Fidget spinners—little spinning hand toys—are one of the latest fads to see explosive growth, rising rapidly in popularity faster than the most hopeful startup. With a seemingly endless number of spinners available to purchase, developer Vladimir Storm decided to make a virtual reality fidget spinner because… you know… why not?
Fidget spinners are exactly as simple as they sound: they’re just a little triangular toy that you grip in the middle and then spin. A number of sellers claim the toys “relieve anxiety and ADHD,”—claims which are almost certainly unsupported—but hey, at least people seem to enjoying playing with them anyway. The toy sprung up this January, rocketing its way upward in viral popularity, quickly exceeding the search interest of even major game consoles like the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
And now, instead of buying one, you can get your own fidget spinner for free in virtual reality with—you guessed it—Fidget Spinner VR. You’ll need SteamVR installed to run it, and the developer says it works on Vive and should work on Rift (though is untested on the latter). The video heading this article shows it in action.
Thankfully, Fidget Spinner VR does a little bit more than just show a spinning 3D model (though that is the bulk of its functionality). As you spin the spinner, you’ll also rotate the trippy visuals surrounding you.
Developer Vladimir Storm, who has worked on a number of VR and other mini-projects (many of which dealing in trippy and interesting visuals), says that he whipped Fidget Spinner VR together in 4 hours, apparently just for the novelty of it.
