From Immersion VR, the same developers behind The Ancients, Extreme Escapes is an upcoming VR puzzle game that will support “all major headsets.” The footage shown above on Reddit is from the Oculus Quest version, but tethered headsets like the Rift S will have “better visuals” according to the developer on Reddit.
What’s notable about the brief bit of gameplay, other than the obviously impressive visuals, is just how interactive everything is. You can see the player reaching out and touching with tons of objects in the environment. It looks like a fiddler’s paradise in that floating contraption. For more, you can see this three-month old beta gameplay video too.
Stylistically I’m getting strong Red Matter vibes, which is certainly a compliment for the artists on the project, and gameplay looks a bit like an expanded and more free-form version of I Expect You To Die.
If puzzles and escape games are your jam, then you definitely need to keep an eye on The Room VR: A Dark Matter, which releases later this month on all major VR platforms. Check out our hands-on and interview right here for more on that one.
We don’t know a release date yet for Extreme Escapes, nor do we have any other concrete details, but the footage looked too promising to ignore. We’ve reached out to the developer for more details and will follow-up with more coverage when we hear back.
We first got the chance to try out The Room VR: A Dark Matter back at Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) late last year on the Oculus Quest, but that was just a brief show floor demo. The folks over at Fireproof Games recently sent us a multi-hour long preview build so we got the chance to dive back into this dark, mysterious world.
Suffice it to say that, from what I’ve seen so far, it certainly seems like The Room VR: A Dark Matter could quickly become the new standard by which to judge future VR puzzle games. The same way it redefined what was possible in a puzzle format on mobile devices, Fireproof is pushing boundaries for puzzle games with the same franchise once again, but this time for the immersive format of virtual reality.
Considering the version I played was running natively on an Oculus Quest, I was extremely impressed with the visuals. That being said, everything has an almost noticeable layer of downgrades over the top compared to how vibrant and crisp games on PC VR can look, but that’s understandable.
The demo began on a balcony, which I presume is the very start of the game. It seemed like a typical police station in a tall office building at the center of a busy London street in the 1900s. After the first half-hour or so is when things start to really turn upside down, though. As it turns out, you’ve got to investigate the disappearance of a well-known Egyptologist.
The Room games on mobile were always a bit unsettling, if not a tad creepy, but because they’re mobile games that mostly have you poking around and looking for clues, the inclusion of some light horror thriller elements definitely caught me off guard. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it include jump scares or anything like that, but it’s certainly got an overwhelming sense of uncertainty wile playing it.
The Room VR is only really a Room game in name and thematic consistency since it doesn’t actually take place inside a single room or anything like that. Instead, it spans a multitude of locations and sends players on a vast supernatural journey to uncover the unknown.
Some puzzles are all about trial and error here. I have no shame in admitting that I got stuck pretty early on in the preview build. It’s always one of my worst fears when playing unreleased software for review, but thankfully this was just a preview this time. Whereas a game like Moss or Asgard’s Wrath would have you thinking like a gamer to solve game puzzles, similar to The Legend of Zelda, The Room VR is much more about environmental puzzles, leveraging items you find and use, and combining things together in creative ways.
Instead of moving some blocks around to power up a generator or something silly like that, it would be more like deciphering missing words on a code ledger to unlock a storage box. Having to think in real-world terms rather than looking at everything through the lens of VR, is pretty awesome
Admittedly I did not play the entire multi-hour demo for The Room VR that Fireproof sent me partially because I was pressed for time and wanted to get some thoughts out and partially because I’m saving the nitty gritty details.
The Room VR: A Dark Matter is releasing this coming March 26th, 2020 on Oculus Quest, PSVR, and all major PC VR platforms. You can see more info on the game now at the game’s Steam page. This preview was written after playing a pre-release preview build of the game for Oculus Quest.
The Room: A Dark Matter is an upcoming VR puzzler from Fireproof Games, the same minds behind The Room (2014), its beloved predecessor for PC and mobile, and VR shooter-adventure Omega Agent (2016). With the fresh VR entry in franchise, Fireproof has shown a new level of mastery with the medium with this engaging, wondrous world of puzzles and arcane magic—something that truly sets a new bar for the VR puzzle genre.
Escape room games were one of the first to find a home in VR, and its for good reason: developers have a plethora of puzzle styles to borrow from both physical and digital escape rooms and mostly a blank check when it comes to the sort of story and visuals they want to drape on top of it. The object-oriented nature of the escape room genre is also basically a natural fit with VR thanks to motion controllers. That doesn’t put all VR escape rooms on equal footing though, as The Room: A Dark Matterstrikes a satisfying balance between puzzle complexity, storyline delivery, atmosphere, and visuals, making for such an enjoyable time that I really didn’t want it to end.
I’m gushing. I know. But there’s plenty to gush about with The Room: A Dark Matter—especially because of what I saw on Quest. Here’s why:
Note: the is a spoiler-free preview of a pre-release version of The Room: A Dark Matter.
As per the game’s description, A Dark Matter begins deep within The British Museum in London, where the disappearance of an esteemed Egyptologist prompts a police investigation into the unknown. As an intrepid detective, you encounter cryptic locations, examine fantastic gadgets and discover an otherworldly element which blurs the line between reality and illusion.
At first I felt a bit like Indian Jones as I traipsed through a 12th century church to break my way into a crypt where I messed around with all sorts of Egyptian relics. But that Spielbergian flair soon wears thin as a more sinister, patently Lovecraftian vibe takes over. Although there aren’t any blatantly frightening bits to worry about (i.e. no jump scares or anything to grab at you), the atmosphere really starts to feel like something ripped from any one of H. P. Lovecraft’s occultist short stories, replete with locales you might envision springing from the late horror fiction writer’s Cthulhu Mythos. I won’t go any further so I don’t spoil the narrative.
The game’s linear story is punctuated with hand-written notes that you find along the way in a each level. These are useful to the overall story, but not in the sense that they will give you clues to how to solve your next puzzle. Rather, turning on your ‘spirit vision’ goggles, letters and notes take on a secondary function by letting you summon a ghostly view from the past for a short scripted interlude from some forgotten adventurer before you. More often than not, these apparitions leave behind key objects that start you out on your journey of deconstructing the game’s multi-layered puzzles. The goggles also reveal clues and other puzzles too, so you’ll find yourself toggling them on and off a bunch.
One of my favorite recurring puzzle is when you shrink down to fit into a keyhole, where you then go through a wide variety of cryptic mechanics to jimmy the lock open. I’m not certain why I’m able to shrink given the lack of context (uh, magic?), but I’m not sure it matters because of simply how impressive and inventive each puzzle was.
In some of the puzzles you’re tasked with fetching one item to unlock another, and these can be obvious from the onset. A dagger-shaped receptacle lets you unlock a box. A locked dagger is across the room that needs a key (etc). However as the game progresses, it’s very rarely a simple task of putting object ‘A’ into slot ‘B’, as puzzles become more complex and multi-faceted. Personally, the end result was real satisfaction and a sense that I was somehow clever when I solved a room, although I know it’s really both the puzzles and their designers that should get that compliment.
Outside of the game’s cleverly built puzzles, one of the most striking features of The Room: Dark Matter is its fantastic level of visual detail, which at many times felt like it was running on a much more powerful device (I played on Quest).
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Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
For example: the paper in my hand flops around as if it were actually effected by gravity. The green potion in my glass swirls around the container as I slosh it around plaintively. Lighting is excellent and the sheer volume of well-made textures really helps sell each room. Sometimes this high level of realism is infringed upon by the lack of full physics simulation; i.e. you can clip your hands through walls and doors, and only some objects are grabbable—it’s hard to tell what you can manipulate and what you’ll clip through, as the game only gives you a slight haptic buzz to tell you whether you’ve landed on something ‘solid’ or not. While this irks me a bit from an immersion standpoint, it never spoiled the game which was overall an awesome gameplay experience.
Puzzle hints enabled by default, but you can toggle them off in the main menu. If you leave them on you’ll still need to manually request a hint in the in-game inventory, so you never feel like it’s leading you by the hand unless you’re absolutely need it to. That’s where you’ll find your spirit goggles and all of the stuff you squirrel away in each level.
Image courtesy Fireproof Games
I’ve played my fair share of VR puzzle games that assume that I really simply must hear a hint every time I get something wrong, be it from an intrusive text bubble or a ‘helpful’ disembodied voice, and I can’t stress enough how much I hate being rushed through a puzzle when the entire point of a game is to let me solve it myself. A Dark Matter has really nailed that refreshing ‘hands-off’ approach, leaving you space to feel clever when you finally figure out some of the more complex puzzles by yourself. It took me a little over four hours to play, and I had a blast every step of the way.
One of the things I can see bothering some people (namely the anti-teleport crowd) is that The Room: A Dark Matter is teleport-only; you highlight nodes and ‘blink’ teleport over. I understand the need for this once you near the middle of the game and you have to traverse back and forth between puzzles often. Node teleportation also clues you into what’s important and what’s essentially just hollow scenery, which saves you from poking around needlessly. One thing I would have liked was the ability to turn off blink-style snap rotation, which is the only way to change your orientation outside of physically looking in the desired direction. Not a big deal if you’re playing standing, but it can feel a bit too jarring if you plan on playing seated.
In the end, I really hope Fireproof can garner the same level of success that prior entries in the franchise have, because I can’t wait to play more of their finely crafted escape rooms in VR.
The Room: A Dark Matter is slated to release sometime in Spring 2020 on Oculus Quest, PSVR, Oculus Rift, HTC Vive, Valve Index & Windows Mixed Reality headsets. Check out the game’s Steam page for more info.
The road toUploadVR’s Best of 2019 awards starts here! We’re getting close to revealing our Overall VR Game/Experience of the Year after counting down to the reveal of our full list of categories and nominees soon. Today we’re looking at A Fisherman’s Tale, which is a mind-bending VR puzzler that consistently surprises with its inventive mechanics.
A Fisherman’s Tale is developed by Innerspace and published by Vertigo Games. In it you play as a tiny little puppet in a tiny little lighthouse. Located in the middle of your home is an even tinier model version of that same lighthouse that you can lean down to look at and see a replica of your surroundings, complete with a smaller version of yourself inside the replica that matches everything you do. And to complete the loop if you look out your window you’ll see a giant version of yourself in a larger home that’s also matching your every move.
What follows in A Fisherman’s Tale is a mesmerizing experience that shifts perspectives and really forces you to think outside the proverbial and literal box more than just a few times. It’s the rare sort of experience that leaves you mouth agape, in awe, and constantly muttering to yourself, “Oh wow, that was cool,” from start to finish.
The poetic narration, delightful visuals, cozy setting, and self-aware narrative beats help sell the experience even further. Unlike most games in this genre, in A Fisherman’s Tale you don’t need to be a savant at spatial awareness and tricky puzzle solving to find pleasure here — it’s just as much about making you think as it is about subverting your expectations.
“This isn’t simply swapping tiles and pushing buttons in order; it’s genuinely stimulating puzzling. Early levels have you bending your brain to the breaking point as you reason your way through the model paradox. At one point you turn a hefty obstacle into a level-progressing key. Later on, you repurpose some seemingly useless furniture to reveal hidden secrets. Oh, and then you turn a fish into a taxi service. Brilliant!
This is the kind of reality-defying gameplay that thrives in this medium.”
The only real negatives we found during our time with A Fisherman’s Tale is that it just feels a bit too short, coming in just around two hours, but the ride itself is amazing while it lasts.
A Fisherman’s Tale is one of the most surprisingly excellent VR games of the year and it’s finally coming to Oculus Quest today by developer Innerspace and publisher Vertigo Games.
From early looks A Fisherman’s Tale always looked like it would be a charming and worthwhile experience, but it certainly surpassed our expectations when it first released way back in January. Earlier today during the Holiday VR Showcase we had the pleasure of revealing the launch trailer for the Oculus Quest port of the game, which you can check out down below or over on the UploadVR YouTube channel:
In A Fisherman’s Tale you play as a puppet confined to a little lighthouse home, but in the middle of the cabin is a small model of your dwelling. If you look inside you’ll see a smaller version of yourself matching your every move. It’s full of ingenious puzzles and some of the most creative mind-bending moments of VR we’ve seen yet.
When Jamie reviewed it, he had almost nothing but glowing praise: “A Fisherman’s Tale might be the first [VR game] to achieve a perfect storm of gameplay, immersion and narrative in a single experience. Though brief, it fuses experience and interactivity to really show what this medium is capable of. This is exactly what old seadogs aren’t meant to be capable of; something genuinely new.”
Cutting the cord and going wireless with 360 inside-out tracking would be a great way to play so this is a great fit for Quest. And if you’re interested then you’re in luck — A Fisherman’s Tale is out on Oculus Quest already as of today!
The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets is the kind of VR game you play when you want to feel warm, cozy, and happy inside. It makes you laugh, it makes you smile, and often times it makes you feel clever and creative.
It’s easier than it should be to let yourself get bogged down in VR experiences about violence, suffering, and realism rather than escaping to a colorful, whimsical world designed to evoke more positive feelings. Luckily The Curious Tale Of The Stolen Pets is here and it’s just as delightful as its artwork makes it out to be. This is truly wholesome VR gaming at its lightest and best.
The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets is about taking on the role of an imaginative child set out to help your grandfather solve mysteries involving stolen pets by exploring wonderfully realized miniature worlds. It’s a simple and peaceful story featuring your grandfather’s loving voice as narration, but does explore some familial themes about rocky relationships and the elusive nature of memories. Overall though if something like Ghost Giant was a bit too depressing and A Fisherman’s Tale was a bit too esoteric, then The Curious Tale could scratch your puzzle-loving itch.
Each level is realized as a tiny little diorama-style world, sort of like the vignettes from VR games like Moss, the floating planets from Super Mario Galaxy or the emotionally-charged VR animation, Allumette. I’m reminded a bit of GNOG as well. Each of them features dense puzzles layered on top of one another, some collectibles to discover, and plenty of devilishly charming critters to locate. This is all about stolen pets, after all.
The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets does what all great VR games do and makes it abundantly clear that it could never work outside of VR. The whole game, from top to bottom, is about reaching out with your hands, manipulating things in 3D space, leaning, looking, and exploring all around you. I played primarily on Oculus Quest for this review for the convenience factor alone and loved looking at all of the nooks and crannies of every level.
It’s not a long game, wrapping up in just a few hours, but each world is so singularly thematic and expertly crafted the immersive value of those minutes is far higher than average. During one of the early worlds that’s covered in snow you have to dig pretty deep, mentally, to connect the dots and understand which chain reaction of events is needed to multi-task efficiently.
That being said, it’s a bit one-note in a lot of ways. Most of the puzzles devolve into a mostly aimless scavenger hunt rather than requiring true ingenuity to solve. I’d have preferred more creative solutions that pushed along a more vibrant narrative over the broad strokes on display here.
Visually, it evokes a happy sense of calmness. The self-contained levels are emotive and vibrant, if simple — just like the puzzles they hide beneath the surface. It does suffer from a common VR hurdle in that it ties itself so heavily to promoting its interactive bits that every object you can’t pick up or nudge feels unfairly out of place. Interaction in VR is typically an all-or-nothing determination so half-measures can be a bit frustrating.
Comfort
In terms of comfort, The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets is about nausea-free as you can get for a VR title. The worlds float in front of you and your movement is entirely up to you. It can be played seated or standing just fine and you grab and pull the world to bring it up and down and around you. No one should have to worry about VR sickness with this title.
The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets Review Verdict:
None of that prevents The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets from hitting its highest notes, though. It’s genuinely difficult to play the game without a smile on my face and I only hoped for more creativity, more whimsical delights, and more exploration of the character’s forgotten past. It borders on feeling too shallow at times, but all-in-all does a masterful job of exploring its themes before it’s all over and that’s all you can really ask for from a puzzle game of this temperament.
Final Score: 4/5 Stars | Really Good
This review was conducted using primarily the Oculus Quest version of the game, but also referenced the Oculus Rift version on Home as well. The Curious Tale of the Stolen Pets releases on November 14th on Steam with support for Rift, Vive, Index, and Windows VR, on Oculus Quest, on Oculus Rift via Home, and on PSVR for $14.99 on all platforms. It will feature cross-buy between Quest and Rift on Home.
You can read more about our five-star scoring policy here.
We embark on our Journey for Elysium with this full review of the recently released atmospheric puzzle game about the Greek underworld.
Greek mythology has long since proven to be fertile ground for video games and Mantis Games’ Journey for Elysium is a good example why. Using VR’s unique abilities to immerse the player in the game world, this dark and foreboding tale of the Greek afterlife and one unknown soul’s quest for redemption is strikingly stylish. Like so many VR games though, it’s also incredibly short.
Journey for Elysium has a lot going for it. Right from the start, the gorgeously moody black and white landscapes just ooze creepy atmosphere. The game uses limited color to highlight puzzle elements, such as gold coins that unlock new memories to push the story forward. Items to complete the memories are hidden close by. Grab them and place them were they go to complete the ghostly sequence.
Traveling by boat, the waters you row through are replete with the tormented dead, their anguished faces staring up as you pass over. Looking onward at the cliffs surrounding your path reveal massive stone statues of the gods stare down. From the shores and cliffs, ghoulish dead wander aimlessly. In short, Journey for Elysium is a great looking game, with a soundtrack that fits the dark themes and visuals.
The actual gameplay is a mash up of VR motions. Rowing is one of the main activities and, if you’re not familiar with this particular exercise, takes some getting used to. Settling into a rhythm to move straight ahead proved to be a puzzle in itself for those of us with sketchy coordination. At times, you’ll have to manipulate the boat to be in a specific spot to solve a puzzle. This requires dealing with a whole host of boat physics. Some people will probably get into the level of detail the developers put into just this aspect of the game, but others might flail around a lot.
Beyond boating, there are times when Journey for Elysium takes on a kind of first-person Tomb Raider vibe. These are probably the best parts of the game. There’s a fun sense of vertigo climbing up walls, moving hand to hand along ledges, lifting yourself up to the next. Chains and ladders require coordinated hand motions and moving from one chain to another is almost, but not quite like swinging across gaps. It requires using your reach and a bit of inertia to reach the next chain (or ledge) without falling to your doom.
Puzzles aren’t particularly hard to solve. Finding coins and other items tends to just involve wandering around in the small areas of the game and picking up shiny things. Other tasks are more involved, such as using a bow and arrow to light fires, but none of the solutions are too taxing.
Comfort
Journey for Elysium gives players the option for either teleporting or free movement, depending on your system specs and comfort level. Given the use of heights, climbing, and falling, there’s definite potential for motion sickness as well, although the overall game ran very well and didn’t require a room-sized set up.
That brings us to the major problem. Journey for Elysium can be finished in under two hours. If you really want to stretch it out, you could maybe get three or four. There’s not really any particular replay value in terms of alternate paths, hidden secrets, or different endings.
Journey for Elysiums Review Verdict
Journey for Elysium’s gorgeous black and white visuals offer a terrific atmosphere and the trip to the end is fun, thanks to the variety of game play elements. But the game is over way too soon with some frustrating boating sections and simple puzzles.
Final Score: 3/5 Stars | Just Okay
This review was conducted using an original Oculus Rift with the Steam version of the game. Journey for Elysium is available on Steam for $19.99 with support for Rift, Vive, and Index headsets.
You can read more about our five-star scoring policy here.
I Expect You To Die’s generous supply of free missions finally wraps up this month.
Developer Schell Games just announced that the final free mission, Operation: Death Engine, launches on all platforms on November 19. As with other missions, the new level will be entirely free to download.
Operation: Death Engine has been teased for some time. It finally takes players to space for a final showdown with Dr. Zor. You’re tasked with dismantling the deadly… death engine. You’ll need to infiltrate a space station and avoid whatever perils stand in your way. Check out the first trailer for the mission below.
“Without the ingenuity and skill of our development team, I Expect You To Die would not be the success that it is today,” Schell Games CEO Jesse Schell said of the final level’s launch. “For the sake of fans everywhere, the team hopes to be able to continue this franchise into the future.”
Indeed, it’s rare to see a VR game three years into its life get this level of support. I Expect You To Die first launched with support for HTC Vive and the Oculus Rift before making its way to other platforms.
Given that this is the last level, Schell’s comments seem to suggest a sequel to the game is on the cards. Currently, Schell Games has its hands busy with the Early Access version of Until You Fall. The VR sword combat game continues to see plenty of updates and is planned for release on Oculus Quest and PSVR, too.
I Expect You To Die is available on all PC VR headsets, Quest and PSVR too for $24.99.
Another big release date for you following today’s Doctor Who news. This time it’s for Fast Travel Games’ The Curious Tale Of The Stolen Pets.
The adorable little puzzler arrives on November 14 for $14.99/€14.99/£11.99. It will launch on pretty much everything: Oculus Quest, PSVR and PC VR headsets. Get a glimpse of the game below and try not to let your heart melt.
We revealed Curious Tale at our E3 VR Showcase in June. It’s a cutesy puzzle game in which the player revisits childhood memories with their grandfather. Each level is presented as a diorama with plenty of puzzles to solve. We’ve been hands-on with the first level and fell for the game’s incredible animations, which look like a stop motion film come to life. It was enough to win it an award at last month’s Raindance Film Festival.
November 14 is the same day that Insomniac Games and Oculus Studios’ Stormland touches down. Doctor Who: The Edge Of Time is also coming to all platforms two days earlier on November 12. Busy week for VR fans, then!
Curious Tale will be Fast Travel’s second VR game, following up from last year’s Apex Construct. Elsewhere, the studio is co-developing Budget Cuts 2 with Neat Corp. According to today’s press release, that’s still planned for launch this year. That window is obviously running out, so expect to hear more news soon.
Will you be picking up The Curious Tale Of The Stolen Pets? Heck, will you be getting all three big releases that week? Let us know in the comments below!
This week at the Oculus Connect 6 (OC6) conference in San Jose, CA I got the chance to try out a brief demo of The Room VR: A Dark Matter from Fireproof Games, a newly announced entry in the long-running puzzle series.
The Room VR was announced during OC6 and they had two demo pods with Oculus Quest headsets set up for attendees to try out. During my demo Tatjana did a short interview with Barry Meade, Co-Founder and Director of Fireproof Games, with me playing in the background.
You can watch the interview here:
My demo took place mostly inside the London police station you can see in the gameplay footage sprinkled throughout the interview as well as in the trailer (embedded below) as I was tasked with trying to figure out what’s going on with some new evidence at the station.
If you’ve ever played an interaction-heavy puzzle-based game in VR before, the flow of The Room VR will be very familiar. I basically spent my time teleporting between various nodes in the police station that each had a bunch of objects and items for me to tinker with. For example, near the front was a project that I could use to flip through slides that had evidence and historical details, or I could go to the evidence locker and retrieve items.
Similar to the mobile line of The Room games, or even just physical Escape Rooms and VR-themed Escape games you might have played, it’s just as much about interpreting the objects you’re given as it is filling in the blanks. One of the key puzzles in the demo was figuring out which evidence locker had the item I needed to break into a safe. The safe I was trying to open was overrun by the titular “dark matter” and made it impossible to open normally.
Over at the evidence locker I can see that someone was arrested for safe cracking but their storage number is erased — naturally. So if I look down the list I could tell that each number was listed sequentially and the letter associated was (spoilers) assigned to the criminal’s last name. After realizing that I grabbed the item, opened the safe, and then used that item to solve another puzzle later on.
What stood out to me most though is that this demo was running on an Oculus Quest and it looked absolutely great. Visually all of the environments were sharp, I could go out on the balcony outside and look over the city at nighttime, and all of the physical interactions felt really, really good.
I didn’t get a sense too much of what the narrative is about exactly, but it certainly has a strong mysterious flavor that should hook existing fans of the genre.
We’ll be keeping an eye on Fireproof Games and The Room VR for more details as the months move on. The Room VR is slated to release within the first few months of 2020 and is coming to every major VR device included SteamVR headsets, Oculus Rift via Home, Oculus Quest, and PSVR. Check out the official website for Fireproof Games for more details.
We’ll be keeping an eye on Fireproof Games and The Room VR for more details as the months move on. The Room VR is slated to release