penn and teller – Augmented & Virtual Reality Confabulation

June 19, 2019June 27, 2019

‘Penn & Teller VR’ Launches on Quest & PC VR, PSVR Version in July

Gearbox Software today released their latest VR game, a title from magic/comedy duo Penn & Teller called Penn & Teller VR: Frankly Unfair, Unkind, Unnecessary, & Underhanded. The game is available on Quest, Rift and Vive starting today, with a version for PSVR coming in July.

Update (June 27th, 2019): Penn & Teller VR: F U, U, U, & U is now available for $20 on Steam (Rift, Vive) and the Oculus Store for Quest and Rift (link incoming).

Both Penn & Teller and Gearbox intend on using the game to help fight the anti-vaccine movement; the studio is donating to support UNICEF’s Immunization program through an initial $10,000 by Randy Pitchford, President, CEO and Co-founder of Gearbox Software. An additional $10,000 donation will be made for every 100,000 sales of Penn & Teller VR: F U, U, U, & U.

The original article follows below:

Original Article (June 19th, 2019): Cleverly abbreviated to Penn & Teller VR: F U, U, U, & U, the game takes you through more than 10 “cruel magic tricks” that Gearbox says will “leave your loved ones screaming and you cackling maniacally.”

While Penn Jillette initially couches it as a way to conquer your fears, Jillette says the only fear you really have to overcome is the fear of “wasting money on a frivolous collection of VR games.”

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The version for Quest, Vive, and Rift is set to release on June 27th. The PSVR version arrives slightly later on July 9th.

The game is currently available for pre-order on Oculus Quest for $20.

This isn’t the first VR game from the dynamic comedy/magic duo. Gearbox Software helped bring the old cult classic mini-game Desert Bus from the never-released Sega CD game Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors (1998) to life in VR back in 2017, dutifully named Desert Bus VR.

Check out the trailer for Penn & Teller VR: F U, U, U, & U below:

The post ‘Penn & Teller VR’ Launches on Quest & PC VR, PSVR Version in July appeared first on Road to VR.

June 19, 2019

Fool and Prank Your Friends With Penn & Teller VR: F U, U, U & U

After an initial tease back in April, Gearbox Software has finally released details regarding its next virtual reality (VR) project, a collaboration with famous magical duo Penn & Teller. Called Penn and Teller VR: Frankly Unfair, Unkind, Unnecessary & Underhanded (or Penn & Teller VR: F U, U, U & U for short), the soon to be released title is all about magic tricks and having some fun pulling pranks on friends along the way.

Penn and Teller VR

Penn & Teller VR is a local party style experience based around 12+ tricks (or ‘Bits’ as they’re called in the videogame). These Bits aren’t simple magic tricks to perform and learn, oh no, they do in fact help you prank your friends if you see fit.

Just like any good magical show, there’s the magician (you) and the audience (your friends), where you’re able to test your telekinetic powers, or even guide your soon-to-be-ex-friends as they perform The Most Dangerous Act in Showbiz. It’s not all about pranking your friends though, as there are single-player elements like being chained inside a tank filling with water, from which you have to escape.

“When a new mind-blowing technology comes out, the first thing Teller and I think is, ‘How can we use this to help people play tricks, cheat, and prank’,” said Penn Jillette, the larger and louder half of Penn & Teller. “Luckily for us, (and maybe less luckily for the world), Randy Pitchford, the big cheese at Gearbox, is our buddy, and worked as a professional magician. We are the same soulless motherhubbards. So, we’ve found a way for people to use VR as a tool to monkey with their so-called ‘friends.’ It’s what we do, and we’ve done it.”

Penn and Teller VR

“In our collaboration, we became animated by advances in the transformative medium of virtual reality and are now excited for fans of magic, pranks, tricks, video games, and VR to be able to experience an entirely new kind of interactive experience,” said Randy Pitchford, President, CEO and Co-founder of Gearbox Software. “With Penn & Teller VR: F U, U, U, & U, you’ll have the tools and technology to feel what it’s like to *be* magicians like Penn & Teller.”

There’s not long to wait for Penn and Teller VR: Frankly Unfair, Unkind, Unnecessary & Underhanded. It’ll be available for Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift/Rift S and HTC Vive on 27th June, priced at $19.99 USD. While a PlayStation VR version will arrive on 9th July 2019. For further updates from Gearbox Software, keep reading VRFocus.

April 1, 2019

Penn & Teller VR is Gearbox Software’s Latest Immersive Project

World famous magical duo Penn & Teller might be better known for their tricks but they do dip into other forms of entertainment. Most notably videogames and virtual reality (VR) in particular thanks to weird driving sim Desert Bus by Gearbox Software. Well, it seems there are more VR plans afoot thanks to an announcement during PAX East this weekend.

During the event Gearbox Software revealed work on Penn and Teller VR: Frankly Unfair, Unkind, Unnecessary & Underhanded. The title will feature the magicians in some way, supporting HTC Vive, PlayStation VR and Oculus headsets when it arrives this summer. Other than that currently nothing else is known about the experience. How will Penn and Teller make their appearance, what will the gameplay involve and does ‘Oculus headsets’ mean, Oculus Rift, Rift S and Quest?

Whatever Gearbox Software and the duo have planned it can’t be much weirder than Desert Bus. Originally part of an unreleased Sega CD title called Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors, Desert Bus was a mini-game that involved players being challenged to drive a poorly-maintained bus on the long journey between Tucson, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada.

The twist was that completing the videogame involved driving the bus for eight actual hours. Unfortunately, the bus had tracking and steering problems, which meant that if you came off the road you’d be picked up and carted back to the start all in real-time. It’s become a cult classic with competitions based around it. It’s currently available for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

Desert Bus Vr 3

Gearbox Software had plenty of announcements to make during PAX East, the biggest involving Borderlands 3. But it did happen to mention a new partnership with Squanch Games that’ll see Gearbox Publishing create a physical version of Trover Saves the Universe for its PlayStation VR release on 31st May.

And for fans of Borderlands 2 VR, don’t forget that the studio also confirmed last week that the title will be getting all the DLC ever made for the standard version ported to VR, set to arrive soon and completely free. For further Penn and Teller VR: Frankly Unfair, Unkind, Unnecessary & Underhanded updates, keep reading VRFocus.

November 28, 2017

Penn & Teller’s ‘Desert Bus VR’ is a Bad Simulator with a Good Heart

Penn & Teller’s Desert Bus VR is finally here, letting you take the wheel of a crappy old commercial bus for a mind-numbing 8-hour trip from Tuscon to Las Vegas. It’s not great (at all), but it’s built for a truly noble cause.

You may ask yourself: “why would I want to simulate driving an old bus at the top speed of 45 miles an hour through a depopulated desert road for 8 hours straight?” The quick answer: you wouldn’t.

Originally created in 1998 as a mini-game to the never-released Sega CD game Penn & Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors, Desert Bus is less of an actual game and more of a commentary in response to the famous ’90s brand of zealotry against video game violence that dominated political discourse at the time, spearheaded by the likes of Jack Thompson, Janet Reno, and Hillary Clinton to name a few. The 2D version was originally built to highlight the ridiculousness of the idea that popular video games of the time adequately prepared players for real-world interactions (martial arts in the case of Mortal Kombat, and shooting guns in the case of Doom) and that not all video games are designed to ‘corrupt the youth’. Despite its political beginnings and failure to launch due to the game studio’s bankruptcy, Desert Bus garnered cult-status as it was later released on a number of platforms.

The new VR version was brought to life by Borderlands developers Gearbox Software, making it their first VR production.

Now that times have changed and VR developers strive to make their experiences more realistic, it’s hard to say if the VR version is trying to revitalize Penn Jillette’s hypothesis. While I haven’t done the full 8-hour drive, I found it purposely misses out on some more common aspects of VR driving simulators in favor of presenting the player with a less realistic, but decidedly more boring experience.

Because it doesn’t make the same effort to present the player with realistic driving, like one you might find in Euro Truck Simulator 2 (2013), it presents a bit of a bad argument if it’s truly trying to prove that games can’t provide you with the skills applicable to the real world. Jillette himself rehashes his hypothesis during an AM-style radio transmission that plays at the beginning of the drive, but doesn’t acknowledge that it’s a little less defensible in the era of virtual reality.

Just like the original 2D version, in VR you can go only go left, right and speed up to a max of 45 mph. The wheel pulls slightly to the right, so you’ll have to recorrect every few seconds to keep yourself on the road. Going off the road will overheat the engine, and its game over. Making it all the way to your destination—some 360 miles away—awards you with a single point.

The VR version uses the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift’s respective motion controls, but annoyingly maps acceleration to the left trigger. Steering is done either manually or through trackpad/thumb stick, the later of which is way too jerky for comfortable play in VR. The render distance isn’t great either, making you feel like you’re more of a treadmill than in an actual desert. Although the bus itself is pretty attractive, it lacks some finer interactive touches you might find in a built-for-VR game like the car level from I Expect You to Die (2016).

Funnily enough, the game includes an online multiplayer mode which lets you ride along with others as either a driver or passenger. At the time of this writing I didn’t get a chance to play an online session, but I can imagine myself getting to know someone pretty well over the course of an 8-hour drive.

While all of its flaws bear mentioning, it’s hard to knock a game that’s both entirely free and was built for charity, as Jillette helped renew the game for the volunteer organization Desert Bus for Hope that holds a titular annual event to raise money for the game-focused Child’s Play Charity. In a recent telethon-style event, the organization raised $650,250 with a total of 158 hours logged behind the wheel.

Even though it’s boring in all the wrong ways, if it can impact positive change in the world for even one person, it’s a resounding success that we can only hope to see more of in the future.

The game is out now for free on Steam for Rift, Vive and traditional monitors. You can download it here.

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