Attendees to one of the longest running VR meetups around, the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality event, had an extra special treat in store for them this thanksgiving as Oculus dropped by with their latest feature prototype, the Crescent Bay. This video captures some of the demo recipient’s reactions.
With Samsung’s Gear VR now out in the wild, yet more developers will be inspired to get started with mobile VR development. While there are many parallels to regular mobile development, there’s also unfamiliar challenges to tackle. To help new developers get a head start, we asked E McNeil, developer of the Gear VR launch title, Darknet, to share what he’s learned.
Version 2 of the ’80s inspired NewRetroArcade is out, now offering an even wider selection of ’80s and ’90s emulated titles. The developers, DigitalCyberCherries, haven’t just swapped a few cabinets in the reminiscently dingy virtual arcade though, but have actually added support for yet more emulators including SNES, NES, and MAME to their already impressive list of vintage video games.
See Also: Review: ‘NewRetroArcade’ is a Must-play Homage to Video Game Culture Old and New
Every arcade cabinet is now up and running, including Street Fighter 2 (1991) and Out Run (1986), which were originally blocked by conveniently placed bar stools. A few other favorites like Metal Slug (1996) and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989) also make an appearance among the many new titles gracing the neon-lit gamer’s den.
DigitalCyberCherries has also added a PAL version SNES console in the corner (replete with pizza grease smudges) that gives you an even greater chance to relive the 16-bit glory days with titles like The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past (1991), Earthworm Jim (1995), and Star Fox (1993) to name a few.
The developers have made a concise choice in the new version of their NewRetroArcade tech demo: the team has decided to not sacrifice the nostalgic coziness of the arcade in favor of packing in both new and legacy titles from the preceding version—potentially expanding the hall’s modest footprint and ruining the vibe. Instead, the yet unmasked band of DigitalCyberBanditos have side-stepped the issue by allowing direct access to all of the games in a single emulator mode that serves up a solitary iteration of the ROM and corresponding platform of choice.
Whether it be on Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Game Boy, or the host of arcade titles emulated with MAME, NewRetroArcade still doesn’t ask for any quarters (or tokens), however many gamers would gladly feed in the dollar bills just to have the chance to upgrade the demo to multiplayer mode. Even the ability to post high-scores would be a welcome addition in the arcade, which admittedly can become a little lonely.
Considering the top-notch level of detail paid to this brilliantly realized space, we’re hoping DigitalCyberCherries has more up their collective sleeves.
Everyone’s got their favourite, retro-gaming experiences. What do you want to see in the next update?
Jaunt VR are seemingly working overtime to make up for their months running in stealth mode. A veritable flood of content is ushering forth from the company that’s specialising in producing and distributing stereoscopic 3D, 360 videos for VR. They’ve just released a further 4 mini-experiences, available for download now.
There’s something magical about flying, an almost legendary energy that taps into the fundamental will of all humans to be free — to control our own destiny in the face of certain peril. That’s how I imagine it to be anyway, because like most of us, I’ve been an airline coach-jockey my entire life, where courage is in dealing with the mundanities of confronting a space neither sufficient for my own legs, nor my Palmer Luckey-esque fits of hand flailing that subsequently result from having to block out a whole cabin’s worth of decade-old touch screens displaying Will and Grace or some such nonsense.
More life-like sea creatures are emerging from the depths of Dr. Llyrd ap Cenydd’s Ocean Rift, the underwater VR experience that’s soon to appear on Samsung’s Gear VR headset.
Yesterday Oculus announced that they’re acquiring Nimble VR, which launched a Kickstarter in October to fund creation of their motion input camera designed for VR headsets. Along with Nimble VR, 13th Lab and Chris Bregler also join the Oculus family.
It’s been just a few days and I’ve already been able to wow more people with VR through Gear VR than in the last month with the Oculus Rift DK2. Mobility is one of Gear VR’s biggest assets; at times, it feels like a DK2 in your pocket. I’ve showed Gear VR to family, taken it to friend’s houses, used it in the car, and even while eating sushi. But mobility isn’t the only place where Gear VR shines; the device undoubtedly represents the most complete and polished VR user experience to date.
Crystal Rift, a grid-based dungeon crawler game designed especially for VR, has reached their funding goal with only a few hours to spare until the official end of its crowdfunding campaign. In an effort to drum up more support, the lads have released their 8th update to their alpha version, with the final version hitting Steam sometime in July 2015.
The UK based developers Jon Hibbins (Squigs(1993) for Amiga) and Nick Pittom (aka “RedOfPaw”, the mind behind the Spirited Away recreation) have met their funding goal of £4000 (~$6200 for you colonial types) with less than 2 days left in the campaign. Although they’ve been successfully funded, there’s still time remaining to back the project and receive the game ahead of its official Steam release.
Plenty of £16 ($25) spots are left to support the campaign and receive a digital download of the final game in July 2015, along with an in-game mention and credit on the supporter page. For only 6 more quid (~$10) you can also reserve early beta access to the game, which is scheduled for April 2015.
To further entice prospective backers, they’ve released the 8th installment of their alpha demo for DK2, including a number of updates such as “more content, an improved map, more secrets, more story and new challenges.”
The free alpha also offers support for non-HMD users that want to get into the D&D-style chest looting and crystal grabbing business, although the PC version’s ‘right-click to look’ function greatly detracts from the game’s ominous simplicity.
If Crystal Rift can manage to scrape together some more copper farthings and sovereigns (more silly names for money) before the official end date of December 12th, they’ve also planned to push out more content.
Best of luck to the Crystal Rift team in their final few hours of the campaign, it’s an intriguing looking title and one we very much look forward to seeing more of in the coming months.
Samsung has reached out to let us know that Note 4 users on Verizon and Sprint can expect an update soon which will enable compatibility with Gear VR.
Today Google is getting serious about Cardboard. The simple VR smartphone adapter debuted at the company’s annual I/O 2014 conference earlier this year. What started out as a ‘20% project’, essentially a hobby, is turning into something significant.
Virtuix has just announced that it has secured $2.7M of investment as the commercial launch of its omni-directional treadmill, the Omni approaches.
As more cinematic VR content emerges from early pioneers, traditional filmmakers are starting to catch on to the massive potential that virtual reality holds for immersive storytelling. However, the ‘flat screen’ is a very mature medium, one which has conventions that have been honed over more than a century. Filming cinematic VR content, on the other hand, requires filmmakers to play by a new rulebook.
Nimble Sense, the hand tracking controller designed to work with head mounted displays, has surpassed its first stretch goal of $120,000, nearly doubling its base funding goal of $62,500. With only a few days left until the crowdfunding campaign closes, the team behind the mountable sensor are undoubtedly rubbing their virtual hands together in anticipation of what comes next after such a successful Kickstarter — and for backers, that means getting a few more dials to play with that could substantially widen the device’s functionality.
See Also: Nimble Sense Kickstarter Aims to Bring Time-of-Flight Depth-sensing Tech to VR on the Cheap
Nimble Sense, a device not much larger than a pack of gum, houses an IR (infrared) laser and IR depth camera that was originally designed to sense object movement at the default range of 2.3 ft (70c m), or about the distance from the DK2’s onboard sensor array to the hand of a fully extended arm.
Now that the Kickstarter campaign has eked past its stretch goal, Nimble VR is expanding the device’s functionality (without overclocking it) and opening up the camera’s settings up to make it “a hacker/developer/computer vision-friendly camera.”
To keep within a nominal operating levels however (i.e. not lighting your head on fire) they’ve opted to keep the same power settings. To accommodate this limiting factor, they’re exchanging a lower frame-rate for a longer camera exposure time which will effectively give the device a longer viewing range. The team plans on supporting three specific ranges; 2.3ft/70cm, 3.25ft/100cm, and 4.92ft/150cm — most likely pushing the little USB device’s capability to the very edge of usability.
Along with increased range, they will be supporting low level camera controls with frame rates ranging from 1Hz to 45Hz, and shutter speed controls ranging from 0.1ms to 4ms exposures, potentially allowing developers to use the depth-sensing device for a wide variety of applications not limited to its main feature of VR-centric skeletal hand tracking. It’s an effort by Nimble VR to coax potential developers into using Nimble Sense to do things like guide wheeled robots, track props, or even the user’s feet (because … feet… that’s why).
To send the Kickstarter even further into high gear, Nimble VR has added 250 more spots to their level 1 pledge tier which starts at $99 — getting you a Nimble Sense, 7ft USB cable, and A DK2 mount that cleverly utilizes the DK2’s native cable cover.
It does seem that, despite being a relative newcomer to the scene, Nimble Sense are all set to give Leap Motion a run for their money. All they need now is some sort of 3D Jam to find some killer content.
We’ve been fortunate to get our hands on the highly anticipated Samsung Gear VR headset and we’ve got a full breakdown of the unit’s in’s and out’s. This is one you don’t want to miss.
