Every so often Humble Bundle rolls out an awesome new limited time offer and there’s one available right now for the next couple of weeks. Called the “VR Discovery” bundle, the deal combines seven videogames and one soundtrack for one ridiculously cheap price.
The games on offer aren’t some random bottom of the bin ones either, they actually showcase how varied VR titles can be, from comedic single-player adventures to co-op multiplayer and rhythm action games.
Love cooking with mates? Then try Resolution Games’ Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale where up to four players have to serve hungry customers as fast as possible. Looking for a puzzle title that’s atmospheric with an engrossing storyline, you want Red Matter? It takes place in an alternate future on an abandoned base on Rhea, one of Saturn’s moons. When it comes to comedic Squanch Games’ Trover Saves the Universehas got you covered. Trover is a purple eye-hole monster trying to save the universe from a beaked lunatic named Glorkon who has kidnapped your dogs and put them in his eye sockets (yup no joke).
There’s more multiplayer mayhem to be found in Blaston, another Resolution Games title, this time a PvP shooter where two players duel it out in slow motion. While Panoptic is a local multiplayer game of cat and mouse, where the VR player is the Overseer trying to hunt down tiny beings controlled by a mate on PC. And then you’ve got Synth Riders, the rhythm action title that features tracks from bands like Muse.
Rounding out the VR Discovery bundle roster is Tower Tag and its accompanying soundtrack. Tower Tag is a sci-fi PvP shooter with 10 maps, 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 matches and Team Deathmatch, Elimination and Goal Tower gameplay modes.
So how much does this all cost? As a charitable endeavour, Humble Bundle runs a pay what you want scheme with a small starting price. The “VR Discovery” bundle with all that content starts at £9 GBP with buyers encouraged to top that up if they can, enabling more donations to be given to organisations like the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund or GamesAid.
For all the latest Humble Bundle VR deals, keep reading gmw3.
Panoptic has been floating around in various pre-release forms for a little while now, but it’s definitely a perfect game for a pandemic. It’s a two-player game where one wears the headset in an effort to vaporize the other, who is traversing the landscape on their computer. Panoptic is a creative, intimate game of hide and seek where any unnatural movements can give the hiding player away.
Panoptic is a pretty simple set up. The VR player is a god-like giant overseer, who stands in the void around the level watching over everything. They are looking for an interloper whose goal is to destroy glowing balls of power.
All the little beings of the world look identical, including the player. These hapless denizens wander about the level doing, well, something, while the player exists among trying to look nonchalant. There are also watchers. These are guard creatures that can feel out the player and move today them, but they can’t attack the player. They only serve to point the overseer in the right direction.
The PC player can hide in groups of citizens and even engage in simple work actions (they like to gather around energy spots), but to win they have to creep toward the power points and destroy them.
The VR player views the entire level, standing in the middle of the sprawled-out, multi-level structures. Within this sphere of perception, their job is to find the single interloper and kill them. This giant entity is really just a set of eyes. Its piercing gaze is also its weapon. Wherever you look a red translucent spot appears. Press the trigger on the VR controller and that spot focuses into a tight circle, whereupon you can unleash a sniper shot.
The recharge for the shot is configurable to make it faster or slower, and therefore more or less challenging. Hitting a moving target this way can be trying and aiming under pressure is surprisingly intense. Since the Overseer exists just outside the levels, there’s a limit to what they can see. You can raise an lower the maps, peer in close, but there are spots where the PC player can be mostly hidden.
The overseer can’t interact with the environment in anyway either. Aside from shooting at the citizens, they’re largely passive observers and there are definitely times when it would be fun to grab the little beings of the world for a better look or just to shake them. The VR controls are kept simple. The trigger on the control charges your shot, the secondary trigger lets you move the map around for better views.
On the PC side, controls are much like any first-person perspective game. Using the mouse and keyboard or control pad, they must blend in with the rest of the citizens as they move closer to the power orbs. Walking in groups, interacting with the environment in certain spots to look they’re AI, and just generally not running, jumping, and frolicking around are all vital for survival.
Panoptic Review – Comfort
Since the VR player isn’t, strictly speaking moving around as in a more traditional game, but instead moving the map around them or simply peering in closer to the environment, Panoptic is a pretty chill VR experience. It is possible to accidentally move the map into the walls, which is disorienting and a little annoying.
The game is dark in both theme and aesthetic design. The handful of distinctive levels have a dreary fantasy/industrial vibe, with a low poly bent and beautiful mood lighting. Seeing the entire map from VR really shows off the graphic panache in its full scale, though seeing it from the PC player’s perspective really enunciates the oppressive nature of the world. The game is also almost too dark on the PC side.
Key options can be set before the match to accommodate player skills. Aside from the recharge rate of the overseer’s shots, there are options to limit the amount of wrong kills they can make, which really amps up the pressure for the VR player, and choices for the effectiveness of the watchers.
Panoptic Review Final Impressions
Panoptic definitely feels like an experimental game. Its design is kept simple and direct, but it’s polished and entertaining. Unless the developer releases additional maps in the future, it’s still sadly unlikely to hold most players’ attention for the long term. Still, Panoptic is exceptionally good at what it does. A challenging and fun game with a lovely minimalist design, its same-PC multiplayer functionality is perfect for being cooped up in the house with someone you love, yet still want to (virtually) snipe.
You can find Panoptic on Steam now for $16.99 with support for Rift, Vive, Index, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. This review was conducted using a Steam copy of the game on an Oculus Rift. You can find more details on the game’s official website.
Das belgische Entwicklerteam Panoptes hat heute die Veröffentlichung von Panoptic auf Steam angekündigt. Das VR-Versteckspiel für zwei Personen ist jetzt auf HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Valve Index und Windows Mixed Reality für 16,99€ und einem Rabatt von 40% erhältlich.
Panoptic verlässt heute den Early Access auf Steam
Panoptic ist ein lokales Mehrspieler-VR-Spiel, bei dem zwei Spielende in einem Katz-und-Maus-Spiel gegeneinander antreten. Entweder als der riesige Aufseher oder als winziger Herausforderer.
Bei Panoptic betritt eine Person die virtuelle Realität als der Hüter, ein mächtiges Wesen, das die Welt und ihre Bewohner nach Anzeichen für einen Aufstand durchsucht. Die andere Person benutzt den PC und wird zu einem der winzigen Wesen unter dem wachsamen Auge des Hüters, mit der Aufgabe, die Energiequellen des Hüters zu zerstören.
Panoptic, the game that pits a single VR-clad giant against a tiny PC adversary in a game of deadly hide & seek, just launched out of Early Access today.
First launching as a free demo on Steam back in 2016, Panoptic puts you in the shoes of a giant ‘Overseer’ in VR, giving you the laser power of the Panopticon which lets you temporarily focus your light to incinerate a suspected enemy.
Your friend, who plays via keyboard and mouse on the same computer, is the ‘Challenger’ and they must slink around to carry out tasks and eventually bring down the Goliath. Hiding from the Overseer’s powerful gaze isn’t easy, but they can’t look everywhere at once. The Challenger must slip away into the crowd of faceless NPCs and hide behind the crenelated architecture of the ‘Sanctum’ as they destroy life-giving energy orbs.
Thanks to Steam Remote Play, you can also challenge your friends online. Since it’s not a latency intensive game, it’s nearly indistinguishable from face-to-face play. Granted, the game plays best in groups of onlookers, but considering that nowadays—for some overwhelmingly obvious reason—those sorts of gatherings simply aren’t possible, it’s nice to know you can have essentially the same asymmetric action from afar.
It’s been a long road for Belgium-based indie studio Team Panoptes, with its 2016 demo sparking a lot of initial interest in the game. Launching into Early Access in 2019, Panoptic has benefitted from several updates which include everything from new maps to community-driven bug fixes.
As a part of a launch day special, Panoptic on Steam is currently 40% off the retail price of $17, coming to just over $10. The game supports all SteamVR headsets including Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest via Link, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Windows VR headsets.
Check out some of Node’s playtesting below to get a feel for what Panoptic has to offer.
Panoptic, a long-awaited local multiplayer VR game, is nearly ready for prime time.
The PC VR title, from Belgian studio Team Panoptes, will arrive in full on Steam on October 8th. It will cost $16.99 or £14.99. The game first came to Early Access on Steam last year and the developer has steadily expanded on it since. Now it’s ready to leave pre-release.
Panoptic Full Release Confirmed
Panoptic is a promising local multiplayer VR game in which one player puts on a headset and the other uses a traditional screen. While most VR titles that take this approach have cooperative gameplay, Panoptic is actually an intriguing competitive title. The VR player assumes the role of a massive Overseer that uses headset tracking to scan for the other player, who plays as a tiny Challenger. Check out the trailer above.
As you can see, Panoptic is built around a tense game of cat and mouse. The PC player has to avoid detection by blending in with other NPCs littering the game world and hiding behind obstacles and sticking to the shadows in hopes of destroying the Overseer’s energy sources. The Overseer is able to shoot the Challenger with a laser beam that will take them out with one hit, so caution is essential.
It looks like it could be a lot of fun. Sadly there’s no word on a possible PSVR version just yet, though it feels like the game could find a natural home there. Quest less so, considering you’d need a second screen, though we’d be intrigued to see if there was any solution around that.
Will you be picking up Panoptic? Let us know in the comments below!
Panoptic, a long-awaited local multiplayer VR game, is nearly ready for prime time.
The PC VR title, from Belgian studio Team Panoptes, will arrive in full on Steam on October 8th. It will cost $16.99 or £14.99. The game first came to Early Access on Steam last year and the developer has steadily expanded on it since. Now it’s ready to leave pre-release.
Panoptic Full Release Confirmed
Panoptic is a promising local multiplayer VR game in which one player puts on a headset and the other uses a traditional screen. While most VR titles that take this approach have cooperative gameplay, Panoptic is actually an intriguing competitive title. The VR player assumes the role of a massive Overseer that uses headset tracking to scan for the other player, who plays as a tiny Challenger. Check out the trailer above.
As you can see, Panoptic is built around a tense game of cat and mouse. The PC player has to avoid detection by blending in with other NPCs littering the game world and hiding behind obstacles and sticking to the shadows in hopes of destroying the Overseer’s energy sources. The Overseer is able to shoot the Challenger with a laser beam that will take them out with one hit, so caution is essential.
It looks like it could be a lot of fun. Sadly there’s no word on a possible PSVR version just yet, though it feels like the game could find a natural home there. Quest less so, considering you’d need a second screen, though we’d be intrigued to see if there was any solution around that.
Will you be picking up Panoptic? Let us know in the comments below!
VR games are difficult to market, especially when they don’t fit obviously into existing genres. Here’s 12 gems you may have overlooked but are well worth your consideration.
Updated – August 21st, 2020
The Paradox of VR Game Development
There exists a paradox of sorts in the VR game development landscape: many of VR’s most interesting games just don’t look like the sort of non-VR games we’re all familiar with. By not obviously fitting into existing genres—the ‘shooter’, ‘RPG’, ‘racer’, ‘puzzler’, etc—it’s very difficult to actually market such titles, no matter how excellent they may be.
The result, as I’ve found over the years, is a surprising number of ‘indie VR gems’: VR titles which are much better than their lack of noteirty would suggest. Oftentimes these games are rated exceptionally well by those who give them a chance, but getting people to decide to try them in the first place is the real challenge.
This is a double bummer because it’s these very developers—who are thinking outside the box and discovering what native VR games actually look like—which we should supporot if we want to accelerate the maturation of VR game design. Indies are usually working with small teams and shoestring budgets; if they don’t at least break-even with each VR project, it’s unlikely that they will be able to justify a followup and continue to help push VR game design forward.
So, if you want to help VR succeed, and have some fun in the process, take a careful look at these 12 indie VR gems and consider giving them a shot. I would be blown away if everyone doesn’t find at least one title they think is worth owning in this list. And you have little to lose here if you’re using Oculus or Steam; both have very reasonable refund policies: if you find out the game isn’t for you and you’ve played it for less than two hours, you’re entitled to a full refund within 14 days of your purchase.
Indie VR Gems
Real quick: this list isn’t intended to be comprehensive, nor is it scientific. In the VR space most developers fit the definition of ‘indie’ (those which aren’t working with a publisher). For the purposes of this article, I’m loosely defining an ‘indie gem’ to mean ‘a VR game which deserves more attention than it receives’, whether or not it is from a recognizable VR studio. Without further ado, and in no specific order:
Fujii is part walking simulator, part puzzler, and part meditation. The game presents a serene world which somehow manages to offer a feeling of exploration without traversing huge distances. As you explore and solve light puzzles, you’ll discover new plants and bring their seeds back to your garden. The garden acts as a persistent ‘home’ space which you can cultivate and customize to your liking by planting and watering your plants. Fujii does so much right in design and aesthetics. Nearly everything you do feels good, thanks to intuitive interactions and expert use of sound, animation, and haptics. This is a game which delivers a sense of delight just by being in its world.
Compound is a randomly generated rogue-lite shooter with a style all its own. Something about its 8-bit artwork manages to feel totally authentic and while still somehow completely at home even in the medium of VR which is so far removed from the 8-bit era. This is a challenging game; lethal and unforgiving enemies bring a heightened sense of immersion as you’ll need to be on high alert to prioritize and eliminate threats to succeed. Luckily you’ve got an array of interesting and fun weapons, each with its own sense of character.
While a handful of better known flight simulators exist with optional VR support, the vast majority are made for keyboard and mouse input or peripherals like flight sticks. VTOL VR sets itself apart by being made from the ground-up for VR and motion controllers. So set your HOTAS aside and bask in the feeling of interacting directly with the controls in your cockpit as you operate critical aircraft functions, identify targets, and engage enemies without needing to buy niche peripherals to make it all feel great.
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades (AKA H3VR) [Early Access]
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades, also known as H3VR, is a VR sandbox for the gun aficionado. With more than 300 unique weapons in the game, you could spend hours just exploring the detailed custom sounds and interactions of each gun, right down to individually chambered rounds, folding stocks, fire modes, and adjustable iron sights. With heaps of modular accessories, you can do everything from the realistic—like adding sights, grips, and lasers to your favorite assault rifle—to the unholy—like turning a pistol into a kitbashed sniper rifle. Once you’ve got your arsenal sorted out, you can hit the shooting range, play a heap of mini-games and activities, or make up your own. Though H3VR launched in early access in 2016, its developer has been actively updating the game ever since, regularly bringing major new content additions and improvements over time, like the Team Fortress 2 weapon set.
Sprint Vector is a racing game that offers a sense of speed and mobility that’s hard to find anywhere else in the VR gaming landscape. Channeling elements of arcade racing games like Mario Kart with a Mirror’s Edge sense of flow, Sprint Vector’s unique take on ‘arm swinger’ locomotion is a revolution in its ability to maintain comfort even while you’re cruising at breakneck speeds—and it can be a good workout to boot. Alongside a competitive racing mode, the game also offers time trials which challenge you not just to be fast, but also to be creative as you look for new routes to shave precious seconds off your record. This game’s strong visual presentation is topped off by an excellent soundtrack.
Panoptic is a stellar asymmetric VR game where one player wearing a headset takes on the role of a giant and menacing ‘overseer’ while another player outside of VR plays as a tiny saboteur who attempts to blend in with roaming NPCs and destroy key objectives without being discovered. Thanks to VR, the overseer’s embodied presence and giant scale feel exceptionally imposing to the tiny non-VR player, creating tense moments where a single slip-up could lead to a suspenseful cat-and-mouse chase. The overseer may be powerful, but they can’t watch everything all at once; with a blend of strategy and cunning, the saboteur can prevail. The need for only one VR headset makes Panoptic a great game for sharing some of VR’s unique fun with friends who don’t have VR headsets themselves. While the game currently only supports local multiplayer, we found that Steam’s Remote Play Together feature makes it pretty easy to play Panoptic together online.
FREEDIVER: Triton Down is a short but worthwhile narrative adventure about an oceanographer who gets caught in a capsized research vessel after discovering something unexpected in a cave in the ocean depths. The game is built entirely around a unique ‘swimming’ locomotion system which is more than just a way to get the player from A to B; not only does it allow you to seamlessly navigate in 3D space underwater, it creates a built-in tension between movement and survival as the player has to surface for air or risk drowning. This effectively puts a time limit on puzzle solving which is always in the back of your mind, especially as the oxygen indicator on your arm beeps as it gets closer to 0%. Thanks to engaging interactive elements and thoughtful VR design, this is an adventure worth taking.
Virtual Virtual Reality is a narrative-driven VR game with an intriguing concept that’s worth seeing through to the end. As the name implies, you’ll find yourself popping in and out of various levels of virtual reality to navigate the game’s light puzzle elements while experiencing its strong art direction, writing, and interaction design. The developers include “an artichoke screams at you” among the game’s ‘key features’, which ought to give you an idea of the comedic flavor within.
Electronauts is half game, half tool, and wholly unique. It’s a VR music mixing game which lets you tap into your inner musical creativity even if you don’t have any idea how to play an instrument or make music from scratch. Each song in the game is effectively a ‘kit’ which includes various backing tracks, vocals, and unique instruments. Even though the game does much of the heavy lifting behind the scenes to keep everything in the right key and on beat, you’ll be surprised at how much freedom you have to make each song your own. While there’s no ‘objectives’, there’s much satisfaction to be had at managing seamless transitions between song segments, creating instrument loops that add a new flavor, and one of my favorite challenges: bringing each song to a smooth conclusion. Electronauts is an incredible way to experience the magic of music, and with multiplayer (on the Steam and Oculus Rift versions of the game only) you can even jam with a friend.
Racket: Nx is a polished and high energy game which feels like a futuristic mashup of racquetball fused with elements of Breakout. Players stand at the center of a 360 degree arena with neon targets that pulsate to the game’s excellent soundtrack. With racket in hand, players smack the glowing orb to destroy some targets while avoiding others. There’s some depth to hitting the orb too: you can slice it to give it spin, or give it an especially firm smack to send it roll along the wall for bonus points before it finally bounces back. Powerups and portals add additional variety. Racket: Nx can be a good workout, and is great for playing with VR friends thanks to cross-platform multiplayer between all versions of the game.
Until You Fall is a procedurally generated rogue-lite that’s all about melee combat. You’ll battle your way through a string of rooms populated with enemies of increasing difficulty. Eventually, inevitably, you’ll die. At the end of each round, you’ll respawn in a hub space where you can spend money you’ve earned on new weapons and upgrades, making you stronger for your next bout. The game successfully fuses VR sword combat with meta-game elements in a way that no other VR title has yet managed. Combat is underscored with a sense of deliberate strategy that can change from one encounter to the next, especially depending upon which weapons you choose to bring into battle.
As a VR mech game, Vox Machinae strikes and impressive balance between playability and immersion. It feels like a simulator, but manages to be almost as easy as an arcade game to pick up while remaining challenging to master. It’s controls and systems are intuitive enough that you can grasp the basics in a match or two, but that doesn’t stop the game from delivering a incredible sense of immersion thanks to its interactive cockpit and unique mech control model. Even now, two years after its early access launch, Vox Machinae remains arguably unmatched in immersion by any other VR mech game.
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Surely this list only covers a fraction of VR’s indie gems—let us know your own picks in the comments below!
Steam recently released a ‘Remote Play Together’ feature which is designed to allow users to local-only multiplayer games over the internet. The feature can also work with asymmetric VR games, allowing you to play in your headset while a friend remote-controls your computer as a second player. We tested the feature with the excellent asymmetric VR game Panoptic and found it to be a revelatory addition to the game which makes it easy to share the fun of VR even with friends who don’t have a headset.
Update (November 20th, 2019): Steam’s Remote Play Together feature has been released from beta and is now live to all players. We’ve update this article accordingly.
Panoptic, which launched earlier this year in early access, is a stellar asymmetric VR game where one player wearing a headset takes on the role of a giant and menacing ‘overseer’ while another player outside of VR plays as a tiny saboteur who attempts to blend in with roaming NPCs and destroy key objectives without being discovered by the overseer.
Thanks to VR, the overseer’s embodied presence and giant scale feel exceptionally imposing to the tiny non-VR player, creating tense moments where a single slip-up could lead to a suspenseful cat-and-mouse chase. The overseer may be powerful, but it can’t watch everything all at once; with a blend of strategy and cunning, saboteurs can prevail.
It’s a great concept and executed quite well, but unfortunately the joy of Panoptic has been limited by its local-only multiplayer, where the VR player and the non-VR player must both be in the same room to play the game on the same PC.
That changed just this week thanks to the new Steam Remote Play Together. The feature allows invited Steam friends to see and share control of games on your PC.
Panoptic with Steam Remote Play Together
Remote Play Together effectively gives Panoptic online multiplayer, allowing the host to play as the overseer in the VR headset while the remote player plays as the saboteur by controlling the PC view. Since the game isn’t latency intensive, it can feel like a nearly native experience, so long as both the host and the remote player have decent and stable bandwidth for the stream.
The ease of Remote Play Together and the simplicity of Panoptic make it a great VR game to share with non-VR friends. When everything is working right, playing with a friend is as easy as launching the game, right-clicking on a friend in your Steam friends list, and selecting ‘Invite to Remote Play Together’. After letting them walk through a three minute tutorial in Panoptic, you’ll be ready to start your first round.
Note: all parties must be updated to the latest version of Steam in order to enable Remote Player Together. You can manually update Steam by clicking the ‘Steam’ dropdown menu in the main Steam window, then selecting ‘Check for Steam Client Updates…’.
Virtual Couch Multiplayer
Better even than just inviting a single friend to join you, the Remote Play Together feature makes it so easy for friends to drop in and out of Panoptic that it’s easy for a group of friends to take turns playing while the others watch, almost like a virtual couch gaming session.
This ended up happening organically to when I set out to test Remote Play Together with Panoptic; using Discord as a central location for voice chat and streaming of the PC player’s perspective, three of my friends took turns trying to outwit me (the VR player). After a few rounds, one of the friends (who happens to own their own VR headset) up and bought their own copy of Panoptic on the spot so that they could try their hand from the VR perspective as the overseer in—demonstrating the accessible fun of Panoptic and the power of Remote Play Together in one fell swoop.