Recently I, along with UploadVR’s Digital Marketing Manager, Tatjana Vejnovic, got to try out two experiences at Zero Latency’s Melbourne location. Here are my impressions!
We’ve covered some of Zero Latency’s experiences before, but for those who are unfamiliar, the concept is pretty simple. Zero Latency allows you to take part in wireless co-op VR experiences with up to 8 players, all of which take place in a large open plan warehouse, allowing you to move somewhat freely within the game world without worrying about bumping into obstacles or walls.
All of Zero Latency’s locations use custom VR headsets, along with a proprietary custom assault gun for each player, for games which require one. They’re even now offering a new PvP experience, which we previously covered, and the Melbourne Zero Latency staff mentioned how they had just hosted their first PvP esports tournament the week before.
While at Zero Latency, Tatjana and I played two different sessions. The first was Zombie Outbreak, a fairly stock-standard VR co-op zombie shooter experience, with the added gimmick of free roaming in the large space. It features a well-worn narrative – a city has been infected by zombies, and you have to clear them out of the city. There are few gun upgrades here and there, but your standard gun can switch between being an assault rifle and a shotgun. The whole experience takes about 45 minutes and you move through various different scenes and set pieces until you reach the end.
The second session was split into two games, the first of which, Engineerium, was a puzzle-game with no gun prop, but lots of walking and exploring. You and your teammates walk through a trippy environment that makes you feel as if you’re walking parallel to the ground, sometimes upside down, and even in the opposite orientation to your peers as you solve basic puzzles over roughly 20 minutes.
The final part of session two featured a game called Singularity that was a sci-fi space shooter, similar in gameplay concept to Zombie Outbreak, but shorter in length at around only 25 minutes. It sees you and your team fight off hordes of robots on a spaceship, with a variety of different guns and more closed in corridors and spaces that see you move through the spaceship until you get to a final boss battle.
Both sessions took place in the exact same physical space, with the same hardware, however they could not have been more different. The first session, with Zombie Outbreak, was a frankly woeful experience, and left me extremely skeptical about Zero Latency as a whole. The session was constantly interrupted and paused for multiple reasons – someone would get too close to a wall, or sometimes the game supervisor would have to explain what was going on, sometimes two people would be too close together, causing the game to pause to avoid a collision. The system and gameplay became very frustrating, very quickly.
I wasn’t feeling that excited about heading into the second session. However, it was completely different. In both Engineerium and Singularity, we were barely interrupted, spare a few times here and there. The flow of the gameplay was much smoother and the whole experience felt much more polished. Our game supervisor barely needed to intervene in either game, and much less overall than in Zombie Outbreak. The session could not have been more different to the first – it was much more enjoyable.
I walked out of Zero Latency feeling quite confused. It was the same physical space, the same constraints, the same technology, and yet the two sessions felt like they were run by two different companies. The first session I would never willingly play again, whereas the second sessions was an experience I would willingly show to others as an introduction to the vast possibilities and immersion of VR.
On my way home, I realized why the difference was so stark – it comes down to gameplay and level design. Zombie Outbreak was designed with poor systems overall – it didn’t use the physical space well, it left newcomers confused, and it’s level layout meant that people often ended up bunched up and bumping into each other and the game’s boundaries. Singularity, which at its core is the same 8 person co-op shooter concept as Zombie Outbreak, felt much more thoughtfully design. Its levels provided direction and areas for each of the 8 players to explore, without getting into each other’s way too frequently.
After the second session, it struck me that Engineerium and Singularity had distinct, fun art-styles. On the other hand, Zombie Outbreak had a really muted colour palette with no defined style at all. It was trying to look realistic, but mostly just looked like any shooter game from the mid 2000s.
While this certainly had an impact on the games’ aesthetical appeal, it also affect the gameplay and how the groups approached the levels as well. With so many brown surfaces and dark colours, Zombie Outbreak’s aesthetic design never gave you a good indicator of where to go or how to move through the space. In fact, Zombie Outbreak takes advantage of the warehouse’s open plan space in the worst way possible – most of its environments are just a wide open street or large room you can walk around. This hypothetically sounds great, but in reality it means that all 8 players are rarely directed anywhere in a clear manner, so everyone just gravitates to the edges of the game area boundaries, where enemies spawn. People tended to just bunch up in groups.
In our session, this lead to what seemed like endless game pauses – due to person-to-person collisions or people standing too close to walls – and lots of directions from the game’s supervision via our headsets. Our supervisor would often had to direct stragglers or confused players in the right direction, as the game’s art style and level layout doesn’t give much clear assistance.
On the flip side, Singularity’s levels understand that just because you have a big open warehouse to play in, you shouldn’t necessarily design your game to take advantage of that in a literal way. They’ve taken the space and made virtual walls, corridors and small rooms. It’s not just a big open space with no barriers, it’s a proper spaceship that feels closed in and almost claustrophobic. However, ironically this means you end up exploring and walking around more than you do in the large, empty space in Zombie Outbreak. You always have a good idea of where to go, as the corridors direct you to the right area, and it gives players frequent opportunities to break off into groups. With less players bunched up in the same spaces, you have less collisions. The superior level design also meant the supervisor doesn’t have to chime in with advice very often, because the layout of the ship naturally directs you without assistance. The difference this makes to the overall experience is literally game-changing.
Singularity felt like a game that was designed to take advantage of a large open space in a way that facilitates maximum immersion. Zombie Outbreak felt like it was designed simply to showcase the vast dimensions of the warehouse floor plan, which in turn makes the experience feel less tailored and much more frustrating.
Singularity’s design also means that you lose track of your physical position in the warehouse itself, due to its turning corridors and clever design. You can never quite tell where you’re standing in the physical warehouse, compared to where you started. In Zombie Outbreak, the levels generally always resembled the shape of the warehouse’s play area, so I was always vaguely aware of where I was physically in the real world, which feels much less immersive.
The puzzle game, Engineerium, is on a whole different level in this regard. The game is set on floating blocks that turn, move and rotate to completely separate your group and completely immerse you until you have no idea where you are in the physical space. You can’t even begin to think about where you are in the physical space, because the game has played so many visual and design tricks on your mind that make it near impossible to contemplate.
Without spoiling too much, in some parts of Engineerium you’ll look up and see a fellow player standing upside down above you, or standing perpendicular to you on a platform angled at 90 degrees. While you know that everyone is still standing flat in the physical game space, it’s a miracle of design that this effect can be achieved while ensuring no one bumps into each other in real life. It left me truly puzzled and amazed – it’s a dazzling effect and a great use of the physical space.
While Engineerium doesn’t use the gun props, the usage of the physical gun prop in Singularity and Zombie Outbreak were implemented quite differently as well. The gun itself was better represented in Singularity than it was in Zombie Outbreak – in the former, the gun model in-game matched the physical prop quite well, and even showed you the physical buttons on the in-game model, so they were easier to locate while playing. The Zombie Outbreak in-game model didn’t fully match the physical gun prop, and the buttons weren’t represented on the game’s model. This meant I often had to fiddle with the physical prop to find the buttons, as you couldn’t locate them by looking at the in-game model. It was a minor inconvenience, but another way the design of one game helped create a much better experience overall compared to the other.
Leaving Zero Latency, I came away with a new perspective. Without knowing both sessions were run by Zero Latency at the Melbourne warehouse, I would have said the two sessions were run by different companies and not affiliated in any way. Singularity and Engineerium felt like experiences that took the potential that the large warehouse space offered, and used it in a way that immerses you and surprises you with minimal interruptions. On the other hand, Zombie Outbreak simply felt like you had been plonked in a generic zombie VR game and the designers had drawn a large Oculus-style guardian barrier around the warehouse floor, leaving you to contend for space with the other players, with no real direction.
It just goes to show the degree to which game design can affect a VR experience. You can have the same physical space with the same hardware, but if you haven’t put thought into a game’s design, it can quickly fall flat. To some who are new or inexperienced, VR technology can still feel like a gimmick or something they’ve never experienced. In those situations, developers can often get away with sub-par game design, as the focus is on the technology. However, as the technology becomes more mainstream, this is quickly changing.
VR developers need to make sure that their level design, art style and gameplay are developing at a pace that matches the expectations of consumers that are becoming increasingly used to VR technology. Zero Latency is the perfect example of both the good and bad ends of that spectrum.
The post Zero Latency: Analyzing What Makes For Good Location-Based VR Games appeared first on UploadVR.
Making any sort of investment comes with its own particular risks and rewards, from something as simple as buying an in-game item to putting money into stocks and shares. Many companies have invested in the future of virtual reality (VR) technology and as you’re reading VRFocus you probably have to, most likely by buying a VR headset. However, what about the virtual world itself? It’s long been imagined some sort of VR universe may well become a hub for all content, with projects like Somnium Space creating those building blocks. Yet the platform wants users to have a real vested interest in it by offering virtual land that can be owned and built on. So at Gamescom 2019, VRFocus caught up with CEO and co-founder of Somnium Space, Artur Sychov, to learn more about this grand ambition.
Somnium Space is a vast open-world designed for VR devices like Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. Much like Project Sansar the platform is designed to be a digital social location where people from around the world can meet, socialise, enjoy events, play games and much more.
What makes Somnium Space a little more unique than other VR social experiments is that users can actually take ownership of the land, just as you would do in the real world. Using blockchain as its backbone Somnium Space allows users to purchase ‘land parcels’ on which they can then theoretically build whatever they want. And just as in real life city centre land is more expensive due to its inherent appeal more than land out in the middle of nowhere.
Currently, version 1.0 of Somnium Space is available to download now via Steam for free, with version 2.0 in the works. Sychov explains that the new edition will add a lot of the features the community has been after, including full-body avatars, SDK’s, enhanced controller support as well as Oculus Go and Oculus Quest support.
A big part on Somnium Space’s expansion will happen this October when the Initial Land Offering (ILO) sale commences. Running from 6th – 13th October you’ll be able to bid for those ‘land parcels’ mentioned. Check out the full interview below with Sychov going into greater detail about version 2.0, blockchain and the decentralised marketplace. As always, for further updates keep reading VRFocus.
As Chris Milk said in his TED talk all those years ago, VR/AR is an empathy machine; maybe the most effective empathy machine we’ve ever had.
I was so inspired by what Chris was saying as I got started on cofounding Oculus Story Studio, which created ‘Lost’, ‘Henry’, ‘Quill’, ‘Dear Angelica’ and the Virtual Beings piece ‘Wolves in the Walls’. We created an empathetic relationship between a fictional character – Henry, Angelica, Lucy – and the audience.
But I had seen the incredible documentary work of Gabo Arora – at the UN, with the Nobel Prize Committee, with Steven Spielberg’s Shoah Foundation. He showed me that immersive art is even more powerful when creating empathy with real people, seeing through someone else’s eyes.
We started talking about a piece based on Matthew Desmond’s book ‘Evicted’, one of Bill Gates and President Obama’s top books of 2017. We began talking about doing something we hadn’t seen before – creating a piece of public Agitart (or agitARt – I know I know it’s terrible!) that could, in cities around America give people a sense of the Eviction crisis from the people on the front lines of it – the movers, eviction court judges, the evicted.
I created a group ‘The Next Amendment’ to fund the project with a goal of raising $1m for a right to shelter in the US (the-next-amendment.com). The core idea of The Next Amendment is the concept that is now working in several cities in the US and Europe ‘Housing First’ that to combat homelessness we need to provide housing first – not as an incentive for sobriety, mental stability and socially acceptable behaviour. This isn’t affordable housing for all, this really is just shelter.
A good example project that we want to raise money for is Oakland’s Tuff Shed project: which houses homeless people in ‘community cabins’. Instead of the dangers on the street, homeless people are given baseline stability of a small insulated cabin where they can store their belongings, sleep, come and go as they please. It fits two people to a cabin, rather than the large dormitories common in some shelters. In total these are small communities of up to 50 people; with 2 meals a day, showers and electricity. Since beginning the project, Oakland is investing millions more as it sees good signs in transition from homelessness.
As Gabo and I talked about how to draw attention to the eviction crisis and to raise funds for right to shelter projects we started to think about a physical object that could tell that story – the whole topic was about providing four walls for people so he hit on the idea of a cube navigated in augmented reality (AR). He and Barry Pousman his producer began to interview folks in Milwaukee (where Matthee Desmond’s Evicted is set) and find stories and place these in AR.
At Venice you wear a Magic Leap One and walk the four sides of a cube activating spatial audio and video and AR objects related to a story of eviction:
Side 1 of the cube: Eviction notice in the mail
Side 2: Eviction court day
Side 3: Eviction day
Side 4: Looking back on the impact of Eviction
The cube in Venice is obviously not made of metal, but after Venice we plan to make the piece a public work of agitart, a metal cube in SF, Milwaukee and DC where users can experience These Sleepless Nights on their iPhone and immediately donate to the right to shelter and housing first cause.
I have never done agitart before; the complexities of a piece of public art in our cities that draws attention to something we’d rather not think about may not work to help raise funds for a right to shelter. The characters I’ve wanted an audience to connect with and have empathy for have always been cartoons! But what Gabo has created with These Sleepless Nights is truly special and I hope that it will get us to $1m for this cause!
Curious about how we livestream the way we do? Then look no further than this handy guide for general tips and this guide specific to our Oculus Quest setup. For today we’re playing Acron: Attack of the Squirrels and giving out FIVE copies of the for Steam LIVE while streaming.
We’re back again with another livestream planned for today 8/30/19 @11:00AM PT on the UploadVR YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Mixer.
Acron: Attack of the Squirrels just released this week as the latest VR party game that aims to pit friends against one another. To find out more about why we’re such big fans, make sure to read and watch our review here. In short, it’s just simple fun. The VR user plays as a animated tree that throws sap and explosive pine cones at squirrels who are controlled smartphone users connected to the game wirelessly. The goal is for the squirrel players to steal acorns and for the VR tree player to stop them. Each squirrel has a different special ability and it results in some chaotic and crazy matches.
For the giveaway, you’ve got to watch along life and type !raffle into the chat once the giveaway starts and then respond if your name is announced as a winner. That’s it!
Or if you want a chance to win a Quest key, you can enter into that giveaway here.
The stream is planned to start around 11:00 AM PT today and we’ll aim to last for about an hour or two. We’ll be hitting YouTube, Twitter, Mixer, and Facebook all at once. You can see the full stream embedded via YouTube right here down below once it’s up:
Embedded livestream coming soon
You can see lots of our past archived streams over in our YouTube playlist, as well as various other gameplay highlights. There’s lots of good stuff there so make sure and subscribe to us on YouTube to stay up-to-date on gameplay videos, video reviews, interviews, and more original content!
And please let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next! We have lots of VR games in the queue that we would love to show off more completely.
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Orange Bridge Studios launched its spaceship flight battling game End Space on Oculus Quest.
Available now for $15 with cross-buy support for Rift, End Space should satisfy some Oculus Quest buyers who haven’t found many games on Facebook’s standalone VR headset that fulfill the dream of flying — or battling — in a versatile spaceship. I tried out the game and captured the first 15 minutes of gameplay. It took me a few minutes to get used to default controls which lock ship movement to head movement and gun targeting to the direction Oculus Touch controllers are pointed.
A version of the ambitious space battling project shipped previously on practically every VR platform, including Google Cardboard versions for both iOS and Android. Back in 2016 David Jagneaux wrote a deep dive with the sibling creators and their inspirations from the 1990’s game Star Wars: TIE Fighter. From that article:
“The game is heavily influenced by Star Wars: TIE Fighter, a 1990’s Star Wars space shooter from Lucasarts,” said Lee Wasilenko. “When we got involved in VR that was the game we desperately wanted to play more than any other. As a result, Justin decided to start working on a VR space sim and End Space is the result. In addition, in 2014 most of the VR games out there were little more than tech demos (since it was only devs with the hardware and everyone was just sharing what they had starting throwing together) and we desperately wanted to see a full fledged VR space sim.”
So many years after they started, End Space remains a remarkable technical achievement on Oculus Quest bringing its highly maneuverable cockpit to the standalone VR system.
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Yesterday Resolution Games released its eighth virtual reality (VR) title in the form of social multiplayer Acron: Attack of the Squirrels. Supporting a range of headsets one of the best to play the videogame on is Oculus Quest thanks to its wire-free portability. And thanks to our friends at Resolution Games VRFocus just so happens to have several Acron: Attack of the Squirrels codes for Oculus Quest to giveaway.
While Acron: Attack of the Squirrels does have online capabilities to play people around the world its true genius is in local multiplayer mode. Only one person plays in VR, in the role of a tree who needs to protect its golden acorns from thieving little squirrels. The VR player can do this by grabbing and flinging the squirrels away when they’re close enough or by lobbing various balls of foliage to knock them out.
Naturally, the squirrels are wiley little critters which dash all over the place proving to be hard targets. There are four characters to choose from, each with their own unique ability such as burrowing or running really fast. Just to make matters worse for the VR player up to eight people on mobile phones can join in the action. either on iOS or Android devices.
VRFocus gave Acron: Attack of the Squirrels a commendable 4-star rating in our review, saying: “There really isn’t much to dislike about Acron: Attack of the Squirrels as its such an amusing videogame. Resolution Games has stuck with its tried and tested playful design, whilst bringing some multiplayer mayhem to the table, making it an ideal choice for Oculus Quest owners who like to take their headset out and about.”
So onto the competition. Today VRFocus is giving away several codes for Acron: Attack of the Squirrels on Oculus Quest. There are multiple ways to enter the giveaway with the standard prize draw entry rules applying: Follow us (or already be following us) on Twitter or alternatively, visit our Facebook page or YouTube channel to get an entry for each. Only one code is available per person, each drawn randomly. The competition will be open a week. Beginning today and ending at midnight UK time on Friday 6th September 2019. The draw will be made shortly thereafter. Best of luck.
Win Acron: Attack of the Squirrels Codes for Oculus Quest
Immersive technology can be a powerful medium when used correctly to draw attention to particular issues, such as when the United Nations (UN) and Here Be Dragons created Ground Beneath Her. Currently, the United States is going through a housing crisis with eviction cases on the rise. It’s why a new mixed reality (MR) installation These Sleepless Nights was created to highlight what’s actually going on.
Commissioned by The Next Amendment, an initiative whose goal is: “Eventually a national right to shelter could be added to the Constitution as the 28th amendment,” These Sleepless Nights is a dual piece, a documentary which premiered this week at the 76th Venice Film Festival and an MR installation involving a giant cube in San Francisco and Washinton D.C.
“A large part of US homelessness hinges on the facilitation of court-ordered evictions. These Sleepless Nights is a mixed reality documentary that uses cutting edge spatial computing technology to allow visitors to listen, connect and engage in new ways with those on the frontline of America’s eviction crisis,” explains the synopsis. When it comes to numbers the exhibition uses 2016 figures from the Eviction Lab, noting that 2,350,042 eviction cases were filed and 6,349 people were evicted per day.
These Sleepless Nights was inspired by Matthew Desmond’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book EVICTED, with the documentary directed by Gabo Arora (ZIKR: A Sufi Revival) with music by Philip Glass. At the installations, guests will be able to wear Magic Leap headsets to view imagery on the cube as they walk around it. Each side of the cube is a stage in the eviction process, so as visitors slide their hands across the walls characters appear through audio stories and spatialized audio. The locations will also be used to help raise funds towards the right to shelter, accessible via an iPhone app.
Executive produced by Fable’s Edward Saatchi (Wolves in the Walls) and co-produced by Montreal based studio DPT in association with Johns Hopkins University Immersive Storytelling and Emerging Technologies Lab, The Next Amendment aims to raise $1 million USD for local action networks providing Housing First solutions from Oakland to the Bronx.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of the latest MR projects and installations, reporting back with further announcements.
It’s playtime; this week’s VRecap is gaming heaven.
Gamescom may have been last week but this week’s recap has even more news for fans of fun. There’s plenty of fresh content to be talking about, including a new update for Beat Saber with a bunch of new songs and features. Then we take a trip to a galaxy far, far away to catch up with the latest on Star Wars: Vader Immortal. Oh, and there’s an update to a game from Valve (no, not the one we all want to hear about).
Elsewhere, this week is chock full of new releases. We’ll give you a quick glimpse of Acron: Attack of the Squirrels (which we quite liked), Vanishing Realms (which we really liked) and Hotel R’n’R (which we think we like but haven’t played enough of yet). Of course, this would be a VRecap without some sort of mention of No Man’s Sky, and this week we have your latest comments on the game.
Finally we’re giving you the chance to win Acron on Oculus Quest. Resolution Games’ nutty party title finds a perfect home on Oculus’ standalone headset, so don’t miss out on a chance to grab it for free. All you need to do is follow the link right here (very shortly).
Okay, that about does it for this week. September awaits and it brings with it Oculus Connect and, hopefully, some other big news too. Oh, and we’ll finally get to play Espire 1. Let us know what you make of this week’s VRecap in the comments!
The post VRecap #6: New Beat Saber Track, Vader Immortal Returns & Win Acron! appeared first on UploadVR.
After a strong selection over August, here are some early VR releases for September to help cure those post-summer blues. Here are five VR titles that have confirmed release dates over the course of next week. Also, make sure to check out our helpful little video guide freshly made for our YouTube channel. In addition, be sure to check out our post-Gamescom articles full of exclusive insights and interviews discussing various VR content.
Complete with single and multiplayer modes, Honor and Duty: D-Day All Out War Edition is a WW2 shooter featuring upgradeable weapons, 4 player classes to choose and training your own soldiers over the course of 40 game stages.
Put yourself in the shoes of a 1990s game developer in this unique game within a game experience. The action takes place in your developer’s basement where, along with developing games of your own, make sure to stay hydrated, eat regularly and take out your development frustrations on your surrounding environment.
This well-received single and multiplayer action title was first released in 2016. It has now been given the Oculus Quest treatment where players can relive fond memories of defeating hordes of enemies with crossbows while dodging axes when war breaks out in your kingdom.
Based on the Japanese Light novel series by Isuna Hasekura, the story follows the adventures of travelling merchant Kraft Lawrence and Holo, who can transform herself into a wolf. You join them as they seek refuge in an old abandoned house. Working with the original creators of Spice and Wolf, this VR animation has been developed and published by SpicyTales and can still be enjoyed in 2D by non-VR users.
The popular Rovio Entertainment videogame series flung its way onto mobile devices late 2009. Now almost a decade on, the battling birds have continued to reach new heights with their ever-growing universe of books, comics, TV shows, two feature films and of course new games. This newest release is a PlayStation VR exclusive couch co-op based off the most recent feature film, The Angry Birds Movie 2, and takes place on board the Piggy Gadget Lab from the same film.
HTC Vive’s Viveport platform wants to be completely hardware agnostic, supporting as many virtual reality (VR) headsets as possible. Currently, only HTC Vive and Oculus Rift owners can use the store and its Viveport Infinity service but from tomorrow Valve Index will also be added to that roster.
Viveport announced back in May that it would be adding support for Valve Index as well as an offer of two free months of Viveport Infinity. That was then extended when it became clear a lot of customers wouldn’t get their Valve Index kits in time.
Now it appears the platform decided to hold off even longer to ensure as many early adopters of Valve Index could make use of the Viveport Infinity service. Today, the service has officially started supporting Valve Index headsets, and from 1st September until the end of the month new and existing Viveport Infinity members who own the headset can redeem two months. While it is unlimited, Viveport Infinity is a subscription service so after those first couple of months you can either pay $12.99 USD a month, or only $8.99 with a prepaid annual subscription.
“We’re giving VR enthusiasts access to much more top-rated VR games and apps than ever before for a low monthly price,” said Rikard Steiber, President of Viveport in a statement. “In just one year, we’ve made great strides in our mission to become a hardware-agnostic platform, opening up our service to Vive, Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality and now Valve Index devices.”
New titles are regularly added to the subscription service including Ninja Legends, A Fisherman’s Tale, Apex Construct, Fujii, Gun Club VR, Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs and I Expect You To Die.
Valve Index launched on 28th June 2019, with the pre-order launch in May selling out within minutes. This lead the Valve Index landing page to put up longer and longer shipping times as demand outstripped supply. Now you should find that most items in the kit are delivered fairly quickly rather than waiting a couple of months.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Viveport, reporting back with any further VR headset additions.
AltspaceVR was one of the earliest social apps available for headsets like Samsung Gear VR, a virtual space where people could not only hangout but also create events and more. The app has had a few ups and downs over the years but seems to be growing stronger of late. Fortunes should only improve next month when Oculus Quest support is added.
There are a number of social apps available for virtual reality (VR) headset yet AltspaceVR is one of the few which allows a wide variety of users to engage with each other across the world using different headsets. As a social VR space, on the platform you can simply chat with mates if you so choose or enjoy one of the many events regularly held.
From live comedy and music events, playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons or chess, to sculpting, browsing the internet or watching endless cat videos, there’s something for everyone to enjoy. Plus the fact that the app is completely free for every supported device.
AltspaceVR also has some more unique features including call people through Slack, holding your own event and being able to capture live VR events for repeat viewing. Then there’s Frontrow. This allows an unlimited number of people who attend an event to have a front-row seat – giving everyone the best seat in the house.
AltspaceVR supports a wide range of VR headsets including Oculus Rift/Rift S, HTC Vive, Windows Mixed Reality, Oculus Go, Samsung Gear VR, Google Daydream and Valve Index. Oculus Quest support will be added on 12th September 2019. VRFocus will continue its coverage of AltspaceVR, reporting back with the latest updates.
Voxel-based art and multiplayer playground software SculptrVR is available now on Oculus Quest.
The creativity software first launched on Steam in 2016 and its primary developer, Nathan Rowe, repeatedly refined and rebuilt the application over the last three years. Now available for $9.99 on Quest it includes a collection of tools for singleplayer or multiplayer shaping of voxel worlds, along with cross-play support with players in other Oculus-based headsets. One of the application’s key features allows the player to resize themselves for an incredible playground experience which toys with your sense of scale. For creatives, the feature also allows for some detail work in the sculpting app.
There’s climbing, hang gliding and even rockets you can fire to drill little — or large — holes in the surrounding landscape. While there are other art apps available on Quest like Tilt Brush and Gravity Sketch — SculptrVR is a different sort of experience. Facebook’s own VR art apps, Quill and Medium, aren’t available on the headset either. SculptrVR is no means a replacement for the lack of No Man’s Sky and Minecraft on Quest, but its exploratory and creative gameplay could certainly fill the gap for some.
I talked with Rowe this week in Quest and asked him some questions about the path his software took to the standalone VR headset from Facebook. The 12-minute tour was recorded entirely on Quest in SculptrVR.
SculptrVR is listed as having cross-buy with Rift, so if you own the application already from Oculus for Rift it should already be playable inside Quest.
The post SculptrVR Arrives On Oculus Quest With Multiplayer Voxel Playground appeared first on UploadVR.
Curious about how we livestream the way we do? Then look no further than this handy guide for general tips and this guide specific to our Oculus Quest setup. For today we’re playing the new music just released in Beat Saber.
We’re back again with another livestream planned for today 8/29/19 @12:00PM PT on the UploadVR YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and Mixer.
Beat Saber just released six brand new songs as part of OST Vol. III for free as well as a suite of new features such as color customization, improved swing accuracy detection, and other bug fixes. This brings the total number of songs available, including paid DLC, to around 40 if my math is correct. Plus the infinitely long list of custom user-created song maps for non-official music.
The stream is planned to start around 12:00 PM PT today and we’ll aim to last for about an hour or two. We’ll be hitting YouTube, Twitter, Mixer, and Facebook all at once. You can see the full stream embedded via YouTube right here down below once it’s up:
Embedded livestream coming soon
You can see lots of our past archived streams over in our YouTube playlist, including past Beat Saber streams, and various other gameplay highlights. There’s lots of good stuff there so make sure and subscribe to us on YouTube to stay up-to-date on gameplay videos, video reviews, interviews, and more original content!
And please let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next! We have lots of VR games in the queue that we would love to show off more completely.
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Whenever Beat Games has something to say about its rather popular rhythm action title Beat Saber it’s usually worth taking notice. Today is no different with the studio releasing a rather big update for the videogame, adding more songs, features and improvements to the overall experience.
The most important addition for longterm fans is the Original Soundtrack Vol. 3, adding six free new songs to the roster:
The colour picker is now available. Revealed earlier this month, its a customisation feature which allows players to choose the colour of the sabers, notes, obstacles and lights. Great for a visual change, this addition could also help those who have difficulties seeing certain colours.
Beat Games hasn’t stopped there. Players can now override the level environment and enjoy improved lighting. The swing angle detection has been improved, as well as the note jump-start positions and speed in Expert+ difficulty for Crystallized, Cycle Hit and WHAT THE CAT!? – which were all released last month.
Beat Saber supports Oculus Rift, Oculus Quest, HTC Vive, Valve Index, Windows Mixed Reality and PlayStation VR headsets. Unlike some previous updates or features, the OST Vol.3 update is available for all of those mentioned. Especially good for Oculus Quest and PlayStation VR owners who don’t have access to the Level Editor which is only available for PC.
VRFocus reviewed the PC version of Beat Saber back in May giving it a full five-star rating, remarking: “The Oculus Rift version is as good as ever and now offers even more value for money thanks to the new features, it is a little shame that there’s no cross-buy support for Oculus Quest. Either version of Beat Saber is great for new and veteran VR fans alike.”
The popularity of Beat Saber seems to have continued unabated. Harmonix will soon be challenging its rival on PlayStation VR when Audica arrives later this year for the headset. As further updates are released for Beat Saber, VRFocus will let you know.
Today HTC have announced that the Valve Index VR headset is being added to the list of supported headsets for the Viveport Infinity app subscription service.
The virtual reality app subscription service Viveport Infinity is now available for Valve’s Index VR headset, HTC announced, bringing all-you-can-watch and -play content to the most deluxe consumer VR platform yet available. Starting today and running through September, Index users will receive two months of free service, regardless of whether they’re already Viveport Infinity members.
For $12 per month — $9 monthly if prepaid annually — Viveport Infinity users get access to hundreds of VR apps and games that can be used across multiple PC VR headsets, including HTC’s own Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. The company says it’s now offering “much more top-rated VR games and apps” to users, thanks to greater developer engagement.
While some have called Viveport Infinity the Netflix of VR, HTC is marketing the service as an opportunity for new VR users to “discover their favorite VR games, apps and videos,” potentially making purchases of content sampled in the library. Infinity adds new apps and games each month to keep its catalog interesting, while also offering Viveport Video content, frequent coupons, and free app giveaways to members.
Valve Index users can take advantage of the free two-month promo deal through this link by downloading the Viveport desktop app and plugging the Index into the PC for verification. New users will begin a two-month trial of Viveport Infinity, while existing users will get two months of free service added to their accounts.
This post by Jeremy Horowitz originally appeared first on VentureBeat.
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Swinging arms at the ready; today’s Beat Saber update adds yet more songs for free.
Beat Games just launched its next major patch for the smash hit indie VR game. Headlining the update are six new songs, officially labeled ‘Original Soundtrack Vol. 3′. The tracklist includes a new track from Jaroslav Beck, Beat Games’ former CEO who recently stepped down to focus on music for the game.
But that’s not all. This update also brings the previously-promised color customization system. It allows you to select your own colors for sabers, notes and lights. No more Jedi red and blue for you. There’s also a new level environment override option.
Elsewhere this update brings a host of tweaks and fixes. Beat Games is promising improved lighting effects and more precise detection of angles when you swing. Some of the songs themselves have been slightly tweaked and a bug that stopped the game for starting properly has been addressed.
The update should be live on all platforms now. Here’s the tracklist for the OST 3, which you can listen to here:
Jaroslav Beck, Jan Ilavsky – Origins (ft. Mutrix)
Morgan Page – Reason For Living
Pegboard Nerds – Give A Little Love
PIXL – Full Charge
Slippy – Immortal
Boom Kitty – Burning Sands
There’s plenty more to come from Beat Saber land, though. We’re still awaiting the arrival of 360-degree levels, which we first saw at E3. These will definitely be appearing on Oculus Quest, but other platforms aren’t yet confirmed. Beat Games is also working on a third premium track pack, though we don’t know when that will launch. Last week Beck also announced plans to start funding indie VR developers as a means of giving back to the community. We’ll be sure to keep you updated with all the latest from the game going forward.
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When HTC Vive went on sale in 2016 the first download any sensible owner should have started was Valve’s The Lab. The collection of mini-games was designed to showcase the virtues of virtual reality (VR), with roomscale environments and lots of items to grip and interact with. However, as the years have passed The Lab started to get a little dated, surpassed by new content which took The Lab’s ideas and expanded them. Today, the title gets the update it has long deserved, improving a raft of features.
With Valve Index now available as well as the Index Controllers Valve has obviously looked at hand interactions – hence why its called the Hands-on Update. It doesn’t matter whether the controllers you own fully track fingers or not, the update will represent hands ‘to the highest fidelity possible’ states Valve.
Another feature taken right back to the bare bones is the physics-based interaction. This means that most objects within The Lab can be grabbed, poked, thrown, smashed, stacked and discarded however you wish. Just as important as touching stuff in VR is the audio, creating a rich soundscape to immerse you in. So all the spatialisation tech in The Lab has been overhauled to create an even richer audible tapestry.
It’s not just stuff you can see and hear which Valve has improved upon. Originally The Lab was designed to run at 90 Hz, the optimum frame rate for most VR headsets at the time to provide a smooth experience. That has caused some issues so now all the code is frame rate dependent, ensuring a seamless experience across a wide array of devices.
Other under the hood improvements also include upgrading to a modern engine version. All of which should mean The Lab becomes just as relevant as it was back in 2016, and an essential download for any Valve Index customer. As Valve says in a statement: ‘The Lab is a playground, and one that you can now enjoy like never before.’
While the update is good it probably isn’t the news fans want to hear. Valve still has yet to release any details regarding the ‘Flagship VR Title’ mentioned in May, when it does VRFocus will let you know.
Valve is finally adding Index Controller support to its popular VR showcase, The Lab. But that’s not all.
The SteamVR creator today announced The Lab Hands-On Update. The Lab was a free experience that launched alongside the HTC Vive in 2016. Set in Valve’s Portal universe, the app featured several different minigames and experiences designed to showcase the potential of VR. To this day it remains one of the most polished and enjoyable VR games on Steam.
Hands-On is the app’s first major update in nearly three years. Headlining the update is support for SteamVR’s new skeletal input system. Yes, that means The Lab now includes full support for the Index Controller’s finger-tracking, but it also allows you to reassign actions on any given controller to find a configuration that works for you.
Moreover, Hands-On overhauls The Lab’s physics and interactions. Valve says that nearly every object in the game now physically reacts to your hands. That means you can’t freely pass your hands through, say a coffee mug. Instead, the object will be pushed by your hand as if it were a physical object. Items can, of course, also be picked up and toyed with in all the ways you’d expect (including, according to Valve, being smashed).
Elsewhere Hands-On also includes support for Steam Audio, bringing in better spatialized sounds. Valve is also promising optimization improvements, upgrading the game to a modern version of its engine. As such, the game will be able to run in higher resolutions. Better yet, support for different frame rates (other than 90 Hz) has been added. That means Index owners with beefy rigs should be able to enjoy it in 120 Hz.
Updated support for The Lab is welcome, but we’re still waiting on news about Valve’s flagship VR game. Last we heard it was coming this year, so hopefully we’ll hear more about it soon.
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Today, Resolution Games has released its eighth virtual reality (VR) title, moving away from its single-player experiences like Bait! and Angry Birds VR: Isle of Pigs into the multiplayer realm with Acron: Attack of the Squirrels. The studio demoed the videogame at Gamescom 2019 last week and with VRFocus in attendance recorded 15 minutes of squirrel-based mayhem.
Acron: Attack of the Squirrels is a multiplayer party game for up to nine players, unique in the fact that it employs mobile devices. Unlike titles such as The Persistence which featured a mobile companion app for friends to help or hinder the VR player, Resolution Games’ is much more akin to PlayStation VR’s social screen on The Angry Birds Movie 2: VR Under Pressure where non-VR players are essential to the whole experience.
One player dons the VR headset and becomes the tree who must protect their golden acorns while up to eight mobile players are the squirrels, running around trying to steal four acorns and get them home. As the Tree players can throw items to knockout the squirrels or when close enough grab them a fling them out the level. As a mischievous squirrel, there are four to choose from, each with their own particular abilities to help the team.
As you’ll see in the video below, matches are fast and frantic only lasting three minutes apiece. As the VR player, there are are a lot of variables to keep an eye on, from where the acorns are to what player is doing what. The gameplay video only features four squirrel players so you can imagine when the full quota of eight is filled how hectic things can get.
Acron: Attack of the Squirrels launches today for Oculus Rift/Rift S, HTC Vive and Oculus Quest headsets via the Oculus Store and Steam, retailing for $19.99 USD/£14.99 GBP. On the mobile side, the videogame can be downloaded for free for iOS or Android devices (iOS 12.4, iPhone 6 and up; Android 5.0 and up).
Check out the gameplay video below and for any further updates on Acron: Attack of the Squirrels or any other Resolution Games projects, keep reading VRFocus.
Virtual reality (VR) anime Spice and Wolf VR only launched a couple of months ago and now developer Spicy Tails has announced a sequel is in the works. Happening a little sooner, Spice and Wolf VR will be coming to PlayStation VR and Nintendo Switch in September.
Spicy Tails has merely confirmed that a sequel is in the works, holding off on details such as storyline, platforms and release dates just yet. Work is definitely underway though, as the studio has released several artwork images including a mysterious new character who happens to have a bushy silver tail.
As for the new platforms, Spice and Wolf VR will be appearing on both PlayStation VR and Nintendo Switch on 5th September 2019. An Oculus Quest version is also on the way but it has been delayed. The studio confirmed the delay on Twitter saying: “The Oculus Quest version has a huge application process for Oculus and is expected to be delayed for a while.”
Based-on Isuna Hasekura’s original novel – who also happens to be Spicy Tails scenario writer for the project, Spice and Wolf VR tells the tale of a 25-year-old travelling merchant called Kraft Lawrence. On his journey’s he stops in the town of Pasloe where he comes across a wolf-deity named Holo who is over 600 years old. Taking the form of a 15-year-old girl – except for a wolf’s tail and ears – she wants to join him so she can see the world and eventually return to her homeland.
To bring the project to life Spicy Tales launch two crowd-funding campaign in 2018, one on Kickstart and the other on Campfire. Both were successful with the Kickstarter managing to raise ¥30,978,009 (approximately £240,000 GBP) while the Campfire campaign achieved its ¥8,000,000 (approximately £61,000) target.
This is Spicy Tails second VR title, the first being Project Lux. As further details regarding Spice and Wolf VR 2 are released, VRFocus will let you know.
It seems like we finally have a release window for HoloLens 2, and it’s fast approaching.
Reuters reports that the AR headset will go on sale in September. Executive Vice President of Artificial Intelligence and Research Group, Harry Shum, reportedly said as much on-stage at Shanghai’s World Artificial Intelligence Conference today. We have, of course, reached out to Microsoft itself to confirm whether or not this is true.
HoloLens 2 was revealed back at the 2019 Mobile World Congress event in Barcelona. It is, as the name suggests, an updated take on Microsoft’s augmented reality headset, projecting virtual images into the real world and letting you interact with them. The kit’s been available to pre-order since February for $3,500.
Take note, though, that HoloLens 2 is strictly not a consumer product. Like the first version of the device, it’s squarely aimed at enterprise opportunities. Meanwhile, the Magic Leap One Creator Edition offers a comparable experience with more consumer-oriented experiences for $2,295.
In an interview with UploadVR following the kit’s reveal, Microsoft’s Greg Sullivan reasoned that consumer AR hardware was likely years out. “The way that we think about it, and I think it was echoed by Tim Sweeney’s statement last night, is that the consumer journey is probably measured in years,” Sullivan said. “That said we’ve confirmed that our belief that mixed reality at large is, to some degree, the future of the interaction model. We think it is profound value in freeing the digital world from these flat screens that it’s been trapped in for decades and bringing it into the real world with us.”
We got to try HoloLens 2 for ourselves. The field of view is certainly improved, though still an issue, but the headset is a much lighter and more comfortable fit overall. We’ll let you know the latest on the kit’s release as and when it happens.
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Microsoft might not be doing much virtual reality (VR) development but its dedication to augmented reality (AR) and mixed reality (MR) has never been stronger. Having announced the HoloLens 2 headset earlier this year during the Mobile World Congress as well as pre-orders, there was never any indication regarding when the device would actually launch. Today, that question has been answered with HoloLens 2 set to arrive next month.
The announcement was made by Microsoft’s executive vice president Harry Shum in a speech at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai this week reports Reuters.
No other details were given including an actual date in September, but for those who’ve managed to pre-order the headset, at least that means shipments should begin soon.
The original HoloLens arrived back in 2016 offering businesses the first real opportunity to explore MR technology. Retailing for $3,000 USD the headset was purely enterprise-focused. One of the main grievances with the original HoloLens was the field-of-view (FoV), coming in at a rather restrictive 35-degrees (an Oculus Rift is 110-degree for example).
HoloLens 2 promises an improved experience over its predecessor, offering greater comfort thanks to better balancing – the battery is placed at the back of the head now – and of course, the FoV has been increased. Those who wear glasses should find the design better suited to them and the front is hinged to allow easy dropping in and out of any experience.
Naturally, the HoloLens 2 isn’t cheap coming in at $3,500. You can’t simply pre-order the device either. Those interested will need to head to the official HoloLens 2 page to register their interest before going any further. It’s also worth noting that customers need to be based in the US, France, Germany, Ireland, New Zealand, Australia, or the UK. If you happen to be part of Microsoft’s Mixed Reality Developer Program then you can also access the HoloLens 2 Development Edition starting from $99 per month (or you can buy it outright). This edition is designed to encourage creators onto the system, only available through this program.
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Microsoft’s HoloLens 2, reporting back with all the latest updates.
Elven Assassin – Wenkly Studio