A new VR experience from developers Aerys uses the classic movie Jurassic Park as inspiration and has you racing for your life away from a Tyrannosaurus Rex, all in virtual reality, all in a web browser.
Remember that scene in the first Jurassic Park (1993) where a wounded Jeff Goldblum looks on in terror as the Jeep racing through the jungle he’s sat in, is pursued relentlessly by a rather angry looking T-Rex? Well, Parisian development house Aerys have developed a new virtual reality experience where the aim is to race for your life away from just such a predator, presented in virtual reality courtesy of the Oculus Rift.
Whether or not that sounds like something that appeals to you or not, it’s an ingenious way for the company to promote their new, open source and portable 3D engine with Oculus Rift support. Not only that, but the game runs entirely from within a web browser thanks to the upcoming browser API standard WebVR.
The team’s 3D engine, known as Minko, “..is a free and open source 3D engine which allows developers to create universal 3D applications for HTML5, iOS, Android, Windows, OS X and Linux in native C++11 code” .. according to the company’s press release. As portable development will doubtless become essential for coders as virtual reality transcends the desktop environment and moves into mobile and lightweight web use-cases, Aerys seem keen to position themselves to fulfil that requirement.
As for Oculus-Rex itself, it’s available here right now should you wish to try it. You’ll need a browser that supports WebVR, which means downloading a special, experimental build of either Firefox or Chrome (download links available here).
Let us know what you think about Oculus-Res in the comments section below. To find more about Aerys and Minko, head to the homepage here.
