Consistently a firm favourite here at Road to VR, Sightline: The Chair is an award winning ‘greatest hits’ of VR vignettes that happen to be one of the best introductions to virtual reality. The developer just released the latest version for the recently released HTC Vive and Oculus Rift consumer edition (CV1).
Picking an application or game to demonstrate virtual reality to your VR noob friends can be a surprisingly tough challenge. Sure there are so many great things to see and do in VR, but finding something that aptly demonstrates its potential whilst not screwing with their fragile minds isn’t easy.
Sightline: The Chair manages to offer a series of mini experiences that straddle intensity and accessibility. Toying playfully with the viewer, Sightline elicits claustrophobia one minute and an immense sense of scale the next, all the while refusing to try anything too extreme that might them ill (with one possible exception, no spoilers).
The premise behind all of the VR scenes is gaze based, that is – VR’s unique capability to encourage naturalistic exploration. Look away, then look back and everything’s changed – and it’s this simple mechanic that drives progression through the vignettes, each seamlessly joined to the last.
Developer Tomáš Mariančík (aka Frooxius) has now released the latest version of Sightline and it now supports the first consumer desktop VR headsets from HTC and Oculus. You can grab the Rift version here and the Vive version right here. Don’t forget you’ll need Oculus Runtime 1.3 (although if you’re running Oculus Home this’ll be a given).