Virtual reality (VR) offers a number of opportunities for small or independent developers to have their work noticed, and to try out new ideas and concepts. One such developer is SparklyGames, who have launched a brightly-coloured VR shoot-em’up called TPJ or Towards A Perilous Journey.
TPJ puts the player in charge of a pair of ships that have to face a great many enemies while traversing a surreal, neon-lit polygonal landscape with what is described as an ‘electro-musical’ atmosphere.
Energy management is a key mechanic, and the core that the title was based around. Energy is gathered by destroying enemies, but can be lost if your ships are hit. Your energy reserve lets you merge your ships to give yourself greater power or defense, and energy can also be spent on secondary attack or defensive systems. Energy is also related to the final score, which then becomes currency to be spent on improving your ship.
The currently available version has two game modes. The first is a shorter, more arcade-style experience that lets a player browse through each of the 24 available ‘chronicles’ individually. The more intense ‘Journey’ mode takes you through all of the chronicles in sequence, but there is a catch. In Journey mode, if one of your ships gets destroyed, it will be unavailable until you get to the end of all the chronicles.
The developers have put a great deal of emphasis on the music, which each level having its own carefully selected background music, which have been provided by artists and composers such as Andre Jetson, Broke For Free, Six Umbrellas and Stereofloat.
Towards A Perilous Journey is available on Steam, compatible with HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Windows Mixed Reality devices. The title is priced at £12.99 (GBP). Further information can be found on the Steam store page.
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via Mint VR