Racket: Nx is a new, futuristic VR sports title which draws inspiration from the game of Racquetball and classic arcade titles and promises to help you work up a sweat.
One of the hopes or benefits of room-scale VR is that, unlike the majority of traditional gaming, it encourages you to “get off your arse” to experience the games. As such, VR sports titles have been a popular ‘go to’ genre for developers looking to get into the VR arena, and Racket Nx from developers One Hamsa looks to be one of the more polished examples we’ve seen so far.
Most obviously inspired by classic titles like Breakout and Arkanoid there are clearly comparisons to be drawn with Tron‘s disc battles too, indeed the design of Racket Nx exudes the sort of digital neon look as the cult Disney Sci-fi film, albeit in a much more contemporary manner.
Racket Nx started life as a demo application in partnership with Waves, a pro-audio tools developer. Its original purpose was to show off Waves’ spatial audio technology, but has since blossomed into a standalone title, with a demo on its way this week and a full release later this year.
The demo, which is to be released via Steam on August 17th, features the ‘Infinite Training’ mode. Placed into “glass dome in space with dynamic patterns of targets on its walls”, the aim of Racket Nx is to throw your projectile, hitting the correct hexagonal wall blocks as they light up, as prompted by specific audio cues. One Hamsa claims intuitive physics and, perhaps predictably, a focus on positional audio as a gameplay mechanic.
Racket Nx will be available later in the year via Steam’s Early Access platform and as stated, the demo is now available on Steam for HTC Vive right here.