News Bits: Xing: The Land Beyond, Public Demo Available Soon

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Jun 20, 2014

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I’m a wimp! There, I said it. I never did make it all the way through the dark, dank and terrifying tunnels of Dreadhalls when it debuted as a finalist in last year’s IndieCade VR Jam event. It was a finalist and, despite my inability to spend more than 5 minutes playing before yelping like a girl, one of my favourite entrants. It was also widely adopted by the YouTube community and their never-ending thirst for ‘hilarious‘ reaction vides involving the Oculus Rift.

Now, Dreadhalls is back and in development and on course for a commercial release late this year. Developer Sergio Hidalgo, who originally conceived and built the game in 3 weeks, in accordance with VR Jam’s rules, did a remarkable job infusing everything in Dreadhalls with claustrophobic dread. The visuals were perfunctory, but it didn’t really matter as the sound did a very respectable job of plunging you into the depths. It was a slow, considered and sparse experience – using it’s procedurally generated map and distant echoes of .. something it was a brilliant antidote to the cheap jump scares that comprised the majority of VR horror titles up to then.

The latest Dreadhalls demo has come along nicely since then. Now sporting new textures and an upgraded lighting model the new game looks great. But perhaps the feature we’re most interested in is that it’s now DK2 ready, meaning that if you’re lucky enough to have one of Oculus’ new developer kits on the way, it’ll support it straight away—head tracking included.

Sergio said of his plans for the new Dreadhalls; “You can expect more varied environments, new creatures and scary encounters, etc… I’m also working of having a longer experience that covers more than a single level, with a progression and more backstory.”.

We asked Sergio about launch date plans and whether he’s planning on releasing the demo to the public:

The full game still needs more work, but my idea is releasing it by the same time that the Oculus CV1 hits the market, so I plan to have it finished by Q3/Q4 this year. I can also tell you it will be exclusively for the Rift at launch. Whether I’ll release this demo or not depends on the feedback I get from the people I’ve sent it to, so it’s still undecided. However, if I choose not to release it, I’ll probably add positional tracking support to the already available VRJam version instead.

Finally, we asked Sergio how he tackled the challenges of implementing head tracking with no DK2s yet in the wild:

I wrote an article on this issue here. Basically I’m fading the image to black and muffling the sounds, but not limiting the player’s movements at any point, since I found out that leads to discomfort. I don’t have a DK2, but I had access to one for a couple of days thanks to Oculus, which is how I was able to test this out.

We hope to give this a proper playtest soon, but I’m already very much looking forward to one of my VR Jam favourites getting a full overhaul in time for Oculus’ consumer model. Frankly though, I’m not sure I’ll be brave enough to actually play it.

Head over to the official Dreadhalls website to find out more. We’ll keep you posted on its progress.

News Bits: The Raleigh NC VR Meetup at EPIC Games HQ on June 26th, Last Few Slots Remaining

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Jun 19, 2014

The VR community is awesome and growing rapidly every day and the gatherings that have sprung from the collective enthusiasm and passion for virtual reality are now many and diverse with some blossoming into fully fledged conventions.

We got word from Henry Velez, a VR enthusiast and fledgling podcaster about a VR Meetup he’s organising out in North Carolina is being co-hosted at EPIC Games (they of Unreal Engine / Gears of War fame) at their Cary Offices. Henry tells us that there are a few slots left for any VR enthusiasts or merely VR curious who live in and around the area. This is actually the 2nd event for the RTP VR Enthusiasts group.

Virtual Reality and a visit to one of the most important HQs in games today? How could you pass this up? If you’re interested, pop along to the meetup homepage and signup. And if you do go, let us know what you see.

Hands-on: IMU Added to Sixense STEM VR Motion Controller Underscores Impressive Performance

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Ben Lang

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Jun 19, 2014

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Today Sixense is revealing the reason for the delay of their STEM motion input controller—the company revamped their board design to include an IMU sensor which augments the motion tracking capabilities of the controller. The IMU is used for calibration-free correction of magnetic distortion. At E3, Road to VR went hand’s on with the latest STEM prototype and came away very impressed with the system’s performance.

Steam Summer Sale: 21 Oculus Rift and SteamVR Enabled Games Now On Sale

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Ben Lang

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Jun 19, 2014

The famous Steam Summer Sale of 2014 is upon us. This is the first year of the Summer Sale since Valve announced SteamVR, the company’s adaptation of their ‘Big Picture Mode’ for use with the Oculus Rift in virtual reality. Here is a list of all 27 games that support the Oculus Rift and SteamVR available on Steam—you’ll want to keep your eye on these for a chance of deep discounts once the annual firestorm of sales begins.

Rev VR Podcast (Ep. 68): Zombies on the Holodeck at Survios Headquarters

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Reverend Kyle

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Jun 19, 2014

When the guys at Survios invited me over to check out their setup, I had no idea that it would turn into an epic podcast that felt more like a recorded party than an interview.

News Bits: Unity Announces PS4 Support, Project Morpheus to Follow

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Jun 18, 2014

In a welcome announcement for Unity engine developers and fans alike, Unity have just announced that it’s engine will feature support for the Sony Playstation 4. As Unity is hugely popular with small, independent developers, throwing in support for a major console is great news for devs and gamers alike,

But that’s not all. In addition to PS4 support, Unity have said that support for Sony’s forthcoming VR Headset Project Morpheus will also follow soon. This brings Unity into line with Unreal Engine 4 which announced Morpheus support back in April.

It’s great news that two cutting edge, accessible and affordable engines to allow developers of all budgets take those experimental steps into VR game development. This can only be a good thing for both gamers and developers in the long run.

We’ll let you know once Unity finalises support for Project Morpheus.

‘Petal’ is a Virtual Reality Fan (no, we’re not joking), now on Kickstarter

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Jun 18, 2014

As we approach the point where companies involved in virtual reality start to solve the first wave of hard problems associated with virtual reality and more people immerse themselves in VR, it’s clear that for many, merely seeing their virtual world isn’t going to be enough. They want to feel it too.

Whilst we’re potentially years away from convincing haptics for the entire body, an enterprising group of developers have come up with a solution to a problem you may not have realised existed. A virtual reality fan, and it started its Kickstarter campaign recently.

Petal is (as far as we know) the world’s first commercial VR fan peripheral. The idea is that, once integrated with a game, output data from the program is fed to the Petal fan and it interprets data into airflow directed at the player. Imagine swooping through Metropolis as Superman, wearing your Oculus Rift and favourite set of headphones with a convincing breeze from Petal filling in the sensory gaps.

It’s an intriguing idea and the team at Petal have put some real thought into their implementation. The fan (currently at the proof of concept stage) will offer a powerful, responsive fan which can react to changes in gameplay. Also, if one fan isn’t enough, you can daisy chain multiple fans together for more airflow to cover a wider/taller field.

The team are working on Unreal Engine 4 and Unity integration right now and plan to release their SDK as open source to the community should the project get off the ground.

Pledge tiers at which you receive a Petal fan range from the current Early Bird tier, $50 for the developer kit to a ‘Meet the team’ option at $2,999.

We have no idea how effective Petal is or could be, but we like the concept very much. If it interests you, head over to their Kickstarter campaign page here and grab yourself a kit. Or, visit their web page.

We’ll let you know how the campaign fairs. In the mean time, what do you think of the idea?

News Bits: Cyber Space is a Theme Park Ride Simulator that Tries to Turn Your Stomach, Demo Available Now

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Jun 17, 2014

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One of the things we’re written about many times on the site is the possibilities for virtual reality inside the entertainment sphere but outside the scope of traditional games. Virtual Tourism, VR Cinema and Virtual Arcades are all tantalising prospects when the virtual reality experience becomes convincing enough, which by all accounts won’t be long at all.

Virtual Theme Parks however I’d never specifically considered. Unlike developer Rift Away, who liked the idea so much, they made an Oculus Rift demo around it.

Cyber Space puts you in the seat of a physics bending, stomach churning pendulum ride – propelling you from the ground 100s feet into the air, flipping you high above a detailed townscape. As with every good ride, Cyber Space starts you slow and builds to 360 degree loop the loops – think of this as your final endurance test before congratulating yourself on earning your Rift Legs.

For all the stomach flipping action, the title is actually great looking with a fully realised park town to gaze upon whilst you concentrate on keeping your lunch down so kudos to Rift Away for not just relying on brain flipping for the core experience.

It’s an interesting experiment in the kinds of experiences VR will excel at once it hits the market, providing developers who might not be interested in creating traditional games the opportunity to produce content that virtual reality users can enjoy in a way they couldn’t on any other platform.

You can find more about Rift Away at their homepage here – and you can download the Cyber Space demo here.

News Bits: Eden River HD Developer Aaron Lemke Shares New Screens, Motivations

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Jun 17, 2014

We reported yesterday that VR relaxation title Eden River HD was on it’s way to Steam soon and shared a teaser trailer for the title. Now Unello Design founder Aaron Lemke shares some thoughts on why he wanted to revisit his original Oculus Rift demo and what we can expect to find in the new title.

I decided to make Eden River after getting the Rift and seeing most Rift demo download sites over-saturated with horror games. I wanted to make a counter point to these games. Also it’s an experiment looking at whether or not virtual nature can have the same physical, psychological and emotional effects as physical nature.

Aaron’s also hopeful for consideration in this year’s Indicade festival of games:

I don’t know Indie Cade’s level of interest in VR at this point but Ive got my fingers crossed. They did have an option in the submission form specifically for Oculus Rift games so thats a good sign.

In terms of the feature set, well they’re not yet set in stone, but Aaron say we can expect the following:

“Story” Mode – a linear mode where you can interact with various forms of wildlife along your journey.
Endless Mode – an endless, randomly generated version of “Story” Mode, except with no animals. Endless mode is a pure relaxation experience.
Classic Mode – an HD update to the original Eden River demo.
Classic Endless – an endless HD version of the original Eden River demo.

And when can we expect to get our hands on Eden River HD? “Im shooting for a late July early August release.”

We’ll of course keep you posted. In the mean time, you can stay up to date with Eden River HD over at Unello Design’s website here.

E3 2014: Nate Mitchell and Palmer Luckey Talk Oculus Rift Games, DK2 Shipping and More

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Jun 17, 2014

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E3 2014 was the year of content not hardware for virtual reality, and Oculus lead the charge proudly demonstrating the fruits of their push to get developers to support their Oculus Rift platform.

Ben Lang caught up with Nate Mitchell, VP of Product and Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus VR to talk about the new games on show and briefly on the subject of DK2 manufacturing and shipping progress.

Rev VR Podcast (Ep.67): Interview with the Sony Project Morpheus Team at E3 2014

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Reverend Kyle

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Jun 16, 2014

I had some time on the last day of E3 2014 to hang out with Anton Mikhailov and Jeff Stafford, members of the Sony Project Morpheus team. They were wrapping up their final demos and wanted me to come back to try their Street Luge demo and chat.

News Bits: Beautiful Eden River HD Teaser Trailer Surfaces, Coming Soon to Steam

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Jun 16, 2014

Unello Design are probably the most chilled out VR developers in existence right now. Aaron Lemke‘s approach to game design seems to start with throwing away anything that could traditionally be considered a game. From the meditative Waking Man through to the lucid dreaming of Lunadroid, his music infused work is designed as pure escapism with perhaps a touch of enlightenment if you’re lucky.

As such, Aaron’s work neatly illustrates the opportunities for ‘gaming’ to develop new genres that aren’t about objectives, missions and shooting people in the face. Eden River was a good example of a title where just being inside was enough. All you did was float down a river, surrounded by beautiful scenery rolling your head gently from side to side to glide in that direction – and in VR, it was pure relaxation.

Now, Unello Design are working towards an expanded version of Eden River and is engaging with the VR community to find out what they’d like to see in Eden River HD – a commercial follow up, to be sold via Steam.

Popular suggestions for added features are to have a more expansive world, control over your cruising speed most tellingly a new ‘endless mode’. Could we see people falling asleep adrift on an infinite river?

You can find more on Eden River HD over at Unello Design‘s website here. No release date has been announced as yet for the title, we’ll let you know as soon as we do.

News Bits: UK Army Uses Oculus Rift to Help Train Medics

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Jun 16, 2014

The Oculus Rift is seemingly finding it’s way into numerous fields of application beyond gaming. We reported recently that Marketing in particular seem to have seized the Rift’s wow factor and unique presentation capability in their campaigns. Well, now it seems the UK Army see potential in Oculus’ VR headset too.

UK company Plextek with funding from the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) has developed a simulation to help UK Army medics learn to deal with situations they may face on the battlefield. The system involves the trainee donning the Rift and whilst immersed in the simulation, the instructor sets up and monitors the events – sort of like an enormously worthwhile Dungeon Master.

Plextek’s aim was to try and prepare soldiers for the reality of life under fire and by presenting different scenarios to the trainee, equip the soldier better.

Collette Johnson, medical business manager at Plextek Consulting, told the Daily Mail:

Our work with DSTL is enabling us to revolutionise the way medical treatment can be applied in the battlefield, while creating a multitude of opportunities for advanced health training applications across a breadth of industries,’

The innovative technology used in immersive reality solutions enables such a real-life perception that the education and response level of the trainee can be greatly heightened.
Any negative psychological effects could also be improved, by preparing the trainees better with a more accurate vision of what they could experience during military conflict.

Armed forces adopting consumer VR equipment seems to have been a theme of late. The Norwegian Army revealed recently that they’re testing a system to enhance their tank driver’s visibility in situations where all hatches are sealed. Using the Rift saves the army a pretty penny too, some $100k.

E3 2014: Sony, Oculus, and Valve are Working Together To Make Great Virtual Reality

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Jun 16, 2014

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One of the defining and ingratiating aspects of Oculus VR as a company is their openness in sharing their progress and gathering knowledge from places other than their own offices. Their engagement with the community and their willingness to demonstrate new hardware and software at every possible opportunity is, I think, an enormous differentiator for them and one of the reasons they’ve been so successful at accelerating the push for great virtual reality into the consumer space.