crashland oculus rift game razer hydra

The bar has been raised. I just stepped out of the newly released beta for Crashland, an Oculus Rift demo that we heard about last month — and my heart is racing. Probably because my mind was just tricked into thinking that I was trapped on a desolate planet with giant arachnid aliens clambering for my flesh.

Crashland is an Oculus Rift FPS that requires the Razer Hydra to play. The demo puts you in the shoes of a cape-clad spacefarer who has unfortunately crash landed on a hostile planet. You can (and should) download the Crashland demo here. Update: the download went down because of exceeded bandwidth, I’ve mirrored the download here.

The developer working on Crashland has a donation button on his site (you can find it at the bottom of his Crashland page) for anyone that would like to support his development:

I work on these projects for free in my spare time, but if you like the experiences I’m making and would like to prod me in the right direction here’s the button… (I’ll need a Unity Pro licence soon). Thank you!

For those without a Rift, you can catch a glimpse of the gameplay in this video:

Llyr, from Bangor, Wales, UK, who is developing the demo, notes that he is aiming  for full body awareness and dynamic animation, and I must say, he’s succeeded.

After calibrating the Hydra, you find yourself wielding a pistol and an explosive spear gun (which also functions as a vital enemy scanner). Look down and you can see your body convincingly right where it should be. The cape on your back flows in the wind, the shadow really feels like it’s yours.

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But don’t gander for too long; the planet is teeming with life, just not the friendly kind. Giant spiders want your flesh, and they won’t stop until they get it.

The alien beasts approach you from all around. When the first few come you won’t have much trouble. Shortly thereafter, you’ll be wishing you had a much bigger clip.

Crashland has me convinced that a deep rooted fear of spiders might be an evolutionary trait. The first few that snuck up from behind had me jumping in real life.

I’ll admit, I’ve got a slight case of arachnophobia. But holy hell… give Crashland a shot and tell me that turning around at the last minute to see one of the big ones right in your face is not terrifying.

Llyr plays with this fear by combining the scanner functionality with the spear gun — but you can only use one at a time. Whenever the scanner is not on, you feel incredibly vulnerable. Who would have thought that giant space spiders could be so quiet?

The thing that amazes me is that this isn’t even a horror game.

The dynamic animation that Llyr mentions is what powers the alien spider death animations. The system does a great job: enemies squirm convincingly as you blast them apart. It’s never perfectly clear if you’ve done enough damage to actually kill them (like real spiders), and you’ll likely end up unloading a clip into one as fast as you can screaming “just die, just die!”

Llyr has something special here. I can’t wait to see more. Multiplayer support might give us a fighting chance against these horrifying foes.

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Ben is the world's most senior professional analyst solely dedicated to the XR industry, having founded Road to VR in 2011—a year before the Oculus Kickstarter sparked a resurgence that led to the modern XR landscape. He has authored more than 3,000 articles chronicling the evolution of the XR industry over more than a decade. With that unique perspective, Ben has been consistently recognized as one of the most influential voices in XR, giving keynotes and joining panel and podcast discussions at key industry events. He is a self-described "journalist and analyst, not evangelist."
  • BarZ A.

    This game looks awesome, unfortunatly I cannot play (and many others this morning) because the link is down at dropbox. If you can post another link I know a few of us would not mind hosting it for you. Anyway from the reviews I read, keep up the great work. Hopefully I can test it soon too.

  • WormSlayer

    Download unavailable, bandwidth limit exceeded XD

  • drifter

    @Ben
    Thanks for the Mega mirror, now we need the password :)

    the demo looks really neat, but it’s not a bit risky to release a demo built with a cracked unity pro ?

    • Ben Lang

      Fixed!

      How do you know it’s cracked?

      • drifter

        Yay ! Thanks !

        “How do you know it’s cracked?”
        well he said he’ll “need a Unity Pro licence soon)” (hence the donation button).
        But I could be wrong, maybe he already has a licence and he just needs a second one…

        • Ben Lang

          I’m guessing he has the extended trial provided to Rift devs by Unity and will need a pro license we when it expires?

          • drifter

            ho yes you totally right, I didn’t pay attention to the “trial version” watermark on his demo.

          • drifter

            Edit : He still shouldn’t have released his demo.
            From the Unity guys : “Lastly, games made with our Pro trial licenses may not be distributed nor used for commercial purposes.”
            Ho well, we’ll see…