The team behind Convrge, the online VR social platform, have just released a great new demo for the Oculus Rift DK2 which encourages the player to build and create structures within a virtual world and then destroy them with the magic of physics.
Physics-based games seem to hold a fascination for us humans. Seeing an accurate approximation of real world rules applied to virtual environments, I think, adds a particular level of satisfaction and engagement for players to enhance games. Witness the wonders of Armadillo Run or indeed the recently revamped-for-VR Fantastic Contraption for examples of how physics in games can not only be entertaining, but successfully form the core part of a game’s experience. The team behind Convrge, the immersive online VR social platform, have been working on just such a physics-based experience, albeit one with a much more playful and frivolous heart.
Stacks is a work in progress demo which lets the build structures using a miniature ‘map’ representing the world they occupy. The player can place cubes of different sizes and colours on the map, which then causes those blocks to appear in the larger virtual world around the player. Controls are neatly arranges around the ‘map’ with the player using gazed based input perform the actions he requires.
After you’ve slaved away for however many minutes and hours you can spare on your virtual creation, the punchline to Stacks‘ beautifully simplistic gameplay can be delivered: you blow everything up, in slow motion! By hitting a button in the virtual world, every carefully placed cube is flung from it’s original physics by an invisible, physics-modelled virtual explosion as you wander around the chaos as it slowly unfolds. Incredibly satisfying.
Calling Stacks a game in any traditional sense at this would be misleading, but it’s yet another example of an experience that only really works at this level of potency in VR. Being in the world you’re destroying is so much more engaging than merely peering into it.
Will Stacks see a ‘full fat’ commercial release? It’s not yet clear, but the creators are enjoying the warm reaction the demo has received in the community and are already digesting feedback to improve the concept further. We’ll have to wait and see how this one develops.