Camp Marshmallow Review: A Dark And Twisted Must-Play For Oculus Quest

Camp Marshmallow on SideQuest is a dark, twisted VR experience about life, death, and s’mores created by solo developer Chris Pavia that’s available for free on Oculus Quest. You can finish the whole thing in just about 10-minutes and it’s a must-play for fans of dark humor and introspective stories.

From the Camp Marshmallow SideQuest page:

“Four young Scouts and their Scoutmaster venture into the forest to sing campfire songs and assert their dominance over nature. A chill breeze pushes through the branches, carrying hushed whispers about the curious newcomers. The fire sizzles and pops as shadows dance across the trees. With sticks in hand and visions of gooey marshmallows in their eyes, the Scouts look to their leader to provide them with the forest’s bounty.”

NOTE: Spoilers for Camp Marshmallow follow. It’s impossible to talk about this experience without discussing the details, so if you are at all intrigued thus far I urge you to stop reading and go download it for yourself!

You can watch me play through Camp Marshmallow in the video above (it’s only about 10-minutes long after all) during the latest episode of our VR Roulette random-selection live VR game show. After spinning the wheel this was the game I landed on for the episode’s finale and I couldn’t be happier with the results.

In Camp Marshmallow you take on the role of the Scoutmaster, presumably an adult that’s taking a group of kids out on a camping trip — similar to something you might see in the Boy Scouts. Everyone is sitting around the campfire, singing songs, and blissfully enjoying the ignorance of childhood.

It’s nostalgic and sweet, but something feels off.

“The fire is roaring and our sticks are sharp, Scoutmaster,” one child says. “The only thing missing are the marshmallows. Here, consider this the Spear of Destiny. It can transform an ordinary marshmallow into a beautiful memory.”

The child then hands you a stick as you walk to a clearing between some trees where a collection of anthropomorphic marshmallows stand waiting, smiling, and dancing. Apparently they didn’t get the memo about why they’re here tonight.

camp marshmallow smiling

What follows can only be described as graphic violence — at least, in so far as you consider impaling a screaming marshmallow to be violent. Instead of blood gooey, sugary fluffiness drips onto your hands and splatters out. Screams of pain, pleas for mercy. It’s got it all.

And yet despite it all, it’s hard not to laugh. The way the little creatures beg for their lives is tongue-in-cheek at first and quite silly, but after the second or third mutilation it starts to take a turn. The children get creepier, the song gets stranger, and the marshmallows become more lifelike. Instead of just shivering as you cower over them they’re running away and hiding.

I don’t want to spoil things too, too much here but suffice to say you should absolutely let the marshmallows speak, listen to the children, soak in the song, and pay close attention to the small details to really enjoy this brief, but insightful VR experience.

Camp Marshmallow Review Final Impressions

Camp Marshmallow feels like an early experiment from a rare talent with an eye for atmosphere. During my playthrough I couldn’t help but be reminded of the unnerving scenarios in Accounting from Squanch and Justin Roiland and I can’t wait to see what this experience’s creator, Chris Pavia, does next. If you enjoy dark and introspective stories that make you both laugh and feel uncomfortable at the exact same time, then Camp Marshmallow has you covered.


4 STARS

 


Camp Marshmallow is available now to sideload on Oculus Quest, for free, via SideQuest. When downloading the game, you can opt to donate a custom amount to the developer via itch.io to help support efforts. Fore details on how to sideload games using SideQuest, check out our guide here.

This review was conducted on an Oculus Quest, using v1.0.0 of the game. For more on how we arrived at this score, check out our review guidelines. Let us know what you think in the comments below!

Review Scale

Watch First 17 Minutes Of Hilarious Trover Saves The Universe On Quest Gameplay

Trover Saves the Universe hits Oculus Quest today and it’s just as good as it’s ever been. Check out the first 17 minutes of Quest gameplay to see how it fairs:

When I first played Trover Saves the Universe, Tanya Watson from Squanch Games handed me a PSVR headset with googly eyes on it. I smiled and I don’t think I stopped smiling until I was out of the elevator on my way to my next GDC appointment.

In Trover Saves the Universe you play as a Chairorpian, a being from a planet of perpetually chair-bound people. Using your handheld device, shaped like a game controller, you spin your chair around and teleport to stationary nodes to move around. Once Trover arrives he lets you take control of him using the thumb sticks and face buttons of the Touch controllers. The entire game is like this: it’s one giant, hilarious, meta experience that is fully aware it’s a video game and constantly breaks the fourth wall.

At one point in the gameplay demo above I demonstrate this by not pressing a button even though a character is yelling at me to leave. If you just linger, they’ll continue to argue. I genuinely don’t know how long this can go on,since they continue to have new and hilarious things to say for quite a while.

Like any good source of comedy, revisiting Trover still brought smiles to my face even though the jokes were no longer brand new. The bright, colorful style looks almost as good as ever on Oculus Quest. You can tell the resolution isn’t quite as sharp as the PC counterpart and some textures are a little undefined, like in the starting town when you try to read things on objects at a distance, but it doesn’t impact actually enjoying the game at all.

Here is our interview with Rick & Morty Co-Creator and Squanch Games Co-Founder, Justin Roiland from E3 2019 last year:

One of my favorite things about Trover, and Squanch Games VR content in general, is just how deep the dialogue goes. This isn’t like most games where an NPC issues you a command or response then stops. These characters will not shut up and continue to spew hilarious, vulgar, and often unrelated dribble that’s nearly impossible not to laugh at. Obviously if you don’t like Justin Roiland’s sense of humor or don’t like Rick & Morty, then sure, you might not laugh much, but I’d wager you’re in the minority.

If you missed out on playing Trover on PSVR, PC VR, or in non-VR, the Quest version is extremely solid and serves as a great way to check out the game on the go. You can watch the first 17 or so minutes of gameplay footage in the video at the top of this post.

Here’s the trailer we debuted earlier this week during the UploadVR Showcase: Summer Edition 2020:

Trover Saves the Universe releases for Oculus Quest today for $29.99.Read our full original review of Trover from when it launched first on PSVR.


Did you miss out on the UploadVR Showcase: Summer Edition? Check out every trailer, article, announcement, interview, and more from the UploadVR Showcase right here.

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The Game Awards Nominate Asgard’s Wrath, Blood & Truth, Beat Saber, And More

The Game Awards nominated some some popular VR games ahead of its Dec. 12 show.

The Best VR/AR Game category this year nominates the following:

  • Asgard’s Wrath (Sanzaru Games/Oculus Studios)
  • Blood & Truth (SIE London Studio/SIE)
  • Beat Saber (Beat Games)
  • No Man’s Sky (Hello Games)
  • Trover Saves the Universe (Squanch Games)

Nominees for The Game Awards are generally chosen by a jury of gaming-focused media outlets with the winner chosen through a combination jury vote and public fan voting. Voting ends Dec. 11 at 6 pm Pacific and you can vote at the link above.

Concrete Genie from Pixelopus includes a VR mode as well and was nominated in the Games for Impact category.

2019 has been a big year for virtual reality game releases, like a fully realized VR mode for No Man’s Sky and our first 5/5 rated game Asgard’s Wrath, each of which made the cut for nominations. Other impressive titles, though, including our second 5/5 rated game, Pistol Whip, and the impressive shooter Stormland seemed to slide under the jury’s radar. The rules state that Nov. 15 was the cut off for nominations and both games released before then.

Rumors also point to Half-Life: Alyx being part of this year’s edition of The Game Awards in some capacity, though that was before Valve announced it is sharing details this Thursday.

The Game Awards air live for free on Thursday, December 12 at 5:30 pm on major social, streaming and gaming platforms worldwide.

What do you think? Do you agree with the nominations or were there any great VR games from 2019 you felt should have been recognized? Please share in the comments.

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Trover Saves The Universe Receives Free DLC, Available Now

Trover Saves The Universe by Justin Roiland, the co-creator of Rick and Morty, received an update with DLC called Trover’s Important Cosmic Jobs.

According to the Steam description, this new content “takes you into the boss’s offices where you’ll find other intergalactic employees who all need help keeping their jobs and staying alive (oof, unemployment is tough but murder?! What kind of place are they running?!)“.

The game released back in May, and we rather enjoyed it. David said that it does have some repetitive gameplay elements, but if you’re a fan of Roilland’s vulgar comedic style then you’ll probably enjoy it anyway. Ultimately, despite the flaws, it was one of the funniest games David has ever played. The trailer announcing the DLC release is amusing in and off itself, and maintains the meta, fourth-wall-breaking style of jokes that Roiland and the base game are known for.

In even more good news, the DLC is entirely free and available to download now for PC VR and PSVR. We actually got to interview Roiland back at E3 shortly after the game’s release. The whole thing was very impromptu and we were standing right beside a garbage elevator, but it’s definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of him or his work.

Will you be checking out the new Trover DLC? Were you a fan of the base game? Let us know in the comments.

The post Trover Saves The Universe Receives Free DLC, Available Now appeared first on UploadVR.

‘Trover Saves the Universe’ to Get Free ‘Cosmic Jobs’ DLC in October

Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland loves VR, and his latest VR game, Trover Saves the Universe (2019), is getting its first DLC drop next month.

Called ‘Trover’s Important Cosmic Jobs’, the free DLC is headed to all supported platforms on October 8th. Trover Saves the Universe supports both PC and PS4 console as well as PSVR, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Valve Index.

According Trover—the weird eye-baby monster protagonist that help you along your way to find your stolen dogs—you’re going on a trip to where he actually works, Important Cosmic Jobs (ICJ).

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There’s little else to go on for now, as Squanch Games says more information will arrive closer to the DLC’s launch, although the studio did release a PAX West trailer showing an extremely brief clip at the end.

Funnily enough, as soon as Trover’s introduction to the DLC starts, the reel runs out of tape, and you’re left wondering just what awaits.

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‘Trover Saves the Universe’ Launches on PSVR, Coming to PC Next Week

Trover Saves the Universe, the latest VR title from Squanch Games and the mind of Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland, launched today on PS4 with support for both PSVR and non-VR. The game will launch for PC VR headsets via Steam next week.

Trover Saves the Universe is now available on PS4 for $30, and can be played in both VR and non-VR. It’s a third-person adventure game that’s clearly built around the zany, unique humor and voices of Justin Roiland, the co-creator of Rick and Morty and co-founder of Squanch Games. PlayStation Underground has a look at the final gameplay:

The game is also coming to PC next week on June 4th on Steam, with official support for the HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, and also non-VR play. A 10% pre-order discount is in place until the game launches.

Trover Saves the Universe developer Squanch Games says that it’s planning to add ‘free DLC’ to the game by “keeping Trover at full price for longer than usual, instead of lowering the game’s cost over time and charging for new content.” That’s an interesting approach, though the company hasn’t offered any detail on what future content will look like beyond saying that players can expect “lots of new Trover adventures coming your way until it doesn’t make sense to do that anymore.”

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‘Trover Saves the Universe’ to Launch on PSVR in May, Rift & Vive in June

Justin Roiland’s VR studio Squanch Games announced last year that their upcoming game Trover Saves the Universe was exclusively targeting PSVR and PS4 consoles. This week at GDC 2019 though it seems the studio has reversed that decision, as the comedy platformer is also slated to arrive on PCs via Steam and Epic Game Store. To make things even more interesting, it appears PSVR users have a firm May release date now.

Update (March 27th, 2019): Squanch Games now says it will be doing a staggered launch, coming first to PSVR on May 31st, then shortly afterwards to PC VR platforms on June 4th. The studio also whipped up a new trailer, which is linked below.

Original Article (March 21st, 2019): Squanch Games wasn’t able confirm which specific PC VR headsets will be supported at launch, although VR support is definitely coming to the PC version for its targeted 2019 release, I was told.

Neither the Epic Game Store page nor the Steam page have information regarding supported headsets at this time. An educated guess: we’re likely to at least see support for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift.

There’s no exact launch date yet, although the studio says we should learn more on that front at PAX East, which takes place in Boston on March 28th – 31st. We’ll most likely learn whether it’s a staggered or simultaneous launch there too (see update).

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In case you’ve never heard of it, Trover Saves the Universe is another madcap fever dream from the mind of Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland. It’s not a platformer in the traditional sense, as your character (called a Chair-opian) is seated and relies on teleportation to follow your controllable pal Trover, who can be controlled to specific warp nodes where he battles enemies and solves puzzles in search of your lost dogs. There’s plenty of fourth wall-breaking moments here that are sure to appeal to fans of Roiland’s disarming and infectious sense of humor.

It seems the GDC 2019 demo on the floor is more or less the same from when we first saw it at E3 2018, albeit shortened somewhat to accommodate more GDC-goers. You can see the full demo I experienced below.

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New ‘Trover Saves the Universe’ Gameplay Video Reveals the Weird & Wild World of Trover

Upcoming action-platformer Trover Saves the Universe is the bizarre and hilarious brain child of Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland. Now you can see for yourself what PS4 and PSVR users will experience in a new demo presented at PAX West this past weekend.

Update (11:15 AM ET): Squanch Games just uploaded a new trailer/gameplay video. Check it out below.

Original Article (September 4th, 2018): Having played a more gameplay-focused demo during E3, it appears Trover Saves the Universe is shaping up to be another fourth wall-breaking romp from Squanch Games, a studio founded by Roiland that also produced Accounting (2017), PSVR exclusive Accounting+ (2017), and the Daydream exclusive Dr. Splorch Presentes: Space Heroes (2018).

Here’s how Squanch describes Trover Saves the Universe:

Wonderful. Your dogs have been dognapped by a beaked lunatic who stuffed them into his eye holes and is using their life essence to destroy the universe. Does that make any sense? You’ve partnered with Trover, a little purple eye hole monster to save them. Find power babies and plug them into his eye holes so that he can absorb their power, track down Glorkon, and save your dogs (and the Universe).

Trover Saves the Universe is slated to release exclusively on PS4 and PSVR (DualShock 4 only) at some point in early 2019.

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Hands-on: ‘Trover Saves the Universe’ Subverts Action-Platformer Genre to Hilarious (and Bizarre) Effect

Rick and Morty co-creator Justin Roiland’s has a game studio called Squanch Games, and their next big VR title, Trover Saves the Universe, looks to subvert another genre to an always weird, always hilarious effect. And while the reveal yesterday on stage at PlayStation’s E3 presentation didn’t quite hit the audience they way it was likely intended, there are certainly some real belly laughs in the demo I played today.

As a comedy action platformer, you take Trover on his jumping and slashing quest through the brightly colored land where you run into off-beat, fever dreamt characters only possible from the depths of Justin Roiland’s imagination.

Example: Trover is a purple guy with two eye-babies for eyes. Eye-babies. Small, differently colored babies for eyes, that have their own smaller eyes. Why does Trover have eye-babies? I don’t know. That’s just the sort of infectious strangeness that attracts people to Roiland’s comedy. Need a power-up? That’s a powerbaby. Yup.

Image courtesy Squanch Games

Seated in a magical chair with a DualShock controller in hand, I land on a strange planet with Trover by my side. With the spaceship’s doors now open, I direct him to a check point with my left joystick where I can then teleport along with my chair, moving through the map on my way to god-knows-where.

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For whatever reason, Trover is traveling the world to find an important crystal, something he finds almost immediately in the possession of a floating weirdo named Mr. Pons who needs Trover to destroy the house of a man named Michael. Mr. Pons is a law-abiding person, and thinks Michael doesn’t respect the law for daring to build his home in a non-residential zone, so naturally we have to destroy Michael’s home for spitting in the face of society’s conventions. If we want the crystal, we must travel to the top of the level, encountering puzzles and enemy gremlins along with way, which are easily dispatched with Trover’s lightsaber.

Image courtesy Squanch Games

After blindly jumping over a log, Trover is creamed by a few gremlins. To get a better view of the terrain ahead, Mr. Pons spits on me, giving me the power to boost my chair to two optional heights—but only if we agree to exact revenge on Michael.

Being used to the more free-wheeling format of Roiland’s Accounting (2017), which is a bunch of loosely related sketches, Trover appeared to take the platforming genre pretty seriously, at least more so than I initially thought after watching the trailer. Although there are some hilarious fake-out moments that make you question how deep the subversion goes—a door puzzle blocking my way to the next area didn’t work correctly, prompting Trover to smash the door—most of my encounters were honest-to-goodness platforming interspersed with the hilarious, off-beat comedy fans of Rick and Morty should find familiar.

Image courtesy Squanch Games

The press demo I played was only a quick slice of the whole first level, although it was clearly purpose-built for press demos. I walked in expecting a lot of fourth wall-breaking dialogue like in Squanch’s upcoming Dr. Splorchy Presents Space Heroes, and Trover certainly delivered, telling me to “do your review or whatever!” before starting the level. As the screen went black, I was reminded by Trover that the game was undoubtedly “Best in Show! Best in Show, E3 2018!!”

Sqaunch Games says they’re targeting a total gameplay time of more than four hours, and says Trover is slated to arrive on PSVR and PS4 in early 2019. There isn’t much more out there about it, but if you’re dying for more, you can sign up for updates here.

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Squanch Games Announces ‘Trover Saves the Universe’ for PSVR & PS4, Teaser Here

Squanch Games, the studio headed by Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland, today announced a new VR game at Sony’s E3 2018 keynote. Dubbed Trover Saves the Universe, the platformer is targeting PS4 and PSVR.

Not much is known about Trover Saves the Universe outside of what the Roiland-voiced presenter ‘Bathtub Guy’ tells us: “There’s some action-platforming stuff!” While it’s clear he had more to say about the game, the presentation was cut short as his TV fell into the tub, electrocuting him to death.

Trover Saves the Universe is said to debut exclusively on PSVR and PS4. No specific release date is available yet, although Squanch says it will be available early 2019.

We’re expecting more ad lib-style hilarity from Squanch and Roiland, as everything he says seems dangerously improvised with a penchant for fourth wall breaking madness. Squanch is currently also developing a Daydream exclusive mobile VR game Dr. Splorchy Presents: Space Heroes, revealed at GDC 2018 in March.

Check out the E3 announcement trailer, linked above and below.

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