Category: Tentacular VR

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The VR Drop: Creative Kaiju Await

It’s the Game Developers Conference (GDC) this week which usually means new VR titles being announced or updates to the ones we’re all looking forward to. If you’re impatient and want new videogames right now then here are a few landing over the course of this week.

Tomorrow Ends

Tomorrow Ends – Kadanss Games

Ok, so this one landed over the weekend but so what, it looks worth a pop. A VR title that looks like it may have taken a small amount of inspiration from Majora’s Mask, Tomorrow Ends is an Oculus App Lab videogame – so its not finished yet – where a small town is three hours away from being destroyed (by the sun/moon?) so it’s up to you to investigate, speak to folk and find out where a magical book that kept the place save has gone.

Shadow Point – Coatsink

One of the original launch titles for Oculus Quest – as it was known – Coatsink’s Shadow Point is a puzzle adventure finally making its way to PlayStation VR. Featuring none other than Sir Patrick Stewart narrating – hopefully, you know who this acting legend is – Shadow Point features 80+ mind-bending puzzles that require gravity manipulation, playing with light and shadows, peering into alternate realities and more. All compatible with PlayStation Move.

  • Supported platform(s): PlayStation VR
  • Launch date: 22nd March
Shadow Point

On The Morning You Wake – Novelab, Atlas V

This isn’t a videogame, rather an immersive documentary based on an event that took place in 2018 and the chaos that ensued during 38 minutes of nuclear terror. Created and produced by Atlas V, Archer’s Mark, Meta, and ARTE France, On The Morning You wake (to the End of the World) charts 18th January when every inhabitant of Hawaii received a nuclear warning threat. It was human error but what happens when you’re confronted with a very real and urgent threat?

Vermillion – Thomas van den Berge

For all you artists out there, Vermillion is an oil-based pro painting simulator that first appeared on Steam last year and will now come to Meta Quest. Mixing real painting mechanics with the benefits of digital tools, Vermillion features realistic wet-on-wet colour mixing as well as the ability to undo mistakes, paint in layers or pull up a YouTube video to help guide you. It also includes passthrough and virtual environments depending on how realistic you want your painting session to be.

Vermillion

Tentacular – Firepunchd

Time for the most outrageous VR videogame on this list, where you get to play a giant (friendly) aquatic monster, using your tentacles to help the local townsfolk out. Tentacular is a building-based puzzler where you use those massive tentacle arms to build structures and contraptions that the inhabitants of La Kalma need. Or in your downtime, there’s also the sandbox mode to get creative.

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Devolver Digital’s Tentacular Launches March 24 For Quest, SteamVR

Firepunchd and Devolver Digital announced that Tentacular will be available March 24 for Quest and PC VR via Steam, alongside a new release date trailer with some gameplay breakdowns.

The trailer, embedded above, gives us our best look at the game so far, with the developers showcasing just how silly and weird the game is. You’ll play as the titular giant tentacle monster, but the devs make a point to say that Tentacular “isn’t just another monster game or kaiju game.” But don’t worry — they also assure players will still be able to smash everything in sight with their tentacles, if you wish to.

After lots of testing, the team decided to focus on a game that emphases building structures and exploring this island occupied with lovable and cute characters, who you’ll be able to interact with.

The game’s story involves an alien artifact that grants you more powers and construction abilities as the tentacle monster, such as magnets that will let you stick elements together to form structures.

It’s not meant to be perfect though — as you can see in the trailer, the structures will be lopsided, wobbly and a bit silly.

Beyond the trailer, the descriptions on Steam and Quest store pages outline more of the game’s structure — there’s 50+ physics-based puzzle and action levels, and a “constantly expanding” sandbox.

If you want a closer look at the island from Tentacular, there’s a fun 3D experience/mini tour available on the game’s site — check it out here.

Tentacular launches March 24 for Meta Quest 2 and PC VR via Steam. It is currently unclear if the original Quest headset is supported, but we have reached out for clarification.

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Preview: Tentacular – Living the Kaiju Dream

As I reach the two-hour mark of Tentacular, an important plot point is dropped and I’m shown a title card reading ‘to be continued’. And I’ve never been more disappointed. Because by this point I was hooked. I would happily spend hours and hours flinging objects, building ridiculous wobbly towers and generally waving jelly-like tentacles around.

If you haven’t watched a trailer of Tentacular yet then you should do so now. I’ll wait… Right, so what you will see there is a whole host of silliness; throwing cars, catching shipping containers, utilising power lines as a makeshift slingshot. The aim of this cephalopod simulator is to aid the people of La Kalma in their everyday life.

One day you might be asked to help excavate the city dump, the next you’ll be tasked with helping test launch rockets with almighty throws. What’s important is that each activity is incredibly enjoyable, even when the game asks for a bit more precision. To start off, the mayor and his staff ask to test your monster appendages. It’s the usual tutorial of picking things up, throwing them, placing them neatly. These small situations reveal a vast oceanic depth to come.

The preview build allowed me to play through the opening chapters of the game. I met the monster’s sister, a human who discovered the monster’s egg washed up on the shore. She talks to me about life and her lighthouse home. The game signals that to speed up the human speech I can tap them on the head with the tip of a tentacle. It’s farcically funny.

Upon reaching the city to be tested for the best career path for my monster physique, it’s hard to stick to the game itself because everything is interactive. I started petting the random dogs, knocking over objects strewn around the port or picking up people and dropping them wherever I saw fit to. Thankfully there’s a playground area where the game provides props and assets to simply mess around with.

In the end, I got on with the story, pulling switches and tapping buttons to transport myself to playing areas. I thought moving around would be cumbersome, but using the thumbsticks added a level of intricacy, which is needed for the main crux of the game; building.

Building requires the use of M.A.G.N.E.T.S, a quirky invention by our scientist boss. Using the tentacles you’re asked to use girders, shipping containers, large steel plates and these small spherical magnets, to create buildings. This being a ‘physics’ game, the buildings become as floppy and bendy as, well, a large tentacle. It’s a bit like playing World of Goo in its precariousness.

As the preview went on, the game began to introduce items that cancelled out a magnetic pull, or the ability to change the magnet sizing. This opens up the ‘solutions’ of building levels because you can use any tactic or plan to fulfil the objectives.

Between levels of construction the story is drip-fed, always with an eye on interaction, whether that’s tapping the humans or hitting a projector remote to control as a slideshow, or just idly fiddling with the environment while an NPC chats away.

I was having an obscene amount of fun. Even interacting with the menus carries a level of satisfaction – pulling large chunky switches with a satisfying clunk, or lifting the roof of a building like a jewellery box revealing buttons to press, or people to talk to. Tentacular promises a huge amount of things to do, all underpinned by a sweet story focusing on family. I can’t wait to be able to pick up where I left off, though there’s a chance I’m going to replay those two hours because it’s the most fun I’ve had in VR for some time.

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Become a sea Monster in Devolver Digital’s Latest VR Game

Devolver Digital is well known for its outlandish videogames, both in and out of virtual reality (VR) with titles like Gorn and Serious Sam VR. This week sees the publisher unveil the first details for a monstrous experience currently being built by indie developer Firepunchd; Tentacular VR.

Only a few teasing video shorts have been released on Twitter so far, showcasing a quaint little seaside town nestled on the island of Lakalma, full of pint-sized inhabitants. With a David Attenborough-esque narration, the short trailer introduces what the townsfolk like to call “The Monster”. Which is where you come in.

Giant tentacles rise from the water and stuck to them are boats, shipping containers and other debris. From the looks of it, you’ve got full motion control over your tentacle arms but for what reason? Well, Firepunchd has a couple more teasing gameplay videos showcasing what looks to be a VR building experience of sorts. It’s unclear if Tentacular VR is about helping the community with your giant arms or causing chaos, as another video shows the player smashing stuff up.

More details are due to be released during the course of the week. As yet, there’s been no indication regarding what platforms Tentacular VR will support or when it might be arriving.

This will be the first VR title from Firepunchd aka Simon Cubasch, who has previously created mobile and PC games including Chicken Jump, Cool Cubes, Killscreen and Ridiculous Glitching.

As Firepunchd and Devolver Digital release further details for Tentacular VR, gmw3 will keep you updated.