The IAAPA Attractions Expo 2018 is due to take place in Orlando, Florida, later this month, with companies from around the world showcasing the latest innovations in digital entertainment. Raydon Amusement will be at the event to debut its first foray into virtual reality (VR) entertainment, Total Recoil.
Raydon is a company that specialises military simulation training, not entertainment, having created VR training
experiences attached to functionally accurate simulated vehicles and weapons.
The move into amusements and the creation of Total Recoil came about via two paths. Through a programme that let its engineers and developers work on passion projects, which could then be pitched to senior management for funding, one idea that saw success was Taste of Liberty, the brainchild of a Raydon software developer Tony Jones.
Taste of Liberty was attached to a gunnery trainer which Raydon had developed to teach US Army personnel how to operate .50 calibre machine guns. Jones and the Raydon team then adapted the Unstabilized Gunnery Trainer (UGT) for modern headsets with their higher resolution graphics to create an exciting arcade experience with Space Spiders rather than enemy combatants. Raydon then took the experience to events like Daytona Bike Week 2017 and several military trade shows, receiving positive feedback from Generals and regular consumers alike.
Looking to create a more solid and focused product Raydon assigned a new team to overhaul the Taste of Liberty concept and create the arcade experience, Total Recoil.
The videogame itself has still stayed with that sci-fi theme, with players taking on the role of a Space Marine who have to kill waves of alien space bugs attacking their ship. Total Recoil isn’t just a videogame, it’s a full arcade system that utilises the HTC Vive Pro headset alongside a heavy, high-recoil, mounted gun, to give that immersive feeling of manning a gun emplacement.
With the debut of Total Recoil taking place later this month at IAAPA Attractions Expo from 12th – 16th, there aren’t any locations confirmed just yet for Total Recoil’s public rollout. When that does happen, VRFocus will let you know.
via Mint VR