Chiaro and the Elixir of Life (2018), a first-person VR adventure from Montreal-based Martov Co., launched today on HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, and Windows VR headsets. The result of a successful Kickstarter campaign, which saw a complete funding total of $10,088 CAD (~$7,730 USD), Chiaro is the new indie studio’s first game.
Though there wasn’t much groundbreaking in the Daydream news shared at Google I/O this year, the company is growing its AR/VR team at an accelerated rate, suggesting Google has a number of things up its sleeve yet. One recent job listing which caught our eye suggests that the company is ramping up its R&D efforts for lenses, now hiring a ‘Diamond Turning Technician’ to assist with rapid prototyping of “new and novel” optics for AR and VR devices.
Elijah Wood’s studio SpectreVision and Ubisoft Montreal announced Transference at last year’s E3, a VR thriller-adventure that takes into something of a virtual reality inside a virtual reality. It’s only a few more days until the game is officially released, with the highly-polished Transference hitting all supported platforms next week.
I Expect You to Die (2016), the spy-themed puzzle game from Schell Games, generated $1 million in revenue between its late-2016 launch and August 2017. Now a little over a year later, the studio reports they’ve recently closed in on the $3 million mark.
As a current artist-in-residence on the Facebook Social VR team, Goro Fujita has been making some pretty impressive “quillistrations” as a part of his daily creative regime using Quill, Oculus’ first-party VR paint and drawing tool that he helped develop. In a few of his latest creations though, Fujita has been plumbing the possibilities of bringing comics to life in VR. As Fujita puts it, he’s now convinced “VR comics will be a thing.”
While there’s a steadily growing number of quality VR games, it’s still well understood that VR is in need of more great content. But what kinds of VR games should developers focus on creating? That’s one of the primary questions we want to help VR devs answer with a survey which aims to understand real VR users.
Apple’s ‘Gather Round’ product event took place today, and while the company is predictably heavy on the new hardware iterations, including Apple Watch Series 4, the A12 Bionic chip, and new iPhone X versions, the company is still plugging its AR capabilities with two featured ARKit 2.0 apps. Taking the stage was NEX Team, which showed off an updated version of their HomeCourt basketball app, and Directive Games, which debuted Galaga AR, an upcoming augmented reality multiplayer version of the classic arcade game.
Windlands 2 (2018), Psytec Games’ sequel to their high-flying, first-person platformer adventure, is now available on Oculus Rift.
The VOID, an out-of-home VR destination that melds wireless VR with real warehouse-scale environments, has partnered with Lucasfilm’s ILMxLAB to bring five new Disney and Marvel experiences to their growing number of VR facilities.
If preparing cars for motorsports in VR sounds like your idea of a good time, indie game Wrench is one to keep an eye on. Showcased in this recent ‘prototype trailer’, Wrench features painstakingly detailed car parts which the developer hopes to use in a rewarding, problem-solving car shop game.
Jaunt was once a cinematic VR company which produced high-quality 360 video, and to boot even a professional-grade 360 camera dubbed NEO. Taking a step in a decidedly more AR direction with its recently revealed volumetric video capture solution, Jaunt further announced it’s also acquired both Personify’s ‘Teleporter’ volumetric video streaming tech and the engineers behind it.
Earlier this year Oculus CTO John Carmack revealed a new video playback technique designed to bring high-resolution video to mobile headsets like Oculus Go. Oculus released a sample of the system and developer Cubicle Ninjas saw a perfect opportunity to adapt the code to their Guided Meditation VR app, resulting in a vastly improved visual experience.
As one of the first full-length games for VR, Windlands (2016) pioneered a movement scheme that sends you soaring high into the air, using your grappling hooks to swing from bush to tree in the desolate world that was fractured and destroyed after a planet shaking conflict. The latest Windlands isn’t simply a continuation of the hunt for all-important power crystals and Easter eggs though, now boasting enemies, multiplayer co-op, races, and a classic gaming-inspired story that confronts players with the disastrous forces that wrecked the once prosperous world; it feels like the true beginning of the series.
Meta, makers of an AR headset dev kit, was close to raising a new round of funding before a Chinese lead investor backed out, Bloomberg reports. The Chinese investment firm had reportedly put up $20 million for the deal. Meta claims that the Chinese government urged the investment firm to reconsider the deal following trade tensions brought on by the Trump administration.
The long-standing golf series Everybody’s Golf is getting a PSVR game, developed by Clap Hanz in association with Sony’s Japan Studio. Announced today as a part of the pre-Tokyo Game Show ‘PS Lineup Tour’, Everybody’s Golf VR is coming exclusively to the platform.
