Mint Virtual Reality

Last week haptic vest company Woojer launched a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign for its first product, the Woojer ryg. The campaign has already proved to be a massive success, flying past its goal within three hours of launch.

Woojer demoed the haptic vest during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) 2018 in June, where VRFocus demoed the device and spoke with Woojer CTO Mor Efrati about what the product could do.

The ryg vest has eight haptic zones to help users really feel part of the experience that they are playing or watching, compatible with PC, console and virtual reality (VR) headsets like PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. It can provide up to 8 hours of playtime, plus the ability to triple that with additional battery packs, for its patented Osci – Oscillating Frame Actuators which deliver polyphonic vibrations that reproduce and play frequencies up to 500Hz, including subsonic frequencies that are below the threshold of the human ear (1-20Hz).

The Kickstarter aimed to raise $50,000 USD, and at the time of writing has achieved just over $161,000. The Super Early Bird tier at $499 has already sold out – there were only 100 available – but for those still interested there’s the Early Bird tier at $549 still available. Once that tier has sold out then there’s the $599 tier available – which is still a saving as the regular price will be $799.

“We’re really stoked about the launch of ryg on Kickstarter,” said Woojer CEO, Kfir Bar-Levav, in a statement: “We’re getting phenomenal feedback from the top creators that already have our Dev-Kits and we hope that together with the Kickstarter community, ryg will become the go-to haptics for the entertainment industry”.

To encourage more developers to the platform Woojer has a couple of developer focused tiers available. While these are more expensive, starting at $699, they do include the PC Mounting Rig and full access to ryg’s SDK (available for Unreal Engine & Unity), Documentation, Developer Forum, and Support.

Haptics can be a great way to immerse yourself in a virtual world but the industry is still fairly small at them moment. This was proved last month with the closure of Hardlight VR, another haptic vest company which had a successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2017.

As the haptic industry grows, VRFocus will keep you updated on the latest announcements.

British indie developer Triangular Pixels has been working on its PlayStation VR title Smash Hit Plunder since 2014. After four years of work the team are this week nearing the end, with a launch date planned for this Friday, 5th October 2018.

Smash Hit Plunder is a light-hearted physics-based tear-it-up experience inside a haunted medieval castle. As the studio explains it: You play as a mage – you think you’ve just inherited the castle of your dreams from your family, but actually it’s been magically locked up by a ghostly debt collector. Now it’s down to you to find enough hidden treasure in the castle to pay off the debt…”

Featuring sprawling dungeons filled with treasures to find, players will be able to fight ghosts, munch on food, start the odd fire or two and generally cause a bit of chaos. Smash Hit Plunder includes a full narrative, five game modes and progression unlocks.

This isn’t purely a single-player experience either. Thanks to PlayStation VR’s social screen feature a friend can join in the adventure during ‘Treasure Rush’, ‘Scavenger Hunt’ or ‘Free Play’. For even more multiplayer fun up to four players can go head-to-head in hide-and-seek ‘Poltergeist Panic’ or fight for possession in ‘Jewel Duel’.

Being the Cornish-based studio that they are, Triangular Pixels has even included support for Kernewek, the Cornish language. Katie Goode, Creative Director of Triangular Pixels said: “Being based in Cornwall, we saw that it was important to support local culture. Cornwall is a magical place and was of great inspiration while making the game – and some of our levels may be recognisable to the its residents. We wanted to do our part in keeping the local language alive and allowing our neighbours read in their own language.”

Smash Hit Plunder will be available both digitally via PlayStation Store and physically in stores thanks to Perp Games. You can pre-order the title from Amazon and GAME for £24.99 GBP. For any further updates from Triangular Pixels keep reading VRFocus, and of course keep an eye out for our review.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey increases the emphasis on RPG systems and greatly expands the world, but it’s just not nearly interesting enough to sustain its daunting length

The post ‘Assassin’s Creed Odyssey’ review appeared first on Digital Trends.

Having first debuted its multiplatform virtual reality (VR) title Last Labyrinth at the Tokyo Games Show (TGS) 2016, developer Amata K.K. returned this year to showcase the latest developments. Today, the Japanese studio has now released a teaser trailer for Last Labyrinth, showcasing its gameplay outside Japan for the first time.

Last Labyrinth is a VR escape room experience with a difference, rather than being able to explore themselves players find that they are bound to a chair in the middle of a dark room. From the darkness a mysterious girl named Katia appears and it’s using her help that they must unravel the puzzles and find a way out of the mansion.

Explaining what the team is trying to achieve, Hiromichi Takahashi – Director/Producer (Doko Demo Issho), Amata K.K., said in a statement: “In the past, I made games that focused on verbal communication with virtual characters. This time, I want to use VR technology to try to focus on communicating with virtual characters nonverbally. I hope players will enjoy unraveling the mysteries surrounding Katia and lying within the mansion itself. There is more than meets the eye.”

“In order to implement the core gameplay mechanic of nonverbal communication with Katia, we are challenging ourselves to make Katia behave as humanly as possible. We are giving it our all to make it so that players will be able to feel her presence and feel like their fates are intertwined with hers,” adds Tetsuya Watanabe, Director/Game Designer (The Last Guardian)

Atsuko Fukuyama, Lead Character Animator (ICO, Shadow of the Colossus), goes on to say:“I hope that players will not only enjoy the puzzle solving aspect of the game but will be able to feel a connection with Katia. Although there are a lot of challenges to working in VR, I think we will be able to make Katia a character that players will be able to fall in love with.”

Last Labyrinth is expected to launch worldwide in Spring 2019, supporting HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. As further details on the videogame are released VRFocus will keep you updated.

A number of industries are turning to immersive technology such as virtual reality (VR) or augmented reality (AR) in order to better advertise their products. Though at first glance it would not seem that wine was an obvious choice for such promotion, the labels on the bottles offer an obvious way for wine companies to offer unique experiences to customers using AR and a smartphone.

Treasury Wine Estates is one of the largest wine companies in the world, and it is rolling out AR to consumers in the UK with its Living Wine Labels AR app. The app allows users to interact with their wine bottles using their phone, in order to learn about the history of the wine and how it is made or experience a special AR video.

After previously using the technology in its ‘19 Crimes’ collection, Treasury Wine Estates has expanded the Living Wine Label range to include and additional four collections, Matua, 19 Crimes, Wolf Blass Yellow Label, The Gentlemen’s Collection and Lindeman’s Bin, which each label offering unique insight into the history of the wine and its creation.

For Wolf Blass Yellow Label, consumers can follow the journey of an eagle as it soars over the Barossa Valley vineyard where the wine is made. He user can then interact with three different hot spots that offer brand information when clicked.

Matua’s AR experience seeks to highlight the refreshing nature of the drink, showing a glacial New Zealand landscape and offering tips of the perfect temperature to serve Matua at. Lindeman’s Bin is the newest addition to the platform and the AR shows flowers coming to life and filling the room.

19 Crimes uses AR to explore the history of Australia, covering the story of those who were exiled there in the 18th and 19th Century.

Further information can be found on the Treasury Wine Estates website. For future coverage of new and innovative uses of AR, keep checking back with VRFocus.

Let Monday be music! Yes, we’re starting off the week on Life In 360° with a little bit of culture and some classical music from Snape, Suffolk. And yes, it’s the same village that gave its name to J. K. Rowling’s devious Potions Master in the Harry Potter series of books. However, Snape is also home to Snape Maltings, an arts complex that sits on the banks of the River Alde and is famous for its music.

Every year there is held the Aldeburgh Festival of Music and the Arts which in the majority focuses on classical music.

“Founded by composer Benjamin Britten and singer Peter Pears in 1948 as ‘a modest festival with a few concerts given by friends’, the Aldeburgh Festival is now one of the world’s leading classical music events with a feel that is different from any other.” Explains the organiser’s website. “There are many ingredients that make visiting Aldeburgh special – the landscape, beautiful yet wild and unsentimental; the adventurous spirit of broadening horizons that connects performers and audiences; and the proportion of the programme that is ‘home grown’, devised at Snape throughout the year, unmatched by any of the world’s other leading classical music festivals.”

We’re travelling back in time to 2015, pretty early for a 360 degree video about classical music, to watch as Martyn Brabbins conducts the BBC Symphony Orchestra in performing Frank Bridge’s 1911 composition “The Sea”. A four-movement piece (although not all are shown here obviously) consisting of Seascape, Sea Foam, Moonlight and Storm. Which Bridge completed whilst being a resident of British seaside town Eastbourne, which is near where I grew up, as a matter of fact.

Check it out below and Life In 360° will be back on Wednesday.