The VR Awards’ second annual award show was held last night, and the winners are in. Taking the award for VR Game of the Year was Cloudhead’s room-scale adventure The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone(2017).
As the sequel to The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed (2016), episode two picks up where we left off last; you’ve received a magical Gauntlet that gives you a mysterious new power. You travel to Ember, a desiccated and long-forgotten world, where you search for your sister Elsie, uncover the history of Ember, and reveal the true intentions of the dark figure seed in Starseed.
We gave Heart of the Emberstone a very solid [9/10] rating in our spoiler-free review. You can check out it out here.
Although the game was launched in October 2017, the VR Awards’ cutoff date for consideration was in August, with the event taking place on October 9th of last year— leaving it in the running for this year’s VR Awards. Last year’s GOTY was awarded toRaw Data (2017)by Survios, which was still in Steam Early Access at the time of award consideration.
The VR Awards is a London-based ceremony and dinner that saw some 300 delegates attend last year from industry players such as Google, Epic Games, Oculus, HTC, AMD, Universal and Framestore.
Competition to take the show’s GOTY wasn’t light this year either, as the shortlist included games such as Beat Saber, Lone Echo, and both Skyrim VR and Fallout 4 VR.
VR Awards GOTY 2018 Nominees
Bethesda Softworks – Fallout 4 VR
Bethesda Softworks – The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR
Beat Games – Beat Saber
Survios Inc. – Sprint Vector
Ready At Dawn – Lone Echo / Echo Arena
Hidden Path Entertainment – Brass Tactics
Vertical Robot – Red Matter
VRWERX – Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul
ARVORE Immersive Experiences – Pixel Ripped 1989
inXile Entertainment – The Mage’s Tale
Cloudhead Games Ltd. – The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone
Electric Hat Games – TO THE TOP
nDreams – Shooty Fruity
Other award winners included HTC Vive Pro for Best VR Headset, Ultrahaptics for Most Innovative VR Company, Manifest 99 for Best VR Experience, Carne Y Arena for Best VR Film, Coco VR for Best VR Marketing, and Star Wars: Secrets of the Empire for Best Out-of-Home Experience.
The Gallery Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone was a big step up for the VR adventure series and developer Cloudhead Games. One of the most memorable sections of the game involved the player being transported to and fro locations with the aid of an enormous stone giant named Boulder. It was pretty impossible not to fall in love with the silent behemoth as you watched him interact with a hologram of your sister, Elsie.
Today, Cloudhead resurrected its developer diary video series, detailing what went into making one of VR’s biggest characters yet. The six-minute clip features members of the team talking about the design of the character, which actually calls back to the original room-scale demo Cloudhead built for the unveiling of the HTC Vive three years ago. In fact there’s even footage of that demo, which we haven’t seen online before. Clearly, it was a long journey to then getting the right design, including different iterations of the episode’s script.
Sadly, there’s no word on Episode 3 for The Gallery just yet (studio head Denny Unger did tease that the series ‘still has its day coming’), though we’d expect it will still be a while before Cloudhead is ready to talk about that.
Cloudhead Games, the studio known for pioneering several locomotion schemes during the creation of their well-received VR adventure series The Gallery, have just released a fresh demo for their latest game, The Gallery: Heart of the Emberstone (2017). The demo is a sandbox version of the Coliseum level that lets you get your hands on the game’s unique telekinetic powers before committing to the full game.
While dedicated game demos used to be the best way to find out if you wanted to take the full-priced plunge, in this late age of digital content distribution it seems not all developers commit to creating demos for their games, instead making users rely on refunds to get a taste of whatever it is they cooked up.
Cloudhead’s Heart of the Emberstone: Coliseum is now live on Steam for free, making for an easy way to dive head-first into the game’s magical powers, and step inside some of the game’s imposing architecture while you experience a no-spoilers slice of the story.
The studio says the demo was a way to “break up the monotony of the usual arcade fare in VR with a taste of a bigger adventure.”
Heart of the Emberstone is the second episode in the series after Call of the Starseed (2016).As a successor to one of the first room-scale games in existence, the second episode takes you deeper into the ’80s fiction-inspired universe and flushes out what proves to be a story as rich as the cinematic direction teased in the first. Far from being a one hit wonder, the second episode improves on the experience of the first in almost every way.
Find out why we rated Heart of the Emberstone a solid [9/10] in our review.
The Gallery: Episode 2 – Heart of the Emberstone is a great game. So great, in fact, we’ve got it nominated several times in our Best of 2017 nominee list and really look forward to seeing where that series goes next with Episode 3. In the meantime, we can sink our teeth into this expanded, standalone release featuring Episode 2’s addictive Coliseum.
In the core game the Coliseum was a bit of a one-off piece of content but now the team at Cloudhead have cut out that section of the experience and released it as its very own free VR game for people to try. Think of it as like a polished, post-launch demo in a way. In fact, Episode 2 is directly linked and advertised on Coliseum’s page right under the free download button on Steam.
“Heart of the Emberstone: Coliseum is set to break the monotony of the usual arcade fare in VR with a taste of a bigger adventure. Coliseum offers a telekinetic playground where you can wield the Gauntlet, a mystical power from the planet of Ember, to build, create, and destroy with the palm of your hand…This sandbox version is a small slice from the full Heart of the Emberstone experience, allowing players to peek into the dark past of Ember and the story it holds. Coliseum was built to showcase uniquely VR-tailored gameplay to enthusiasts, with puzzles and interactions that play to the powers and strengths of VR. Coliseum also offers a jumping point for new players to experiment with various locomotion options, and to get a grand sense of scale and beauty in a risk-free environment.”
Heart of the Emberstone: Coliseum is out now with official support for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift for free. You can find it on Steam or on Oculus Home. Let us know what you think down in the comments below!
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone (2017) comes a year and a half after Call of the Starseed (2016), episode one in the narrative-based adventure puzzle game series. As a successor to one of the first room-scale games in existence, the second episode takes you deeper into the ’80s fiction-inspired universe and flushes out what proves to be a story as rich as the cinematic direction teased in the first. Far from being a one hit wonder, the second episode improves on the experience of the first in almost every way.
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone Details:
Leaving off from the end of Call of the Starseed, you find yourself on the other side of the universe, searching for your adventuresome sister Elsie as you follow her footsteps onto a strange alien world. At the behest of a hunchbacked overlord, you’re told you must “fetch your grasp,” a powerful addition to your telekenetically-powered gauntlet in order to see your sister again. With the ability to move heavy objects imbibed with a magical power ore, you journey ever further into the deserted world as you become both actor and observer of a story long passed.
image courtesy Cloudhead Games
Without saying too much about the story itself, much of the action takes place in the form of holographic memories projected in front of you, and through found tapes and diary entries. The world you’ve landed on is essentially dead, except for weird little weevil-things that seem to thrive on the sandy planet. Just how it got that way is something for you to find out yourself. I will say though that the story offers salient commentary on the opposing forces of nature and man, and leaves a lot to digest as you delve deeper into the crazy power differential that results from a monarchy that’s both in charge of an entire world’s resources and is ultimately gifted with superhuman powers to maintain that order.
image courtesy Cloudhead Games
Spanning across three main areas, you’ll do some back-and-forth to get missing parts, so while the world itself isn’t giant, it also means there isn’t any wasted space. At first I wished there was more latitude for open exploration, but what I was left with was a situation where a new puzzle and a fresh storyline breadcrumb always in reach to kept me interested. This also kept it from feeling too linear, departing from what I like to call ‘IKEA adventures’.
Besides a single puzzle that’s basically a more complicated version of Simon (repeat a sequence of color-coded tones), the puzzles in Heart of the Emberstone left me feeling like I’d never experienced something similar.
Most doors and certain quest items are accessed by guiding your gauntlet’s stone through a translucent tube with moving barriers, that when you fail to guide it correctly and touch the barrier or edges of the tube, it resets everything. These range from extremely simple—a straight tube with no barriers for commonly-accessed spaces like elevators—to increasingly difficult puzzles as you move along.
You also have your gauntlet, a more powerful ‘grasp’, and an energy slingshot that helps you shoot down room-unlocking ore boxes. These boxes can be slotted into place and used as movable parts in larger room-sized puzzles.
One of my favorites was the gear puzzles, where you have to slot in the right gears within a certain amount of time in order to use a door-opening lever. The little gears have differently-shaped axle inserts, so you have to plan ahead so you can get them all in correctly before the timer runs out, or you have to start over again.
image courtesy Cloudhead Games
While neither of these puzzle types are particularly difficult, the feeling you get when you solve them is synergistic. The developers could have easily made you press a simple button to open a door, or scattered keys throughout the level and make you go on an endless hunt, but the door puzzles not only leave you feeling like you’ve accomplished something, but you’ve done it with style.
I know you’re scanning for it, so here it is. Heart of the Emberstone took me 3.5 hours to complete. There, I even put it in bold. I achieved this playtime reading every book I found, every scrap of paper, and listened to every one of Elsie’s cassette tapes. While I’m not sure how the creators can claim as far as 6 hours of playtime, to its ultimate credit Episode 2 isn’t littered with useless collectibles that would otherwise pad out the game’s length. Most everything you find broadens the story’s lore, leaving you with multiple ways to understand what’s going on.
image courtesy Cloudhead Games
Frankly, after the end credits rolled, I was ready to play again. There’s so much to unpack in Heart of the Emberstone, so much more to absorb than a single pass would allow. Although I knew what was going on and never felt confused by the events that unfolded before me as an observer, I’d place the level of storytelling on the same rung as some of the top TV dramas like Breaking Bad and Game of Thrones—the sort of shows you go back to rewatch even if you know what’s going to happen (albeit in a reduced form).
It’s pretty rare that excellent voice acting, competent art direction, and a fully-realized world with a truly interesting story come together at once, so excuse me if I let out a well-deserved “wow.”
Immersion
Comparing the sequel to the first in the series, Heart of the Emberstone feels much more like a complete experience than its predecessor. You can probably chalk this up to the fact that it’s over three-times the length of the first episode, all with about the same density of puzzles and indispensable narrative elements.
Where Call of the Starseed seemed somewhat gimmicky at times and jabbed you in the face every so often with reminders that you were actually in a game and not in a real adventure, Heart of the Emberstone tosses you in a wholly new alien environment where expectations are less primed by real-world interactions, but where your actions have greater overall effect. Once you figure out how to use your gauntlet, puzzles and abilities are thrown on at formative intervals that never leave you scratching your head as what to do next. This doesn’t mean you’re led by the hand though, as the game only tells you how to do something once without nagging you to death with the usual (and frankly way overused) ‘helpful robot’ trope.
Bad storytelling is bad for immersion. Bad stories and crappy voice acting make you feel like you’re in a fake world with fake people, and this is why I tend to discuss it in both the gameplay and immersion sections of reviews. Besides being an obvious visual treat, the world feels alive even though it’s ostensibly dry as a dead dingo’s donger. Grounding you in the world further, the story shows an emotional range that doesn’t reek of the low-rent melodrama of more mediocre titles. Heart-wrenching scenes of betrayal punctuate the bubbly levity that Elsie always seems to bring to every situation.
image courtesy Cloudhead Games
There are of course moments when the devs give you a little ‘wink wink, nudge nudge’, as if to say “we’ve put this story element here conveniently to move things along, but we know you know that.” This is done maybe once or twice throughout the game though, and isn’t really a focal point.
Nuts and bolts-wise, object interaction is vastly improved, showing just how much Cloudhead has worked to create objects that give a solid haptic feedback and work equally well in both left and right hands. Picking up and reading the holographic logs scattered throughout the game was a much more plausible experience than the notepads or books in Starseed which only gave you a few ‘snap-to’ hand poses. Menus, maps, and logs take the place of your hand, leaving hand poses out of the equation entirely.
I found the hand models to be a bit of a minor visual blemish, which felt overly spindly. The position of the hands relative to the controller also felt a bit off, extending farther than my hands naturally would. Like its predecessor, hand models don’t make full use of Oculus Touch’s capacitive buttons, robbing you of some of the more true-to-life flexibility the particular controller can afford. This clearly isn’t an issue on Vive, which is why is only bears brief mention.
Loading screens are fairly quick and unobtrusive, but are numerous as you traverse back and forth on the world map—a clear, but decidedly unavoidable pain point.
Comfort
There are a number of elements that made their way from Call of the Starseed to Heart of the Emberstone, including blink teleportation. One thing that’s changed however is the inclusion of smooth locomotion (put in bold for skimmers) that should have die-hard opponents of teleportation squealing with glee. This however doesn’t include smooth yaw stick turning, meaning you’ll have to weather the game with snap-turn only—aka ‘comfort mode’.
Smooth locomotion options also include controller-oriented stick-move, head-oriented stick move, strafing options and variable movement speeds. Since these are non-default options that must be toggled by the user, the stock blink teleportation makes for an exceedingly comfortable experience for anyone, from novice to expert VR user.
One of the few misgivings I have with Heart of the Emberstone is the lack of seated option, which would be welcome when playing the game from start to finish.
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.
Über mangelnden Spiele-Nachschub kann man sich derzeit nicht beklagen. Drei spannende VR-Titel sind jüngst für Konsole und PC erschienen, weshalb wir eine Auswahl für alle großen Systeme zusammenfassen. Auf der PSVR steht mit No Heroes Allowed! Strategiekost auf dem Plan. Über das märchenhafte Luna dürfen sich Besitzer einer Oculus Rift, HTC Vive sowie Windows-MR-Brillen freuen. Heiß ersehnt dürfte The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone sein, das für die Oculus Rift und HTC Vive auf Steam bereit steht.
No Heroes Allowed! VR für PlayStation VR (PSVR)
Der Echtzeitstrategie-Titel No Heroes Allowed! VR feiert seine Veröffentlichung für PlayStation VR (PSVR). Innerhalb des PSVR-Spiels dürft ihr die Rolle eines Gottes der Zerstörung einnehmen, um mit beschworenen Monstern eure Feinde in strategischen Gefechten zu bezwingen. Dafür benötigt es sogenannte Charisma-Punkte, um die platzierten Monsternester schlüpfen zu lassen und eure Gefährten zum Wachsen zu bringen.
Außerdem solltet ihr eure beschworenen Kreaturen füttern, damit sie nicht an Ausdauer verlieren. Neben der Beschwörung und dem taktischen Geschick auf dem Schlachtfeld müsst ihr ebenso für eine gute Balance innerhalb eurer Armee sorgen. Die unterschiedlichen Schlachtfelder sorgen zudem für weitere taktische Elemente in den Kämpfen.
No Heroes Allowed! ist für 29,99 Euro im PlayStation Store für PlayStation VR (PSVR) erhältlich.
Luna für Oculus Rift, HTC Vive und Windows MR-Brillen
Im Indie-Titel Luna von Funomena übernehmt ihr die Kontrolle eines kleinen Vogels, der den Mond verschluckte und daraufhin durch einen gewaltigen Sturm von seinem Nest getrennt wurde. Um nach Hause zu finden, muss er seine Erinnerungen wiederherstellen, indem er diverse Rätsel löst. Dazu zählen das Nachbauen von Sternkonstellationen sowie das Aufbauen von kleinen Welten. Während der Reise lernt er neue und alte Bekannte kennen, sowie diverse Geister der Flora und Fauna, die neue Optionen und Möglichkeiten freischalten.
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive
Die zweite Episode der The-Gallery-Reihe von Cloudhead Games ist für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive jetzt zu haben. Nach dem Vorgängertitel The Gallery – Call of the Starseed dürft ihr in The Gallery – Heart of the Emberstone in die Welt von Ember eintauchen und im Stil eines 80er Jahre Sci-Fi-Fantasyfilms durch Zeit und Raum reisen.
Das VR-Abenteuer bietet euch ungefähr vier bis sechs Stunden Spielzeit, in der ihr in einer offenen Spielwelt eurem Forscherdrang folgen könnt und die Oberfläche sowie verlassene Orte erkunden dürft. Währenddessen löst ihr Rätsel und treibt die interessante Geschichte um eine mysteriöse Figur voran, die nach denselben Beweggründen wie ihr selbst handelt.
Das Entwicklerstudio Cloudhead Games veröffentlichte einen neuen Launch-Trailer zum baldigen Start des heiß erwarteten VR-Abenteuers The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone für Oculus Rift und HTC Vive. Dieser ermöglicht neue Einblicke in den nächste Woche erscheinenden VR-Titel. Die PSVR-Version des Spiels ist ebenfalls weiterhin geplant, soll aber zu einem späteren Zeitpunkt erscheinen.
The Gallery: Heart of the Emberstone – Neuer Launch-Trailer veröffentlicht
Cloudhead Games veröffentlichten einen neuen Launch-Trailer für das kommende VR-Abenteuer The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone. Dieser offenbart neue Einblicke in den in Kürze erscheinenden VR-Titel. So kann man nun die Umgebung des fremden Planeten Amber sowie die Nutzung der telekinetischen Fähigkeiten betrachten. Außerdem sind kurze Einblicke in die Geschichte und kleine Rätsel erkennbar. Das Video zeigt zudem kurz den Antagonisten des Abenteuer-Spiels.
Im zweiten Teil der The Gallery-Reihe dürft ihr dank eures magischen Handschuhs durch Raum und Zeit reisen und in First-Person-Perspektive den fremden Planeten erforschen. Dank einer offen angelegten Spielwelt steht euch wesentlich mehr Freiraum als im Vorgängertitel zur Verfügung. Zudem sorgt die verlängerte Spielzeit von vier bis sechs Stunden für längeren Spielspaß. Der Charme der 80er Jahre Sci-Fi-Fantasyfilme ist dabei weiterhin stark erkennbar.
Eine PSVR-Adaption des neuen Titels wie auch des Vorgängertitels The Gallery: Call of the Starseed ist weiterhin geplant und dafür fordern die Entwickler immer noch Feedback in ihrem Forum ein, um den Entwicklungsprozess voranzutreiben.
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone wird am 18. Oktober 2017 für Oculus Riftund HTC Vivefür ungefähr 30 Euro auf Steam erscheinen. Wann die Konsolen-Version für PlayStation VR (PSVR) erscheint, ist derzeit noch nicht klar.
Wir werden euch über weitere Neuigkeiten zum VR-Abenteuer und die baldige Konsolen-Adaption auf dem Laufenden halten.
As VR gamers on PC look forward to the release of The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone, launching October 18th, PSVR should be excited too; developer Cloudhead Games is working on a PSVR version of Heart of the Embertsone, and is also considering porting the first episode in the series, Call of the Starseed (2016).
In many ways The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed is a foundational VR title, defining & refining a number of VR game design concepts that we now find in many titles to date. However, initially targeted for room-scale gameplay, the game hasn’t yet found its way to PSVR, thanks in part to the system’s more limited tracking tech.
With the second episode in the series, Heart of the Emberstone, launching on Vive and Rift next month, PSVR players might be feeling a bit left out. Thankfully the studio says that a port of the game is planned for Sony’s PlayStation VR headset, though they’re encouraging players to be vocal in order to gauge demand.
“We’re currently planning a port to PSVR, but if you’d like to see PSVR support sooner rather than later, please let us know in the forums!” reads the Steam FAQ page for the game.
As for the first episode, Call of the Starseed, the studio has a PSVR port under consideration, but doesn’t seem committed just yet.
“Because [Call of the Starseed] was built for roomscale VR, porting the experience to hardware such as PSVR requires a bit more effort and care. But, if you’d like to see PSVR support sooner rather than later, please let us know in the forums!” reads the game’s Steam FAQ page.
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone from Cloudhead Games is officially releasing next month on October 18th, 2017, for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Back in June of this year the developers announced a September release window, but the game has been slightly delayed in order to insure the highest quality experience possible.
According to the developers:
“The game is effectively finished at this point, but as a small team we’ve decided to take the opportunity to put some extra love into Emberstone before launch. We’re running out of days in September, and while “Heart of the Octoberstone” doesn’t have quite as nice a ring to it, we feel it’s the right choice to make the best game for our fans…This was a hard decision to make, but we thank you as always, Reddit, for your support over these last few weeks and months especially. The adventure wouldn’t be possible without you.”
Just last week we got the chance to go hands-on with an updated build of the game and came away very impressed. Graphically it’s looking better than ever, the story promises more depth, the team is planning even more puzzles than before, and it’s reportedly twice as long as The Gallery – Episode 1: The Call of the Starseed, clocking in around 4-6 hours from early internal playtests.
The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone releases on October 18th, 2017 for Rift and Vive at a price point of $29.99. Owners of the first game will receive a “complete the bundle” discount and you’ll be able to purchase both games at launch together for a 10% bundle discount.
What do you think of this news? Will you be playing The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone? Let us know down in the comments below!
The Gallery – Episode 1: Call of the Starseed was one of the best launch titles on the HTC Vive last year, and since its launch we’ve eagerly been awaiting the next installment. Thankfully, the wait is almost over.
Developer Cloudhead Games yesterday confirmed that The Gallery – Episode 2: Heart of the Emberstone will release this September. We’ve already started to see glimpses of the game over the past few months. It might have taken a year and a half, but Cloudhead promises that this will be “a much larger experience” than the first episode, both in terms of overall playtime and scope of the game. In fact, it’s larger than the developer itself had originally anticipated.
That’s exciting news given that we were especially fond of the first episode, and it left us with plenty of questions. “With The Gallery, Cloudhead uses simple, old-fashioned, awe-inducing beauty and immersion that hooks you instead of any cheap tricks or gimmicks and I’m absolutely dying to dive back in,” Games Editor David Jagneaux said in his review.
If you’re yet to play the game then good news; Cloudhead is teasing a heavy reduction in the upcoming Steam Summer sale. You could see an 87% discount on the $19.99 price, which I won’t attempt to work out but it sounds like pennies. The developer is also preparing to give away codes of its latest game. All you have to do is comment on its Steam post, detailing your favorite bit of Call of the Starseed.
You can expect to see Heart of the Emberstone launch on both the Oculus Rift and Vive. PlayStation VR (PSVR) versions of both episodes are also expected later down the line.
