplayer element to them. Last year indie developer One Hamsa launched a futuristic, tennis style experience called Racket: Nx for HTC Vive, subsequently bringing the experience to Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality headsets for cross platform gameplay. Now the team has revealed its on course for a full release in July.
Featuring both single-player and co-op, PvP multiplayer, Racket: Nx is a frantic, point scoring experience inside a 360-degree dome. Players have to hit different coloured wall panels to accumulate enough points to progress to the next stage when playing solo, or score enough to beat their opponent in multiplayer.
While the Steam Early Access time has seen plenty of additions, the main gameplay modes have remained the same throughout; two single-player modes (campaign and endless play) as well as competitive multiplayer (online and local). The final build will include even more features including dozens of new handcrafted levels, an extensive powerup system, new tile types, environments and more.
Due to Racket: Nx’s gameplay, decent spatial audio is a must to keep track of the ball. To do this the Racket: Nx team partnered with global audio brand Waves to use their Nx spatial audio technology, allowing for high quality realtime positional audio simulation, not only aiding players immersion but also allowing them to rely on their ears as well as their eyes to tell them what’s where.
Featuring an original soundtrack which includes popular Progressive Trance artists such as Mr Bill, Electrypnose and Digicult,Racket: Nx will continue to offer full cross-platform compatibility between HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality headsets.
Currently One Hamsa and publisher Keshet International Gaming have given a launch window of July 2018. When the teams specify a concrete released date for Racket: Nx, VRFocus will let you know.
Racket: Nx is an impressively polished and physical VR arcade sport which plays like a mashup of futuristic racquetball and pinball. Currently in Early Access (and rated 99% positive), the game is due to get a major ‘Early Access 2’ update on July 27th that brings with it a host of improvements from physics to gameplay to music.
Racket: Nx puts players in the middle of a 360 degree dome with panels that light up in all directions. Each panel can net you points, power ups, or penalties upon contact, depending on how skillfully you can land the futuristic hovering ball. Underpinned by the ‘Waves Nx’ spatial audio tech, the attention to the game’s soundscape is fantastic, with the sounds of the ball represented in all directions around you, rich sound effects throughout, and a bass-bumping beat to tie it all together. Visually and audibly, Racket: Nx is one of the most polished games you’ll find on SteamVR, and it works with both the Vive and the Rift.
That’s why we’re excited to see the big Early Access 2 update coming on July 27th. The new update reworks key parts of the game—including physics and gameplay—and focuses on making Racket: Nx an increasingly competitive and fast-paced experience, with leaderboards and a multiplayer league with skill-based rankings and career statistics. Some of the biggest changes coming to the Early Access 2 update are to the game’s physics and arena layout.
The developers say the physics have received a major rework which aims to increase player control and intentionality, so that you can get the ball where you want it to go with greater consistency.
The game’s arena has been adjusted for a new gameplay feel. The new arena is smaller, which ups the pace of each match by decreasing the ball’s travel time between your racket and the wall. Along with that change comes and overall new layout of scoring elements; the wall can now develop one-way boundaries which the ball can pass through in only one direction, creating pockets of scoring potential (or penalty) depending upon where you manage to land your shot. The dome is now fully spherical, which means the ball will roll back into the main scoring area if it slides toward the top or bottom of the sphere, which can result in some lucky moments. With the changes come a new color scheme featuring more neon oranges and blues than the game’s formerly signature muted green.
The Racket: Nx Early Access 2 update also brings with it an original soundtrack that seems perfectly suited for the game’s impactful nature. Developer One Hamsa teases “the likes of Mr. Bill, Electrypnose, and Digicult. With Progressive Trance, Psytrance, Glitch and IDM,” with all of the game’s music made in six channels for spatial playback surrounding the player.
With a 99% positive rating on steam across nearly 180 reviews, Racket: Nx is one of SteamVR’s top rated games and is priced at $20 in Early Access, with the Early Access 2 update coming on July 27th. There’s also a free demo available for download on the game’s Steam page.
Another week and another anniversary, this time its HTC Vive’s. To celebrate its first birthday the company has rolled out several promotions, giving away Arcade Saga for free, dropping the price of the headset, and launching the Viveport Subscription Service. But what has this first year meant for developers and where do they see the next 12 months heading? VRFocus caught up with some studio’s to get their reactions.
HTC Vive was the first headset to allow users to physically walk around in a virtual world, which was a big draw for many studios including Waltz of the Wizard developer Aldin Dynamics. Hrafn Thorri Thorisson, Aldin’s CEO said : “At the time Vive debuted, no platform was able to deliver full freedom of movement and hand tracking. Those capabilities are vital in letting you move and act as in reality, paving the way towards mainstream adoption by making the user experience more powerful and intuitive. It were the system capabilities that we at Aldin had been waiting for since we got into VR in 2013.
“HTC and Valve have been a powerful force in pushing this industry forward and they play a large role in making us more excited than ever about where things are headed. Virtual reality is a medium that will be constantly evolving for decades to come and their approach to fostering collaboration and an open platform is driving the industry forward at a faster rate than otherwise possible. We fully expect motion controllers and roomscale to remain the most powerful form of VR, and we’re starting to see the rest of the industry align with that philosophy.”
While VRUnicorns Julie Heyde also spoke highly of HTC Vive’s roomscale capabilities: “Us VRUnicorns love how the Vive and roomscale set-up in general added so much more to VR than other devices. We are game jammers and want to push games to the fullest, interact with everything in our games and give our players the best VR experience possible without too many hardware constraints. Because in VR you want to be able to do whatever you want. And that freedom will grow as the future generations of VR become better on every front: more high fidelity tracking, more feedback, more interactivity, better graphics. And we think that this can be best supported through smart, ambitious choices, not compromise.”
Steve Bowler, President, CloudGate Studio, creators of Island 359 and avid Vive Tracker enthusiasts had this to say: “We at CloudGate obviously were blown away with the incredible potential of the Vive when we first put our hands on the developer kits; enough to quit our jobs and form our own company so we could pursue room scale VR full time. As we enter Year 2 of consumer VR, we’re incredibly excited that we get to work with an incredible partner like HTC. The Trackers are going to open up new horizons we didn’t even know were possible and we can’t wait to see what the future holds for VR! Happy Birthday, Vive!”
“Like many new content platforms, it starts with experimentation such as passion projects and short experiences. Once there is consumer adoption we begin to see growth and monetization. We’re already seeing an ancillary VR marketplace which includes accessories for shooter type games, wireless adapters for cordless play, skins for HMD’s etc. It’s exactly this kind of commitment that drives the innovation and brings VR mainstream,” Russell Naftal, Co-Managing Partner at VRWERX replied. “Regarding the HTC Vive team, they have been extremely active lately, from investments in third party developers to subscription gaming, and more recently, distribution with the launch of Viveport. One thing for sure, HTC Vive absolutely believes in the future of VR.”
Carsten Boserup, Community Manager at Racket: Nx developer One Hamsa sees the platform as the perfect way to enjoy sports, and wireless high-end VR is the next step. “My eyes have been widely open to the fact that VR Sport is here and it is growing fast. People who don’t have much spare time and who have to chose between going to the gym or play games, are now burning calories and getting their heart beating, in their own living room while playing VR sports games,” effused Boserup. “You can already enjoy VR Sport games in full 360 on the HTC Vive. Though, when the wireless HTC Vive arrives, it’ll change sports and how we exercise today, dramatically… in a good way!”
The consumer VR space is incredibly exciting right now,” said Simon Windsor, Joint MD, (Co-founder) Hammerhead VR. “As an immersive content studio producing consumer titles we’re feeling good about early market growth and have high expectations for the coming year. We’re looking forward to the release of more diverse, premium quality titles from indies and established studios alike, which we see further fuelling consumer interest and adoption. In particular the fast growing VR arcade market, which Vive is a huge proponent of, will unleash some very cool, ultra-quality experiences to excite consumers.
These early days of consumer VR have lead to a lot of experimentation within the community, but with some companies eager to get on board this has also meant quite a few similar titles. But this will expand and the quality will further improve expects Denny Unger, CEO and Creative Director, Cloudhead Games.
“At launch there was a push to establish best practices which gave everyone a base level to develop towards. Since then we’ve seen further experimentation, far too many wave shooters, late attempts at longer format AAA-like experiences, and Hollywood desperately trying to wrap its head around what it all means for their industry,” said Unger. “I think that the next wave of development will continue to be content focused but with a push towards polished games, tools/training, as well as Hollywood taking a much deeper dive. In Asia at least, the industry will likely attempt to balance out a slow growth home market with location based multiplayer experiences, while in North America we will be purely content fixated.
“Beyond the next year the market is going to slowly become a very competitive place and we may start seeing some homogony in terms of platform. Hardware will improve and prices will shift. That will signal a tipping point for the industry and that’s when things get really interesting.”
Do you agree with the devs? Or do you see HTC Vive and VR going in a different direction? What do you hope will happen in the next 12 months? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
This game is in Early Access which means the developers have deemed it incomplete and likely to see changes over time. This review is an assessment of the game’s current state, and will not receive a numerical score.
At its core Racket: Nx is a game about a racket, a ball, and a futuristic dome. Players will come to love all three: the thwack of a good hit; the sweeps and whooshes of a ball whizzing overhead; the pop and fizz of particles as a target is hit sweetly right in the centre. Here comes the ball again… line yourself up and take the next shot. It succeeds in making you feel like an heroic player as you unleash fierce volleys and subtle dinks.
We have written about Racket: Nx a couple of times before. Now, launched today into Early Access on Steam, (ahead of an anticipated late 2017 full release) we have a chance to revisit the latest version, this time with the much anticipated multiplayer support enabled.
Gameplay
I’ll cut right to the chase: the multiplayer is a blast. Fast, fun, satisfying and guaranteed to bring out the competitive streak in anybody. The avatars are really expressive—I’m going to go with ‘Alien Lizard Robot with Sound Activated Brain’ as the best descriptor here—so you can see the effect of play on your opponent as they lunge for a fast moving ball or pull off an impossible seeming back hand while the integrated chat makes sure you’ll hear every grunt and curse as play progresses. And there will be cursing, believe me.
Unfortunately, due to a last minute issue, it looks like Racket: Nx will launch with a small bug that sometimes hangs the game when you opt for a rematch. Exiting back to Steam and restarting the game gets it working again. It’s the only blight on an otherwise very impressive Early Access debut, and hopefully can be resolved soon.
In the multiplayer mode the arena moves through a set number of waves and, at the end of the final wave, the player with the highest score takes the win. Each wave features a different set of target types all around the players and offers a unique challenge. Every point you score takes a point away from your opponent, and vice versa, so there’s a lovely tug-of-war aspect at play here after you both start with 50 points. You will take it in turns to strike the ball, whose excellent and very satisfying physics haven’t lost anything in the months of tweaking since the demo.
Each time the ball hits the wall surrounding the arena it will change colour, alternating between your colour and your opponent’s, and will then return towards the appropriate player with the angle and speed determined by the previous shot. In this way you can make life difficult for the opposition simply by applying excessive power to a shot or ensuring the ball will return from an unfavourable angle. If they miss their shot the ball will pass them by, hit the wall, and then it will be your turn again and they just lost a chance to put points on the board.
In essence when you strike the ball its trajectory feels real, controllable, and believable. When the ball is returning, however, it’s more game-like as it homes in on the next player and you really feel like you’re inside a futuristic sport arena playing hyper-Squash.
There is a welcome element of gamesmanship and far deeper tactical play than I was expecting, in terms of shot selection and thinking a few hits ahead and taking advantage of a slip (literal or figurative) from your opponent. Added to this, the game features power-ups: cells that require multiple hits to break down with the player that lands that final shot reaping a bonus, warp cells that suck the ball in and spit it out randomly through another warp point, hit streaks, moving targets, and the ability to angle your shot just so and see it slide across multiple cells thus raking in the points; and later on there are negative cells that drain your score….
At time’s it’s breathless entertainment, and a good rally will have you laughing at the sheer thrill of it all. It feels very pure, very old school, and very polished. For a game in the vanguard of the initial VR wave—embracing the most modern gaming tech—in the hands, it whisks you back to playgrounds and simpler times.
After spending an hour in the new multiplayer mode with developer One Hamsa’s Community Director Carsten Boserup (and despite being heavily beaten by Carsten in every game we played) I had a great time. As the matches ebbed and flowed I did occasionally find a flurry of good form that felt very rewarding.
One Hamsa describe this as a VR Sport game, and they want player skill and ability to be front and centre. It’s easy to see how, with regular play, I could evolve and improve as a player to the point where I would be far more competitive, as with any “real” sport.
Despite an hour of energetic but friendly competition, the game didn’t leave me exhausted. Obviously a lot will depend on your individual build, level of fitness, style of play and what you want out of the game. Those simply looking for a fun sports game can just play it in a more relaxed way. Those looking for a moderate workout, or as a way to burn some calories, can play it more energetically.
No matter how you game, you will want to make sure your play area is sufficiently spacious and clear. I’m quite tall, with a long reach, and was conscious at all times that a sudden lunge or desperate swing could end in disaster. Equally, it’s all too easy to potentially get caught up in the trailing cables if you’re not careful. By now most VR gamers are accustomed to this but newer players will want to take extra care.
The ‘Alien Lizard Robot with Sound Activated Brain’ avatars actually fit fairly well within the feel of the game.
On the single player side there is a Solo mode featuring five challenges, each of which has a different and escalating combination of waves to master. This is a great mode in its own right, and very difficult to beat, but also acts as a primer for the multiplayer. The enemy here is the clock, as you fight against time to clear each wave, making just a little more progress each time.
When playing solo you can squeeze the trigger to change the ball’s trajectory by attracting it to the racket like a magnet, and the risk here is that the ball can shatter your racket if you don’t release the trigger in time, costing vital seconds as it regenerates. The reward is that you can potentially set up some crucial shots that keep you in the game.
There’s also an Arcade mode offering infinite play against the clock, but the Custom mode (whereby you can build and share your own set of waves) is currently unavailable, clearly intended for a later version.
Racket: Nx is available via Steam for the HTC Vive initially, though the developer has confirmed to Road to VR that they plan to add Rift and Touch support later this year. Though there isn’t yet “official” support, apparently people have been able to play it on the Rift through SteamVR, but I’d advise waiting a while to see the extent to which it’s playable in this way (as the game is built for 360 tracking, which not everyone with Touch has). As we move through the three planned quarterly Early Access updates (with tweaks and hotfixes as necessary in between) One Hamsa’s feature and post-Vive plans should become clearer.
It’s in those plans that the potential of Early Access could be maximised. While the developers have their own vision of where they want to take the game in the coming months, they are very much looking to the community to help shape their priorities and suggest new avenues that the game might explore. Modding is potentially on the table if there’s enough interest, and—given its Unity underpinnings and presence on the Steam platform—I’m certain there would be no shortage of people keen to experiment.
It’s a shame we have to wait until the end of the year for the finished article then, but there’s already enough here to warrant your consideration if you enjoyed the demo (available for free on the game’s Steam page), and the promise of more to come.
At $20—a price that will likely rise throughout the year as features are added—it falls into what we might consider the lower middle tier of VR pricing. Some people might baulk at the value proposition, and on the face of it there are cheaper VR experiences, but in a dollar-per-hour analysis there is a lot of potential play to be had in the game and the production values are above the norm.
Most of you will know from trying the demo whether this floats your boat, and whether it’s worth twenty bucks to you or not. If it is, I hope to see you in the multiplayer. I’ll be the tall British guy with the insane power shot who is slowly improving, match after match.
Immersion
The whole package is presented neatly with a front end that smoothly moves between modes, builds up the 360 arena around you at the start of each match and explodes it away at the end. The sense of presence is excellent and the sound is clear and precise, which lends an air of believability to the notion that you’re bounding a futuristic ball off of futuristic walls using a futuristic racket.
It’s not Discs of Tron (1983), but it is very much like being in the Tron universe. Everything seems very real and solid, from the game world to the simple act of hitting the ball.
Comfort
The fact that you are always located in the same position whether selecting options or playing the game means that comfort is excellent throughout. You are always in control in how you move in your play area and where you look; the only discomfort might come from the act of exercise itself, as it’s all too possible to wind up for a really big hit and overstretch yourself if you’re not careful.
You’ll want to make sure your play space is on the upper end of recommendations. Don’t play this if your ceiling is low or there are walls close to the edge of your play area unless you can be very disciplined in your movement.
The whole experience is so comfortable that spending a lot of time in the game is very pleasant—at least until the warmer weather arrives, at which point you’d better have air-conditioning or things are going to get very sweaty very quickly.
We partnered with AVA Direct to create the Exemplar 2 Ultimate, our high-end VR hardware reference point against which we perform our tests and reviews. Exemplar 2 is designed to push virtual reality experiences above and beyond what’s possible with systems built to lesser recommended VR specifications.
Summary
In Racket: Nx the HTC Vive can claim another worthy roomscale experience. It feels like a real sport, and when you’re in there everything else just fades into the background as you find yourself in the zone trying to beat your previous performances or the opponent standing opposite you. Time will tell how much One Hamsa can evolve and broaden the experience throughout its Early Access run, but what we have here is a very impressive beginning. Even if you’re not quite ready to jump in now, this is one to watch.
This game is in Early Access which means the developers have deemed it incomplete and likely to see changes over time. This review is an assessment of the game’s current state, and will not receive a numerical score.
Last year Waves Nx completed a successful Kickstarter campaign to produce a device that made any set of headphones produce 3D audio. To promote the product the company partnered with developer One Hamsa to create a virtual reality (VR) experience, this became Racket: Nx for HTC Vive. Since the summer Vive owners have been able to play a free single-player demo – imagine playing squash by yourself – now that’s been expanded into multiplayer and Racket: Nx benefits greatly.
Racket: Nx is an out and out sports title, compare it to any game which involves a racket of some sort (badminton, tennis, table tennis, etc), just with a bit of sci-fi flare. Players are located in the centre of a dome, on a slightly raised platform. This dome is made up of hexagonal panels which illuminate with different options depending on the game mode or difficulty.
With a single racket – quickly switchable if you’ve got both controllers – you then have a single floating orb to smack around the arena hitting said panels, scoring points in turn. While these increase the game time in single-player, it’s in multiplayer that Racket: Nx becomes far more tactical and frantic.
This is pure one-on-one competition, with you facing your opponent in the sci-fi arena. You each have 50 points allocated, and the match ends when either player has 100 points or the most points at the end of the final set. Scored points are added to one player by removing them from the other, so matches can be a fraught fight to the finish.
One Hamsa’s included a variety of panels, some of which provide points, some remove points, while others simply change the whole direction and pace of the video game. Its this mixture, alongside actually hitting the ball with accuracy that provides a compelling sports experience. Single panels can be destroyed for minimum points, while groups of panels require several successive hits before allocating points, so care must be taking not to let your opponent get that final strike.
But controlling the match and the panels comes down to good old racket skills. If you’ve played tennis or those other sports previously mentioned you should find Racket: Nx fairly easy to pick up. The orb can be hit around the arena, ricoceting off the walls and floors, scoring a few points, experts will learn how to spin and bend the balls flight. While it does look cool, adding the right amount of spin and power to your shots will see it curve around the arena, adding sizable combo points which can turn a match on its head.
As a Steam Early Access title, Racket: Nx is still in the early stages with the core gameplay in place. Presently multiplayer could provide hours and hours worth of gaming by itself – so long as the audience is there – but its does have the solo play to fall back on. But that’s not the point, at it’s heart Racket: Nx is a competitive sports title, and depending on where the studio takes development could become an eSport of the future.
One Hamsa, developers of VR sports game Racket: Nx, announced that the Early Access version will arrive on Steam in late January 2017. This first version will also include “competitive” multiplayer and a new single player mode.
The Racket Nx demo, introduced to Steam on August 17th, remains one of the most enjoyable sports experiences for the HTC Vive. Described by developers One Hamsa as an ‘arcade space sport’, it takes the simple concept of squash and amplifies the intensity level with a clean, futuristic visual style, and gameplay elements inspired by classic arcade block-breaking games like Breakout and Arkanoid.
In a recent announcement posted on the title’s news page on Steam, it was confirmed that the target for the initial Early Access release is late January 2017. The title was due to launch by the end of this year, but One Hamsa states the addition of a new development partner as the reason for the slight delay.
Encouraging very hard swings of a controller and energetic, roomscale movement, Racket Nx is already a great workout. The addition of a multiplayer mode is an exciting announcement, as the game has the potential to be a competitive esport where physical fitness will be an advantage. Exactly how the multiplayer mode is structured remains to be seen, but we’re promised that it will be “competitive”, and come with the initial Early Access release. In addition, a new single-player mode will be introduced, along with new gameplay features and a ‘bunch of other stuff’, some of which is the result of community feedback from the demo.
Throughout 2017, the developers say that Racket Nx will receive several updates, with plans for more multiplayer modes, a league system, a level editor (as hinted in the demo), and esport features such as an observer mode and custom match settings. ‘Sick music’ is also promised, which should add to the already-outstanding positional audio; the ‘Nx’ in the title is named after the Nx plugin for pro-audio software Waves that simulates 3D audio (the game was originally developed as a partnership with Waves to showcase their audio technology).
Our first impressions were very positive, and it’s great to hear ambitious plans from the developers for the year ahead. If you’ve not already checked out the demo, it is still available here, and well worth a look.
While VRUnicorns Julie Heyde also spoke highly of HTC Vive’s roomscale capabilities: “Us VRUnicorns love how the Vive and roomscale set-up in general added so much more to VR than other devices. We are game jammers and want to push games to the fullest, interact with everything in our games and give our players the best VR experience possible without too many hardware constraints. Because in VR you want to be able to do whatever you want. And that freedom will grow as the future generations of VR become better on every front: more high fidelity tracking, more feedback, more interactivity, better graphics. And we think that this can be best supported through smart, ambitious choices, not compromise.”
Carsten Boserup, Community Manager at Racket: Nx developer One Hamsa sees the platform as the perfect way to enjoy sports, and wireless high-end VR is the next step. “My eyes have been widely open to the fact that VR Sport is here and it is growing fast. People who don’t have much spare time and who have to chose between going to the gym or play games, are now burning calories and getting their heart beating, in their own living room while playing VR sports games,” effused Boserup. “You can already enjoy VR Sport games in full 360 on the HTC Vive. Though, when the wireless HTC Vive arrives, it’ll change sports and how we exercise today, dramatically… in a good way!”
