Boneworks by Stress Level Zero is described as a narrative VR action-adventure using advanced experimental physics mechanics. In this article, we check out the game’s core mechanics.
Cas & Chary Present
Cas and Chary VR is a YouTube channel hosted by Netherland-based duo Casandra Vuong and Chary Keijzer who have been documenting their VR journeys since 2016. In partnership with the channel, Road to VR shares a curated selection of their content.
In Boneworks, you enter an artificially intelligent operating system called; MythOS. Something mysterious has happened in the operating system, and it’s up to you to find out what that is. Throughout the game, you’ll enter a variety of levels in the story mode, and you progress through them by doing physics-based puzzles and combat.
The game has three game modes: Story mode, Arena mode, and Sandbox mode. The Arena mode unlocks after you finish the story and you can unlock the Sandbox mode earlier in the game in a specific way, but I won’t spoil that for you.
One of the first levels is an extensive tutorial that’s basically a museum that you walk through, and at every exhibit, you learn how to use the game’s mechanics. Not only does this level teach you what locomotion options there are, but it also shows you most of the weapons and items available in the game and how to interact with the environment using physics.
You probably heard of Boneworks before if you keep up to date about VR games since there is a lot of hype around this game. But what makes this game so exciting? The heavy use of physics simulation in the game is something you don’t see often in VR games because it’s very challenging to do right. Most games have scripted interactions which use static logic to determine outcomes (like swinging a sword at an enemy will deal X damage), but much of the logic in Boneworks is based on physical simulation.
In the video, around the 03:00 mark, I show you these VR interactions with physics-driven items. For example, each weapon has its own weight. If you try holding a sledgehammer with one hand, it’s almost impossible for you to accurately slam it on a barrel because it’s too heavy to carry it with one hand. With two hands it’s easier, but still, a sledgehammer does not act the same as a lighter weapon.
Image courtesy Stress Level Zero
The developers added realistic colliders in almost every object, and instead of forcing you to grab an item at one specific spot like most games do, the item is grabbable on far more places. Being able to hold an object how you want gives you much more freedom to use it creatively (like holding a dagger with an underhand or overhand grip). Some of these things might seem like small things, but they can greatly enhance the feeling of immersion and agency in the game.
There are also other mechanics that I like. For example, there is ‘force-grab’ which allows you to grab items from a distance, so you don’t have to crouch down to pick up items from the ground. The realistic weapon handling makes for some exciting combat, especially when you forget how to reload a weapon in the heat of the moment when there’s a bunch of creepy zombies coming at you. Thanks to the physics, you can improvise–throw your gun at the zombie and start swinging with your fists! I also like the inventory system that shows you the open slots on your body to put your equipment.
While I can tell that the developers put a lot of passion into the physics mechanics in the game, some parts weren’t as exciting to me. The story, for instance, is very mysterious, but even three hours in, I still don’t feel like I’ve been grabbed by it.
While I enjoy the physics mechanics, it also makes for some awkward movements and interactions. For example, I could get my arms or body stuck between two pipes, and I would struggle to get myself out. Those awkward moments also make the game pretty intense comfort-wise. If I don’t watch out, I have a hard time playing long periods without getting motion sick. Motion sickness is a very personal thing, though, so I would not take my word on it before trying it out yourself. However, since these intense moments seem to be caused by the physics-driven gameplay, I feel like I had to mention it. There are some comfort options to choose from in the controller settings menu, like head or hand-related locomotion that could help out, but the game warns you from the very start that it is intense.
So far, I’ve also found more puzzles than combat. The puzzles are huge, and to solve them, you need to use the environment around you creatively. There are multiple ways to solve a puzzle, and I like that. They can be head-scratchers, though, and it might get frustrating at times, but anyone who likes puzzle games would probably see this as a challenge.
Some other things I like is that the game rewards exploration. You can find and collect ammunition in every level which also acts as currency to get new items and weapons out of wall dispensers. The game is also full of secrets and easter eggs which are fun to seek out.
Boneworks by Stress Level Zero is out now for $30. The game supports most major VR headsets: Valve Index, HTC VIVE, Oculus Rift, and WMR. I’ve played the game on the Valve Index with the Index controllers myself, and I’ve also tried the Oculus Rift S and the Touch controllers. Both headsets play well with the game.
I recommend everyone who likes exploring VR games to check out this game. You probably don’t want to get this game just for the story, but you will want to check out these physics-driven implementations.
It’s that time of year—in addition to Cyber Monday deals on PSVR, Sony is offering an ‘End of Year Sale’ in the PlayStation Store where you can find discounts on 29 PSVR games.
Looking for something new to play? Check out all the PSVR game deals below as part of the PlayStation Store End of Year Sale. We’ve highlighted some of our favorites:
Sony says these End of Year Sale deals will be available until December 23rd at 8AM PT. Additionally, we’re still seeing Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on some top PSVR games:
The modern era of VR has been around in earnest for about three and a half years now. Though it has clearly demonstrated its potential and is slowly growing, adoption has remained niche compared to the broader mainstream gaming industry. While VR bubbles up here and there, the Half-Life: Alyx announcement and trailer has thrust VR into the spotlight of mainstream gaming; it’s release next year will be the medium’s next opportunity to prove itself.
Racking up more 10 million views across YouTube and Twitter in its first 24 hours, last week’s release of the Half-Life: Alyx trailer is likely the single fastest spreading exposure to VR of its kind (the trailer is now at 12.4 million views and counting).
While there are YouTube videos involving VR which have racked up tens of millions of views (like PewDiePie playing Beat Saber), such viral videos have succeeded on their standalone entertainment value rather than stimulating conversation among mainstream gamers and pundits. The trailer, on Valve’s official YouTube video alone, has generated nearly 60,000 comments. Links on Reddit have seen tens of thousands of additional comments.
The Half-Life: Alyx announcement also saw extensive press coverage compared to any other VR title before it; here’s a small sampling of gaming, general tech, and even major mainstream news publications which covered it:
Most of these publications covered even more than just the announcement trailer, including multiple op-eds and breakdowns of the info that Valve released on Thursday last week.
This is to be expected, of course. The Half-Life franchise is near-legendary, and clearly commands enough attention that even publications uninterested in VR itself felt that they must cover the news.
With Half-Life: Alyx, Valve has made VR something that the mainstream gaming-sphere can’t ignore any longer, says Denny Unger, the founder of Cloudhead Games, one of VR’s most seasoned developers. Beyond Pistol Whip and The Gallery Ep. 1 & Ep. 2, the studio has had a surprisingly close relationship with Valve, a company which rarely works with external partners; Cloudhead was one of a small handful of developers chosen to get access to Valve’s earliest VR dev kits (which would eventually become the HTC Vive) as well as the developer behind Aperture Hand Lab, a tech demo used to show off the unique hand-tracking capabilities of Index’s controllers.
“Up until now there has been an agenda to summarily ignore VR titles within the mainstream gaming press because it generally didn’t drive click-throughs,” Unger tells Road to VR. “With Half-Life:Alyx, it’s impossible to ignore the conversation. And at that point it is simultaneously impossible for flatscreen gamers to ignore VR. They will be forced recognize how the technology has changed, how much better it is than they might otherwise assume, and that VR isn’t simply a peripheral, it is its own medium.”
Image courtesy Valve
VR saw tremendous buzz when the first consumer VR headsets hit the market back in 2016, but the hype far exceeded actual adoption. In the time since then, VR hardware and software has improved significantly, but Unger says that it will have to overcome the lingering sentiment established at launch.
“Of course, the problem here is that we are still battling years worth of antiquated public understanding of where the tech currently sits. You still hear the same old tired arguments about why VR isn’t ready, yet the industry has solved a substantial bloat of issues both in terms of hardware friction and how we interface and interact with VR itself.”
Unger, who has worked closely with Valve over the years, thinks that Half-Life: Alyx, will be just the thing to show the world what VR really looks like in 2020, and even stands to be a proof-point other AAA studios.
“Half-Life: Alyx will smash through so many of the false assumptions & arguments that have blockaded mainstream coverage of VR in recent years. And in doing so, it will also force the AAA industry at large to shift focus. There’s no denying that a great VR experience, when coupled with great hardware, validates the entire medium,” he said. “My personal hope is that with Half-Life: Alyx, the general public and the gaming ecosystem at large will finally accept VR into the fold. Why endlessly spend money on a new monitor or peripheral when you can jump into a completely new medium? VR is ready for prime-time.”
For Unger’s enthusiasm, there’s plenty of mainstream gamers out there who believe that VR still isn’t ready. The word “gimmick” is notably prevalent among dissenting opinions in comment threads by mainstream gamers, though, so far, the overall tone appears to lean more toward excitement and renewed curiosity in VR than pessimism.
One thing is certain: many mainstream gaming and tech publications which rarely (or effectively never) cover VR will be picking up the requisite headsets and hardware to take a good close look at the game when it launches; Half-Life: Alyx will be the biggest opportunity to date for VR to show mainstream gamers why it’s worthy of their attention. No pressure, Valve.
VR is finding uses in everything from art and design to training, research, and entertainment. An unexpected byproduct of VR’s immersion is its ability to flip the notion of in-home entertainment being necessarily sedentary. With the right games and techniques, VR can be in fact be an excellent workout. Here we’re sharing a VR workout routine that’s designed to be as fun as it is physical and comprised of games compatible with all major headsets.
Updated – December 10th, 2021
Yes, there are dedicated VR apps specifically designed for fitness. But if you’re anything like me, the biggest challenge is not the ability to exercise, but maintaining consistent motivation. Luckily it’s easy to get yourself to workout if it’s a byproduct of something inherently fun—the difference between lifting weights vs. playing a sport.
So I’ve put together for myself a three-game VR workout routine in which none of the games are explicitly made for fitness (which means they focus first and foremost on fun), but combined with the right settings and technique can be a solid workout; here’s my FitBit tracked stats after a session.
Of course, what you get out of any workout depends on what you put in. Yes, you could play these games without putting in nearly this much effort, but I was playing for both fun and fitness, so I really put myself into my movements. I’ll explain below what kind of techniques will help you put the most into—and get the most out of—each game.
Since not all of these games are available on all VR platforms (we’ll note where you can find them), you can make up your own combination of games and time spent.
Grab a big cup of water (you will need it for breaks) and strap that headset on tight—here’s the rundown:
Beat Saber is a rhythm game that emphasises motion over timing. With a growing set of built-in tracks with polished beatmaps, it’s easy and fun to play, and very engaging trying to work your way up from Easy to Expert+ difficulty levels. Tracks vary in intensity, even at the same difficulty level; you’ll start to get a feel for which ones demand the most effort. [Read Our Beat Saber Review]
Settings & Technique
Play at the highest difficulty level that you’re comfortable with. Expert+ will of course be the most physical, and you should ideally build your way up to that, but even playing on Hard or Expert, the right technique will get your blood pumping. I highly suggest playing with ‘No Fail’ enabled; this will let you focus on fitness and flow rather than getting interrupted by failing a song.
The key is big swings. Keep your feet planted; focus less on your wrists and more on moving your arms. I find that the best way to have fun while putting in effort is to try to swing at each block with as much force as I can while still managing to reach the next block in time. The key is to smoothly move your swings from one block to the next; this makes a fun challenge where you need to strategize your movements to consider how to most efficiently move from one swing to the next even while making big, hard swings. When you really get into the zone you should feel that satisfying flow state that will carry you through.
You’ll want to take off the headset for a five minute cooldown and water break when you find yourself really out of breath. See if you can build yourself up to completing one entire ‘album’ before taking your break (albums have different lengths, so choose wisely).
Pistol Whip is a rhythm shooter focused on flow and target management rather than aiming precision. Enemies appear as you move forward through the level and it’s your job to dispatch them while also dodging their incoming fire. It might not look it at first glance, but because of the way you need to move to dodge incoming fire Pistol Whip can be a great leg workout, making it a perfect complement to Beat Saber. [Read our Pistol Whip Review]
Settings & Technique
Similar to Beat Saber, I highly recommend playing at the highest level you can and with ‘No Fail’ enabled; this will ensure you don’t get interrupted or frustrated by failing a level. Higher difficulty requires more movement and will provide a better workout. I also highly recommend the ‘Dual Wield’ mode, which will put a gun in each of your hands instead of just one. With two guns it’s easier to find that satisfying flow state that will keep you going.
The key for a good Pistol Whip workout is to keep your feet planted as often as possible. From here you’ll need to move your upper body around to dodge incoming fire as you return fire to kill enemies. Moving in this way will make great use of your legs. Don’t be afraid to get down real low to dodge—not only is it an effective technique for dodging, it’s also going to get those leg muscles flexing.
Listen to the music and keep your body moving to the beat. Combining your shooting and dodging into a continuous flowing motion is the key to fun and fitness in this game.
Until You Fall is a rogue-lite melee combat game in which you battle as far as you can until you inevitably perish. With each run you’ll earn money which can be used to buy and upgrade weapons to make you stronger for your next bout. Being a successful knight requires patience and strategy, making this a great cooldown game because you can flex your brain while your muscles wind down. [Read Our Until You Fall Review]
Settings & Technique
Just like Beat Saber the key here is to make big swings. This isn’t just for your workout though, bigger swings in Until You Fall mean more damage dealt to enemies, so you’re killing two birds with one stone.
In the game you can choose from a handful of weapons to hold in each hand. If you pick one of the ‘talisman’ items (which give stat boosts but cannot block or attack), you’ll be able to concentrate all of your physical effort into one arm. Try alternating the talisman into your opposite hand each time you die, this will force you to train up the coordination and muscle memory in your non-dominant hand which will help you in the game later if you switch back to using a weapon in each hand.
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Addendum
Mix it Up
The above is just a rough suggestion, modify the times to whatever feels suitable for you. If you want even more workout for your time, consider adding 10 crunches each time you have to take your headset off for a drink of water. In Until You Fall, consider adding your own fitness ‘penalty’ for dying (like 10 jumping jacks) to raise the stakes and make you fight harder to survive!
Wipe it Down
Don’t let your headset turn into a gnarly mess! After a good session you should definitely remove the headset’s face foam and give it a good squeeze down with a damp paper towel in hand, followed by a dry paper towel for any remaining moisture. Feel around the headset’s other straps to see if they need also need a wipe down. Your controllers may need some attention too.
Got suggestions for other great VR games which offer both fun and fitness? Drop them in the comments below!
Update (December 10th, 2021): Since originally publishing this article, all three games have become widely available on all major headsets! We’ve updated the article with the price of each game and links to each major platform, as well freshened up some links with our latest reviews.
Halo Reach (2010), the final Halo game from the series’ original developer, Bungie, launched on PC in December, and could now wind up with a VR support through an unofficial mod. Zack “Nibre” Fannon, the creator of the Alien: Isolation VR mod, is now working on ‘ReclaimerVR’, a mod to add VR support to Halo Reach.
While Fannon had previously shared a teaser video showing experimental headtracking in Halo Reach, he’s now signaling more clearly that he intends to bring the mod to a release-ready state under the name ‘ReclaimerVR’.
Fannon was profiled recently by 343 Industries, the developer now in charge of the Halo franchise, where he said his goal is to add VR support to all Halo games released on PC under the Master Chief Collection. That’s an ambitious goal—considering MCC includes Halo 1–4, as well as Reach and ODST—but Fannon has more than proven his skills with his ‘MotherVR’ mod for Alien: Isolation.
Interestingly, while Fannon had first dreamed of playing a Halo game in VR well before he created the Alien: Isolation mod, he says the experience of creating that mod was instrumental in being able to bring VR to Halo Reach.
“If I could expand my programming chops by getting [Alien: Isolation] working in VR again, without the game’s source code, could that somehow help me on my quest towards getting Halo working in VR? Long story short, it turns out that it honestly did. Reverse engineering a game from absolute scratch helped me see the Halo games in a new light when I’d come back to them, and revisiting MotherVR again afterward really helped me push my understanding of code at an assembly level further and further.
The original article—which talks about Fannon’s early teases of the ‘ReclaimerVR’ mod and the background of the Alien: Isolation mod—continues below.
As a massively popular franchise, calls for a Halo VR game have been heard plenty over the years, but with the latest incarnation of the games stuck on Xbox, Halo has still not gotten the VR treatment (unless you count that tease which Microsoft never followed up on).
With Halo Reachmaking the leap to PC on December 3rd, however, we just might get a taste of a full Halo game on modern VR headsets, albeit unofficially.
Zack “Nibre” Fannon, creator of the Alien: Isolation VR mod and self-described “Halo addict,” today posted clips on Twitter showing they were experimenting with adding some VR functionality to Halo Reach.
Apparently working with a version of the game from public beta tests earlier this year, the clips show they have managed to bring rotational and positional tracking from the Rift into Halo Reach. This is a minor (but essential) achievement compared with the complexity of getting the game to render with proper distortion and stereoscopy. If it were anyone else we might just say “neat,” and move along with our day, but Nibre’s work with Alien: Isolation shows they may have the skills to deliver a fully functional Halo Reach VR mod.
Prior to its 2014 launch, Alien: Isolation was briefly demoed with a VR mode running on the second Rift development kit (DK2). It proved to be a terrifying experience, though with only tens of thousands of Rift DK2s out in the wild, the developers of the game didn’t bother to implement the VR mode for the launch of the game. It turns out though that the game’s files shipped with the VR mode hidden, and some intrepid folks figured out how to activate it so they could play the game on the DK2.
But between the DK2 and the launch of the consumer Rift in 2016, the Oculus SDK (which interfaces with the game to make it work inside the headset) changed drastically, meaning that the hidden Alien: Isolation VR mode wasn’t compatible with the consumer Rift.
But that didn’t stop people from clamoring to play the game in VR. Their desire spawned multiple petitions to try to get publisher Sega to update the game with modern VR support. Despite one petition with more than 2,500 signatures, the game’s VR mode remained outdated and unplayable with the consumer Rift headset.
That’s when Nibre decided to take action into their own hands and released the so-called ‘MotherVR’ mod which not only enabled VR support but also improved upon the original implementation, bringing it in line with a more modern application of VR comfort design and even adding support for VR controllers.
As for Halo Reach in VR, Nibre hasn’t committed to creating a full blown mod just yet, but they are clearly experimenting. “Now that [Halo Reach] is finally coming to PC, it opens a lot of doors…,” they teased on Twitter.
While Oculus doesn’t offer much publicly in the way of understanding how well individual apps are performing across its VR storefronts, it’s possible to glean some insight by looking at apps relative to each other. Here’s a snapshot of the top 20 Oculus Rift games and apps.
Some quick qualifications before we get to the data dump:
Paid and free apps are separated
Early access titles are not represented
Only apps with more than 100 reviews are represented
Some apps may have benefited from hardware bundling (like Robo Recall and Lucky’s Tale)
Rounded ratings may appear to show ‘ties’ in ratings for some applications, but the ranked order remains correct
This is a snapshot as of today, expect positions to shift over time
Oculus Rift
Best Rated Paid Oculus Rift Apps
The rating of each application is an aggregate of user reviews and a useful way to understand the general reception of each title by customers.
Looking at the year that each title was released gives us some interesting data to ponder regarding VR’s temporal success. Here’s the tally of titles in each year that are currently among this top 20:
2016 – 4
2017 – 5
2018 – 4
2019 – 7
Most Rated Paid Oculus Rift Apps
The number of ratings often gives a ballpark idea of the relative sales of each title; a title with more ratings is likely to have sold better than a title with less, though there’s certainly an unknown margin of error.
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!
Our Managing Editor Ian got access to a build of the game this weekend, and captured some footage of the game’s tutorial on the Valve Index, embedded above.
The game is a cartoon-ish physics-based action game that lets you pull off some sick moves using a plethora of different weapons, guns and gadgets. The combat looks amazing, but it’s also got a humorous tone judging from the trailers.
Importantly, the game also introduces some innovative play options – the game uses both first and third-person perspectives. Unlike most VR games that stick to first-person, Holoception lets you control a third person stick figure that accurately mirrors your own head and hand movements in miniature.
According to the Holoception site, the benefit of this mechanic is you can pull off full and intense movements – like jumping, running and climbing – with a much smaller chance of motion sickness than with first-person gameplay.
Besides that, there is a truly vast amount of different guns, mechanics and action sequences on display in the launch trailer alone. That being said, there’s also a trove of content on the Holonautic YouTube channel, which dives into a bunch of the different mechanics and gadgets on offer, demoing how each of them works. These videos are definitely worth checking out further if your interest was piqued by the trailer above.
One particularly cool gadget is the HoloGloves, which pretty much gives you the force from Star Wars. You can pick up, push and pull objects, including enemies, through the air. It looks like a heap of fun.
As 2019 steadily draws to a close, eyes are increasingly turning toward Valve, which said it will release its first “flagship” VR game this year. Though there’s just two and a half months before the end of the year, the company still hasn’t formally announced the game. However, a series of code leaks suggest that it will indeed be a Half-Life VR game.
Beyond that, the company hasn’t said anything about the game. We don’t even know the name of the title, let alone what kind of game it will be. But Tyler McVicker, the mind behind YouTube channel Valve News Network, thinks he has a pretty good idea.
For years McVicker has been trawling the source code of Valve’s publicly released games and game tools, and has spotted telling clues here and there which point to the development of a ‘HLVR’ project, which McVicker believes represents a ‘Half-Life VR’ game, the same which Valve has said will ship this year. In a new video, he offers an overview of the evidence that he’s found and outlines what it could tell us about the upcoming Valve VR game:
While some of McVicker’s broader claims sound like pure speculation with a bit of fanboyism, there certainly appears to be plenty concrete evidence in the form of the many ‘HLVR’ and ‘VR’ code strings which have been found; these are plaintext references to objects, attributes, and systems which underpin the game, and could reveal quite a bit about what kinds of enemies, weapons, interactions, and settings the game will be built around.
From his research, McVicker believes that Valve’s upcoming VR game will be a Half-Life VR game set in the 20 year period between Half-Life and Half-Life 2. The player, he says, will play the role of Alex Vance, a central character in Half-Life 2.
He goes on to overview some of the specific objects and interactions the game will likely contain, including the hilarious and aptly named ‘Grabbity Gloves’, which are a clear reference to the Gravity Gun from Half-Life 2, but can also be sensibly expected to allow players to use ‘force-grab’, a technique commonly used in VR game design to make item interactions easier by allowing players to grab objects from a distance.
‘Half-Life 2’ artwork | Image courtesy Valve, Andrew Ivanchenko
Of course it’s worth noting that not everything uncovered will definitely make it into the game. Some of the code that’s been found could be from experiments and the like; this might be one of Valve’s VR games but not necessarily the first one that will launch; and there’s surely heaps of code that isn’t actually out in the public yet which could radically alter our understanding of what the game will be. Granted, if the uncovered code does represent an active project, looking broadly at what’s there does seem to point quite specifically at a Half-Life VR game.
From his research, McVicker believes the title will be a single-player, story driven game, and have a AAA scope with 12-16 hours of gameplay. And while Valve said the game will launch in 2019, the company is well known for missing self-imposed deadlines; McVicker expects the game will get a formal announcement in 2019 but not launch until early 2020.
Rhythm game Synth Riders is coming out of early access and getting a full release update on PC VR, alongside a release on Oculus Quest. Both the Quest version and the full release update for PC VR will arrive on October 31st.
The game was initially released into early access for PC VR in July last year. Since then, the developers at Kluge Interactive have doubled the number of songs available in the game and introduced an open-source beat map editor. The PC VR version is also one of only a few games that officially support in-game integration of fitness tracking tools from VR fitness company YUR. Given that the game is quite active and can be a good workout, the integration is useful for getting an idea of how many calories you’re burning while playing and measuring your Synth Rider sessions.
The Quest version will benefit from launching with all of the improvements and additions that Synth Riders received over the last year or so in early access. Quest users will have access to 30 songs, 4 difficulty levels and varied game modes, including regular, boxing, endurance and force modes. Kluge Interactive also confirmed that the Quest version will also support the official beat map editor and include an exclusive song for Quest users. However, it sadly won’t launch with multiplayer or global leaderboards.
The Quest version will also be slightly cheaper than the PC VR version of the game, at $16.99 compared to $19.99 on other platforms.
Will you be picking up Synth Riders this Halloween? Let us know in the comments.
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