A Japanese hentai production company has released an interactive, Rift-enabled demo showing an early version of what could be the world’s first adult anime virtual reality game.

The First Virtual Reality Hentai Title?

Specialist in hentai entertainment, Illusion Entertainment recently updated it’s website with an early test demo featuring a character from it’s ”MoguMogu Yuna chan” adult entertainment (read ‘dating sims’) titles. The demo features nothing more than Yunalas standing in her (quite detailed) room gazing blanky at you. For some reason (probably not too hard to guess) the camera position is low and (somewhat amusingly) you start next to a box of tissues….

There’s no official indication that past or future titles from Illusion will get Oculus Rift support, for now this appears to be a proof of concept.

The demo is essentially fairly innocuous outside of the usual somewhat troubling anime conventions (the girls looks quite young) — there’s nothing to do except walk around the room and look… at least for now. The precedence it marks though is clear and, depending on your point of view, may or may not be worrying.

You can find the Mac or Windows downloads versions on the Illusion web site here. [Warning: NSFW!]

For those that prefer the Western style, don’t miss our recent sneak peek at Wicked Paradise.

Story Via: MTBS3D

The post Virtual Reality Hentai Game in the Works for Oculus Rift? [NSFW Warning] appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

On May 16th 2013,  Karl Krantz chaired the first ‘Silicon Valley Virtual Reality’ meetup (SVVR for short). Developers, enthusiasts and industry luminaries gathered to usher in and discuss the new dawn of Virtual Reality now upon us.

Revolution!

The VR Revolution is here, and this time it’s for good. Karl Krantz believes this and thought others probably felt the same. So, to mark this exciting new dawn in interactive entertainment, he organised the first Silicon Valley Virtual Reality meetup.  As the website eloquently puts it:

Join us to discuss the lessons learned by early VR pioneers, share exciting new advances in stereoscopic displays, gestural interfaces, haptics, virtual worlds, 3D modeling, and game development tools, as well as the potential applications and social implications of VR. Virtual reality’s time has come. Let’s explore this promising new technology together.

Alongside enthusiasts and developers, the historic meeting attracted some big names. Representatives from from companies like Sixense (showing MakeVR featured by us here) and Matterport were there to discuss their emerging technologies whilst Cymatic Bruce attended as VR Evangelist. Even Oculus VRs VP of Product Nate Mitchell showed up.

As part of the event Bruce and Karl gave talks discussing various topics, from the history of VR to the need for development techniques to evolve in step with the technology. The videos of those talks have now been posted and they’re well worth checking out. So here they all are for your perusal. Meetup #2 kicks off on the 27th June and features the Project Holodeck team and Tactical Haptics (covered by us here).

The post Videos from the 1st Silicon Valley Virtual Reality (SVVR) Meetup Now Online appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Speaking at the Ignite: Seattle event back in May, Joe Ludwig, Programmer at Valve Software (Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2) delivers a brief, irreverent summary of the history and current state of Virtual Reality.

Irreverent

Joe Ludwig, speaking at the Ignite, Seattle event on May 16th delivers a brief overview of VR as it stands with a tongue-in-cheek glance back in time to it’s origins. Despite it’s brevity, it’s quite a nice potted summary of where we are right now and how uncertain the future is given how new this technology.

Joe Ludwig has been the public face of VR at Valve ever since they announced they’re first public experiment with Virtual Reality and partnership with Oculus VR which resulted in Team Fortress 2: VR Mode being released back in March. Since then, Valve’s source engine based games have slowly received full, native Oculus Rift VR modes — including the legendary Half Life 2.

The Ignite Ethos

For those of you that don’t know, Ignite is an organisation specialising in organising  technology-based talks (a la TED), the twist is that anyone presenting has only 5 minutes to speak, with a maximum slide deck of 20 which rotate every 15 seconds. As a result, you get very little waffle in Ignite talks, this one being no exception.

The post Joe Ludwig from Valve speaking @ Ignite – The second coming of Virtual Reality [Video] appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

As you may know Andrew Reisse, co-founders of the Virtual Reality startup Oculus VR, died tragically in a hit-and-run motor accident last month. Oculus have now announced details of a Memorial Fund to commemorate his life.

The shocking news of Andrew Reisse’s death last month, as you’d expect,  shook the Oculus team hard. Described as a “brilliant computer graphics engineer” Reisse was instrumental in producing Oculus’ SDK and left behind an impressive legacy in the computer games industry having influenced 1000′s of games throughout his career.

The Andrew Reisse Memorial Scholarship

To mark his passing and to commemorate his work, Oculus VR have worked with The University of Maryland in setting up the Andrew Reisse Memorial Scholarship. Seeding it with $50,000 of company funds which it hopes will encourage the nurturing of talent. From the Scholarship landing page:

This scholarship has been created in memory of Andrew by Oculus VR, Inc. and his parents, Dr. Robert ’70, ’76 and Mrs. Dana Reisse ’73, who met at Maryland while pursuing their graduate studies. Contributions will establish an endowed scholarship to ensure that future Terps are given the same opportunity to change the world as Andrew did.

You can donate proceeds to the fund here.

The Andrew Reisse Memorial Internship Fund

Not only that, but an Internship Fund with NRDS (the National Resources Defense Fund) has also been seeded to the tune of $5000 by Oculus. Andrew was a keen photographer and lover of wildlife and the outdoors and was a loyal member of the NRDC in his lifetime too. You can donate to the NRDC fund here. And, for those interested in viewing some of Andrew’s photography, a selection of this work is on show here.

Road To VR’s Coverage

At the time of Andrew’s death, Road To VR felt that it was (rightly or wrongly) respectful to hold off on reporting the sad news immediately to allow his friends and relatives time to come to terms with the tragic event. For this reason and this reason only, this is the first time we’ve run an article on Andrew’s passing.

We’d therefore like to take this opportunity to send our condolences and best wishes to Andrew’s friends and relatives during this sad time. Oculus has shown great compassion in setting up these new funds and it’s comforting to think they’ll be around to mark Andrew’s memory in the future.

The post Oculus VR Sets Up Andrew Reisse Memorial Memorial Fund and Scholarship appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Valve has announced that the latest release of their Source Engine SDK has been released and that it now includes full support for the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality head mounted display.

Source: The Half Life 2 Engine

Valve have been at the forefront of support for the Oculus Rift since the beginning. We broke the story of Team Fortress 2 and its new ‘VR Mode’ back in March and since then other games based on their proprietary engine, specifically the Half Life 2 series of games.

With this release, developers get what they’ve been screaming for, the ability to develop games or update their existing projects based on the Source engine with full Virtual Reality support. This means that, along with Unity and UDK, developers now have yet another option to start building their games with minimal or no expense at all. Fully-fledged games that grew out of the modding community, such as the hugely popular Garry’s Mod now also have the opportunity to add VR support, adding to Oculus’ rapidly growing portfolio of Rift-ready experiences.

The full press release from Valve is below:

We have released an update to the Source SDK, bringing support for Mac OS X and Linux to mod developers and exposing the ability for virtual reality support in your mod. The biggest change with this update is that we are using github to host the source code. You will find the code here. This Source SDK 2013 release also includes a new license that can be foundhere. This new license allows mod authors to share their changes to the SDK more easily.

The other change with the Source SDK is that now Hammer and the other mod tools ship with their respective games instead of as part of the SDK Launcher. The launcher itself is being phased out, so it will disappear from your Tools list. You can find information about how to run the tools from the games here.

The source for this new SDK release includes the latest code for all the included games, and has many new features:
• The games now build and run clients on Windows, OSX, and Linux. Dedicated servers are supported on Windows and Linux.
• Steam Pipe (the new Steam content delivery system) is supported by the sample mods. Existing mods can change their gameinfo.txt to match the new format and gain Steam Pipe support.
• Support for Virtual Reality via the Oculus Rift has been added to the SDK. Running a compatible mod with -vr on the command line will run the mod in stereo and enable head tracking on the Rift.

You can find instructions on getting started with the new Source SDK 2013 on the Valve Developer Community wiki

The post Valve Release Source Engine SDK with Oculus Rift Support appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Oculus has released the latest version of their SDK. Now at version 2.3, the highlights include an integrated IPD Measurement and Adjustment tool and Global Profiles.

New Features

Oculus released the last version of it’s SDK (Software Developer Kit) back in April, so any update comes as a nice surprise. It seems that Oculus are making the releases count too. Download version 2.3 of the SDK here.

In these early days of Virtual Reality’s new dawn, Oculus, their Staff and Developers creating games for the Oculus Rift there’s much to be done before the technology is ready for mass market adoption. Whilst hackers and enthusiasts might be happy to whiel away hours tweaking config files and fiddling with settings, the average Joe really won’t put up with it. As Virtual Reality brings with it a whole new set of challenges and requirements for each unique human being who wants to use the Oculus Rift, some standard tools and interfaces are needed.

One fairly subtle, but extremely important ‘per user’ variable is the IPD (Interpupillary Distance) – which is different for everyone. Get this wrong, and it can cause eye-strain and nausea. Up to now, the only widely available tool to measure this (outside of visiting your Optician) was to use the integrated tool supplied with Team Fortress two when run in ‘VR Mode’. Now the Oculus SDK includes its own standalone tool which does pretty much the same tests. The difference is, one you’ve saved your IPD in your defined user profile, the any game developed with this version of the SDK and up should automatically use that setting for all games. At least that’s the theory.

The tool also includes a test scene which you can use to quickly try out your new IPD settings without leaving the testing interface. A nice touch.

Tuscany Tweaked

Oculus have also included a slightly updated version of the now famous Tiscany demo, used in the early days to demonstrate the Rift prototype. It’ll be a game of spot-the-difference for most of you, but it’s nice to see it evolving.

The post Oculus SDK 2.3 released — Now Offers IPD Calibration Tool and Global Profiles appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

CXC Simulations knows a thing or two about racing simulators — they build some of the best in the world. And now they’re testing their premium racing simulation system with the Oculus Rift.

The current state of the art for consumer — and I use that term lightly, given the prices — racing simulators is a multi-panel panoramic display. The extra screens on the side add to the immersion of the game by giving players a wider field of view and much needed peripheral vision. However advanced, such a system lacks head tracking — and integral part of convincing the mind that it’s actually inside the game.

Which of course brings us to the Rift and its high performance head tracker.

CXC Simulations rigged up an Oculus Rift helmet to be paired with their ~$60,000 Motion Pro II racing simulator. Though the resolution of the Rift dev kit certainly leaves much to be desired, the wide field of view combined with head tracking and 3D is highly immersive.

There’s an added benefit too: the CXC Motion Pro II shakes and moves in response to what’s happening in the game. This shakes the player’s head — and just as it would in real life, causes the player’s view to shake along with it thanks to the head tracker detecting the motion. That’s a very difference experience than having your head bobbed around in front of stationary displays.

CXC Simulations notes in comments to the above video that they “haven’t noticed any motion sickness,” and that “this is a very rough test with components in early prototype phase.”

Perhaps they’ll consider offering the Oculus Rift consumer version in place of the multi-monitor setup — it could quite possibly enhance the experience and decrease the cost!

I’m awaiting the day when someone hooks up the CXC Motion Pro II and Oculus Rift with a game like Mech Warrior Online. Feeling each footstep of your gigantic mech would be something to behold!

The post Racing with the Oculus Rift and a $60,000 Racing Simulator [video] appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Lunar Flight is an independently produced PC game by developer Shovsoft which challenges the player to master to nuances of low gravity flight. With Oculus Rift support on the way, Lunar Flight is set to become one of the most full-featured Rift experiences to date.

“A modern take on the classic arcade game, Lunar Lander, Lunar Flight extends the experience to a fully, fictionalised Lunar Module Simulator providing a variety of mission types involving Transporting Cargo, Acquiring Data at Survey locations and locating Lost Cargo. Completing missions earns experience points and money to be used to Refuel, Repair and Upgrade the Lunar Module,” reads the game’s official webpage.

Sean Edwards, an Australia-based developer, is the brains behind Lunar Flight. Though the game was made before the Rift arrived on the scene, Edwards believes that “[the Oculus Rift] is the future,” one that he wants to be part of. To that end, he’s making Lunar Flight compatible with the Oculus Rift, and doing a stellar job.

Edwards put together a video walking through his current Rift integration — definitely worth a watch to get a feel for the game in VR. I’ll add the video here and share my thoughts below:

Lunar Flight Oculus Rift Support

Road to VR is fortunate to have access to the closed Lunar Flight Oculus Rift beta.

With the Rift on, you’re sitting inside of a lunar module surrounded by displays and various HUD readouts. Outside of your vessel is the dusty and pale moon landscape. The goal sounds simple — in most cases, just fly the module to a location and land it.

If you’ve ever played the original Lunar Lander (Atari, 1979) (free online version here), you’ve got an idea of just how challenging this game can be.

You are tasked with controlling the yaw, pitch, roll, tilt, and every other aspect of the lander. Maybe it’s because I’m using a keyboard instead of an Xbox 360 controller (which Edwards recommends), but the game is a challenge and a half. Part of the battle is getting a feel for the low gravity physics — which can be affected by cargo and other factors — part of it is wrapping your head around the motion of your ship as controlled by a number of directional thrusters, and another part is learning how to use all of your instruments inside the cockpit.

However challenging it may be, Lunar Flight’s slow pace and first person cockpit view lend the game to a highly compelling Oculus Rift virtual reality experience. There’s also the threat of spinning out of control (and potentially getting dizzy) which I think actually adds to the game — it feels like a real risk, so you are very careful when controlling your ship.

Inside the craft is a bevy of readouts and displays. You can toggle the displays between several helpful views and initiate many different actions from the panels. This is one part of the game that makes it so immersive — you actually have to look around and interact with your instruments.

You also get to decide what works best for you: do you want a top-down camera on your left or a map? Maybe you’d prefer a target camera on your top display or an inertial camera? I’d absolutely love to see Razer Hydra integration where you have to actually reach out to flip switches, pull levers, etc; for now, everything is done by looking at the panel you want and using a context sensitive button.

Once you actually lift off, things get serious. You’ve got to be concerned with your fuel, acceleration, and heading. A main thruster provides most of the power, smaller thrusters can orient you in any conceivable way. Not to mention the fact that you’ve got a mission to complete.

There’s also multiplayer — an aspect of the game in which I haven’t yet delved. I think I’ll save that until I can consistently land without blowing up!

Edwards hasn’t yet said when he plans to release public Oculus Rift support for Lunar Flight, but I imagine it’ll be soon — the current beta is already a quite wholesome experience, and I think Rifters will be pleased to try it out. We’ll let you know as soon as it’s available.

Edwards tells me that he plans to demo Lunar Flight with Oculus Rift support at PAX AU at the end of this month — if you’re down under, be sure to go check it out.

Development of Lunar Flight Oculus Rift Support

For the developer types among you, Edwards recently gave a presentation about his Oculus Rift integration efforts to a tech group in Brisbane, Australia. In addition to talking about his development journey, he also throws a few unsuspecting audience members into the cockpit:

The post Lunar Flight with Oculus Rift Support in Beta — More Fun and More Challenge than Coin-op Classic appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

We take an early look at one of the most hotly anticipated titles in VR Gaming. CloudHead games were kind enough to give us access to an early alpha of The Gallery: Six Elements.

VR Gaming from the Ground Up

CloudHead games showed the VR Gaming community how crowd-funding should be done when they smashed through their $65,000 goal and walked away with over $80k. The campaign was clever, hard-fought and tireless and the team deserved every penny. But for all the smart PR and self-promotion, the real reasons why The Gallery was funded are twofold:

1) It promised ‘ground up’ support for both the Oculus Rift and the Razer Hydra

2) The game promised to revive the adventure game genre and throw the player into a beautiful and mysterious world inspired by the likes of gaming classics like Myst.

We took an even earlier look at the game during the campaign where Denny from CloudHead was kind enough to answer questions from the community.

For those who backed, the developers plan early access to a special Alpha preview of the game, dubbed the ‘Exploration School’ it’s designed as both a way to introduce players to the game’s mechanics and hopefully garner some feedback from the community which financed the project. It’s a very early version of this Demo we were given to play.

Spooky Spellunking

You’re dropped into the shoes of an intrepid urban explorer, who specialises in plundering the depths beneath cities, looking for .. well who knows really? On this occasion though, you’re being stalked through the gloom by something a wee bit sinister. Quite what the lurking menace is or what it’s motives might be are unclear, but it adds an ominous tone to your exploits.

The demo opens in Grand style by popping you into one of the prettiest calibration routines ever designed, a mysterious looking netherworld with floating focal points to my left and right. Following the on-screen prompts, the game obtains it’s reference points from the HMD and Razor Hydra and throws you through the painting ahead, into the gameworld.

“The head torch is activated with a neatly immersive flourish, raising your hand (as controlled by your Razer Hydra wands) to your head.”

I now find myself at the entrance to a winding series of sewer tunnels beneath an unnamed city. All I have with is my standard issue explorers outfit (visible clearly as you glance down at your virtual avatar’s body) and a head torch. The head torch is activated with a neatly immersive flourish, raising your hand (as controlled by your Razer Hydra wands) to your head. It’s fairly inconsequential as mechanics go, but it’s an illustration of the level of thought CloudHead have sewn into their creation.

At key points, you’ll get on-screen prompts to look down at your tablet computer, which appears in your hand when the game wishes to communicate key information and events to you. You bring the tablet up to your face to read, just as you would in real life, and I find myself waving it around playfully watching the screen’s light play off the tunnel walls.

Pushing on into the darkness I find a glow stick. Intuitively, I reach out and grab it. An eery glow surrounds my vicinity and I marvel at the natural way my virtual limb mimics my real-life actions. I try to throw the glow-stick into the blackness but the object just plonks to the ground – physics are not quite fully implemented yet. A spray can come into view, I pick it up quite naturally and idly graffiti the nearest tunnel wall with my initials and then, inevitably, a collection of puerile images. Sorry, couldn’t help myself.

Light and shadow is key in The Gallery and, to roll out a cliche, can be thought of as another player in the story. The Gallery is based on Unity and I must confess to being surprised at how advanced the lighting model is. Projected shadows are convincing and used expertly to tell the story as well as immerse the player. In terms of production design, it’s too early to get a handle on the gameworld – the entirely of the demo is based in the tunnels as the Exploration School proper was not yet ready. It’s fairly clear though from the assets already in place that the folks at Cloudhead are a talented bunch and having consumed every screenshot they’ve released of later points in the game I’m excited to see more.

Gameplay: Evolved

The Gallery takes a bravely realistic stance on your avatar’s physicality. That is to say, interaction with objects in the environment (and indeed the environment with you) are handled with very little ‘auto assist’. If you reach out and miss a spray can by a few pixels, you won’t pick it up. Much more interestingly, the same is true for that old gaming chestnut, ladders. CloudHead have held true to their intentions of making Razer Hydra integration much more than just a tacked on idiom. When you climb ladders in The Gallery you REALLY climb them — using each wand to guide and clasp each rung and then pull the wand towards you, again in the same way you would in real life.

“When you climb ladders in The Gallery you REALLY climb them — using each wand to guide and clasp each rung and then pull the wand towards you ..”

When it works, it’s sublime and pulls you right into that gameworld. When it doesn’t and you fall helplessly to your death, it’s incredibly unforgiving. There’s a balance that needs to be struck here between realism, immersion and playability (this is still a game after all) — I feel confident however that with just a few minor tweaks this mechanic could become incredibly compelling.

I’m aiming to keep this preview ‘spoiler free’ but suffice it to say, your mysterious stalker makes his/her/it’s presence known at various points throughout the demo in ways that bring to mind both classic horror films like Nosferatu and more modern chillers such as the ‘The Descent’. The technique is extremely effective and compounds the claustrophobia and sense of peril expertly whilst also spurring you on to find out who or what has it in for you. The appearance of this malevolent presence is often swiftly followed by events requiring you to make quick decisions and take actions in order to stay alive, leaving little doubt as to it’s intentions.

In calmer moments, simple ‘physical’ puzzles demonstrate the paradigm shift between standard desktop gaming and the new VR playground. Picking up, manipulating and placing planks of wood in order to traverse perilous gaps may sound fairly ‘run of the mill’, but when your immersed in the world and the ability to reach into that works (via the Hydras) it becomes an almost tactile experience with satisfaction coming from inconsequential actions like getting that plank to fall and lie flat. It’s this ‘sandbox glee’ that the Oculus Rift and the Razer Hydra bring to games and taps into some of my best gaming memories.

However, to paraphrase Marvel comics, with great immersion comes great game-design challenges. Again I see the balance between realism and gameplay as crucial in keeping players engaged. Reaching for objects and not being able to fathom why you’re not able to grasp them or swinging that plank around and it getting stuck in a nearby object result in frustration and sap the glee right out of that sandbox. Again though, I have faith that CloudHead will iron these issues out – another reminder that this is Pre-Pre-Alpha here.

Incredible promise

At present, it’s very difficult to get a handle on the character you play and what story he maybe involved in. Clearly we have our protagonist and antagonist but their relationships and place are undefined as yet. It’s clear however that CloudHead are opting for a sinister and brooding tone, which is something that wasn’t clear before this preview.

The promise held by The Gallery in terms of evolving gaming is pretty evident. Genuinely new gaming interactions like, naturally spraying walls with graffiti or pulling yourself desperately up ladders are brave and innovative ways to bring new experiences to gamers. But there’s a fine balance to be struck between innovation and playability. If Cloudhead can get the balance right, tweak these elements so that they become more intuitive then we’ll have ourselves a collection of new gaming machanics to help draw us further into the game. They’re not quite there yet, but this is early days.

It’s a privilege to be involved and engaged in Virtual Reality gaming as it rises again. Developers like CloudHead are faced with simultaneously enviable and unenviable challenges as they pioneer techniques no-one has had to think about before in order to bring us these dedicated ‘made for vr’ experiences. Denny and his team however are clearly passionate about the technologies however and The Gallery shows enormous potential as one of the first triple A commercial games to appear since the Oculus Rift appeared. For this reason, I’m now even more excited for the future of The Gallery and look forward to seeing even more.

You can still do your bit to help The Gallery become everything it can be at CloudHead’s CrowdFunding page here.

Read our Mini-QA with Denny Unger, Creative Director at CloudHead games here.

The post The Gallery: Six Elements — Early Alpha Sneak Peek with the ‘VIP Preview’ appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

You’ve read our article on the VIP Preview of The Gallery: Six Elements, now read the Mini Q&A. We catch up with Denny Unger, Creative Director at Cloudhead Games,  to find out about what development life is like post-kickstarter.

Road To VR: How did you feel when you sailed past your final Kickstarter total and Stretch Goal back in March?

Denny: It was a HUGE relief! Our campaign was an epic rollercoaster for us, so we had a lot of people over here (families included) sweating bullets to the bitter end.

Road to VR: Has the CloudHead team grown since Kickstarter Success? How has funding helped you progress development of The Gallery?

Denny: We’ve expanded from a team of 3 to a team of 5. We would like very much to increase that number to scale our production and get more accomplished.

Funding got us up and running, accounting for some necessary production expenses, assets, software and baseline wages for those involved. More importantly, the funding made a loud statement to others that this game idea was viable.

Road to VR: Are you speaking to Sixense about possible support for their forthcoming new motion controller that people are dubbing the ‘Hydra 2′?

Denny: I think it goes without saying that our game relies on the innovation that Sixense is responsible for to give users a truly connected VR experience. We would absolutely love to support the new Sixense motion controller. When we saw the prototype hardware we were VERY excited about the possibilities. It seems like Sixense listened to the demand and came up with a number of novel inclusions which will make the system far more flexible. They chose a perfect time to embrace VR and we cant wait to see what we can do with the hardware.

Road to VR: This VIP demo takes place entirely in the sewers, what percentage of the game takes place there?

Denny: The section of the game that occurs before the Gallery itself is roughly 20% of our game (perhaps a bit less). The idea being to lull users into a very grounded, acclimated experience before throwing them into completely alien and fantastic places.

Road to VR: What are your aims and hopes with the Exploration School? What will the players and you get out of it?

Denny: Our game takes a very different approach to VR than what has been made available for the Oculus thus far. We embrace it in a way that is both challenging and exciting. The main goal of our first release is to acclimate users to using our control scheme and essentially training themselves to exist in our game world. Once they play through, they’ll be ready for a much more ambitious journey ahead that will test them in some very unique ways.

Road to VR: Are there any gaming mechanics not yet seen that you’re excited about that you’d like to share with us?

Denny: We are trying to give players a real sense of physicality in our gameworld. But unlike prebaked animations based on button presses we’re trying to offer a 1:1 interactivity in motions. So for example; when climbing a ladder you literally have to user your hands and arms to climb, rung by rung. If you make a bad grab, there are consequences. We are continually raising the bar on player/world/object interactions and some of the best elements of that we are still developing.

“We are trying to give players a real sense of physicality in our gameworld. But unlike prebaked animations based on button presses we’re trying to offer a 1:1 interactivity in motions.”

Road to VR: Would you say you’re more or less on track to meet your delivery deadlines?

Denny: I’d be lying if I said we havent experienced some very unique challenges to this format. Considering the novelty of those challenges we’re still roughly on track. In an industry where deadlines are constantly on the move we’re doing pretty good so far for a very small studio.

Road to VR: Be honest, how many Hydras have you smashed in rage when something in-game hasn’t quite work?

Denny: We try not to rage on our precious hardware. The current Hydra takes enough abuse as it is when we get caught in a tangle of wires which will thankfully be resolved in a wireless version in future :)

Road to VR: Would you consider renaming the game ‘Spooky Spelunking’? If so, can we share in the royalties?

Denny: Spooky Spelunking? Hmmm. Maybe we could release a mini-game? Seriously though, that tone is there for sure but it will change as you progress through the game. We dont plan on giving anyone a heart attack, well, short of making them REALLY excited :)

Many thanks to Denny for allowing us access to the VIP preview and for sparing the time to talk to us. You can still do your bit to help The Gallery become everything it can be at CloudHead’s CrowdFunding page here.

The post CloudHead Games’ Denny Unger: Mini Q&A Talks About The Gallery and Kickstarter Success appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Gamers of a certain age rejoice! The first ‘true’ 3D First Person Shooter that spawned a generation of FPS nuts, Quake (id Software, 1996), has been given the Oculus Rift treatment. We take a quick look back at the Quake legend and it’s future, in VR.

Rose Tinted…

My first PC was a budget affair at the dawn of the Pentium generation. A screamingly fast P60, a 2MB(!) graphics card and a ‘Soundblaster compatible‘ card made up my ‘rig’ (before any idiot thought up the name). It was bought by my long-suffering parents, in the hope that this would finally lead to a career of some sort. It did eventually pay off, but that’s beside the point …

The point was the games. Before any of that pesky learning, it was the games I was (predictably) far more interested in. Doom, specifically. The wonder of those cutting edge 3D visuals for me, having  just stepped up from a Megadrive, were frankly out of this world. Skipping over what a pain in the arse Windows 3.11 on DOS was to configure or run (I still have lines from my autoexec.cfg and config.sys burned into my retina), when things worked they were almost magical.

id and John Carmack ruled the gaming universe and every new release brought with it a tsunami of anticipation, not to mention crippling system requirements. Quake didn’t disappoint. It blasted onto the PC bringing with a new world of textured polygons and cutting edge pre-baked lightmaps! I had to overclock my meagre processor just to run it. But when I finally managed to achieve a frame rate higher than a slideshow, playing Quake was epoch making stuff. The ability to look with the mouse in 3D space was a revolution (Doom was handled as a flat plane where any vertical spaces were merely illusions). More than that, the grotesque pseudo gothic production design meant it was dripping in atmosphere. But, it didn’t just look ‘the business’, it sported the finest gameplay in an FPS yet and was fiendishly addictive.

Rifting with a Nailgun

As you can see I have fond memories of Quake, so when I found that some clever boffin had managed to get it working with the Oculus Rift, complete with pre-warped, stereoscopic 3D visuals I was understandably excited. Although, in truth I was expecting two things:

1) For the port to be shoddy and unfinished and

2) for my rose-tinted memories of Quake to be washed away in a sea of pixels and brown.

Thankfully I was wrong.

Quake’s source code was released an age ago by id and has been ported to just about every platform going. But I’d not come across the strain that’s been used for this VR version. Dubbed ‘Quakespasm‘ it’s a 3D Accelerated port of the the original with mod support. This Oculus Rift mod plugs into Quakespasm and is enabled by loading up the game, selecting the appropriate 16:10 resolution (1280×800 or 1920×1200) and then bringing down the in-game console by pressing the tilde key and typing:

r_oculusrift 1

..and presto,  you’re in VR mode!

What’s it Like?

In short, it’s surprisingly effective. The pre-warping is spot-on and, as you’d expect, it runs beautifully. The world surrounds you but the stereoscopy seems slightly flat, with depth definitely present but muted. But it really works and being thrown back into the world I’d played so long ago, this time in VR,  it helps recapture the awe I felt back then. Furthermore, ignoring the ludicrously primitive looking models, the laughable texture resolution and the lightmaps and the game is still incredibly playable. One thing id got right in it’s shooters was the ‘feel’ of the weaponry – and it still offers a satisfying blast even now. Classic weapons like the Nailgun still have the capacity to make you grin, regardless of how retro they may look.

Right now, weapons are tied rigidly to your in-game chin – meaning that you aim where you look. This works better than you might imagine and only occasionally causes gameplay confusion. Of course, it would be preferable to separate body from head movement as you can in more recent VR adaptations, but the immediacy you get of snapping your view to shoot something actually works well.

Something I can foresee VR and the Oculus Rift being particularly good at is unlocking the opportunity to re-experience your favourite titles. Drivers like vorpX and Vireio and mods like QuakeSpasm give gamers a doorway to their gaming past and perhaps re-introduce classic titles to a younger generation who may never had a chance to play them.

You can read more on this mod and download it here.

Note: OK, it’s spot the ‘deliberate mistake’ in the video time. First one to spot the 2 issues in the video (apart from it being too dark) and post it in the comments gets to feel smug and clever. :)

The post Quake gets Rifted! Back Through the Slipgate with the Oculus Rift (video) appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

If you’ve been following the Oculus Rift saga since the beginning, you’ll recall that Hawken (2012, Meteor/Adhesive) was said by the developers to have Oculus Rift support as of the open beta launch on December 12, 2012 — even before the Oculus Rift would start shipping to Kickstarter backers. Many months later, the VR community was left wondering what happened to the project when it failed to materialize. Now, Oculus tells Road to VR that the project is still in the works, and reveals the unfortunate reason for its delay.

Having played a build of Hawken with Oculus Rift support at GDC 2013, it seemed that the time was near for a release, even if they didn’t launch with support on the aforementioned date of 12/12/12. Shortly thereafter, the community wondered along with us what happened to the Hawken Oculus Rift project, but in the last few months, most questions of it have ceased.

Yesterday I reached out to Oculus one last time to ask what happened to the project. Several times in the past we’d reached out to both Oculus and Meteor/Adhesive, but never heard back. Here is their response in full:

Our close, late friend Andrew Reisse was our lead Unreal developer, and led the Rift integration for Hawken VR. His tragic passing set us back.

The teams at Adhesive and Meteor have been fantastic (including helping us pull off an awesome Hawken VR showing at GDC), but the project is very much a collaboration and Oculus’s efficiency has slowed without Andrew’s talents. Senior engineers on both sides (Oculus + Hawken) are still working on Hawken VR, it’s just taking longer than expected.

We’d like to thank everyone for their patience. Hawken VR is coming — Stay tuned.

Reisse was “a lead on the Oculus SDK, the Unreal Engine integration, Hawken VR, and nearly every demo we’ve shown since the company inception,” wrote Oculus in a post on their official blog after Reisse’s passing.

In addition to setting up a memorial fund and scholarship in honor of Reisse, he was commemorated by Oculus in the Unreal Engine 4 ‘Oculus Elemental Demo’, one of his final projects, which was shown at E3 2013.

Oculus also wrote that Reisse’s code “is embedded in thousands of games played by millions of people around the world.” When Hawken VR arrives, let’s not forget Reisse and his contribution to gaming.

The post Oculus: “Hawken VR is coming — Stay tuned” appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Yesterday, LG Display announced the world’s thinnest 5.2-inch full HD display. As more panel makers announce full HD displays of this size, it means more choices and lower costs for the forthcoming Oculus Rift consumer version.

Back at E3 2013, when Oculus was showing off the 1080p HD Oculus Rift prototype, they made it quite clear that a 1080p panel would be the absolute minimum for the Oculus Rift consumer version, which is expected to hit the market in 2014.

To my knowledge, there’s no significant technical reason that the Oculus Rift dev kit (DK1) couldn’t have shipped with a 1080p display — it’s just a matter of cost, availability, and performance. The company has been firm about a $300 target price for the consumer model (an audacious goal).

With that in mind, every new full HD panel that becomes available is a boon to Oculus. With more panel options on the market, competition ensues, driving performance up and costs down.

Cost is key for Oculus, and so is volume. Back when Oculus was deciding upon the display for the Rift dev kit (DK1), Oculus had limited options because of the company’s size. They had to grab an off-the-shelf panel that was not cost-prohibitive. Had they approached a panel manufacturer and asked for a few thousand units of a customized panel, they likely would have been laughed at — the big screen makers are used to delivering hundreds of thousands of panels for the latest smartphones — little orders are not worth their time.

With Oculus’ recent acquisition of $16 million in venture funding, they’ve now got some weight to throw around in talks with panel makers.

LG’s New 5.2-inch Full HD Display

LG says that their new IPS display is the thinnest in its class, with less bezel and bulk than other displays — only 2.2mm thin with a 2.3mm bezel. The IPS display is also quite bright, up to 535 nits, according to the company. As brightness increases it actually opens the door for more immersive experiences — like a sun that’s too bright to comfortably stare directly at, or a flashbang that’s actually unsettling on it’s own merit.

Here’s the full release from LG Display:

LG Display Introduces World’s Slimmest Full HD LCD Panel for Smartphones
New panel will enable sleeker Full HD smartphones delivering superior viewing experience

Seoul, Korea (July 11, 2013) – LG Display [NYSE: LPL, KRX: 034220], a leading innovator of display technology, today announced that it will unveil the world’s slimmest Full HD LCD panel for smartphones. The state-of-the-art 5.2-inch panel is an exciting advancement for the premium mobile device market enabling sleeker Full HD smartphones featuring better “grip-ability” and a superior viewing experience.

Only 2.2mm thin with a 2.3mm bezel, LG Display’s new panel is both slimmest and narrowest among existing Full HD LCD panels designed for mobile devices. This world’s slimmest Full HD LCD panel will provide larger visible display space on smartphones, critical as mobile devices are used for multimedia viewing more than ever before. Additionally, the panel will make devices easier to grip as well as lighter in weight.

Key to realizing the world’s slimmest panel is LG Display’s Advanced One-Glass-Solution (OGS), the latest touch technology enabling an enhanced touch screen experience, developed and applied to the new panel for the first time ever. Dual Flexible Printed Circuits, superior to a single circuit, have been inserted between the panel and touch film, reducing the number of lines on the panel by more than 30 percent. Utilization of a direct bonding system has also resulted in Optical Clear Resin between the panel and touch film for greater brightness.

The new panel’s superiority in displaying resolution, brightness, and contrast ratio results in enhanced outdoor readability. By utilizing 1,080X1,920 pixels consisting of Red, Green, Blue (RGB) sub-pixels, the panel is a true Full HD display. And with a brightness of 535 nits at maximum, LG Display’s panel outperforms all current mobile Full HD LCD panels. Finally, measuring contrast in real-life surroundings with Ambient Contrast Ratio results in a reading of 3.74:1 based on 10,000 lux, confirming the perfect performance of the panel even in strong outdoor sunlight conditions. Renowned testing firm Intertek has officially certified these results.

“Today’s introduction of the world’s slimmest Full HD LCD panel represents an exciting advancement for the high-end smartphone segment, and is possible due to our world-class expertise in IPS and touch technologies,” said Dr. Byeong-Koo Kim, Vice President and Head of LG Display’s IT and Mobile Development Group. “LG Display will continue its commitment to developing products that maximize consumer value as well as opening new doors for the mobile and tablet PC industry.”

The post LG Announces World’s Thinnest 5.2-inch Full HD Display — Good News for Oculus appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Oculus VR Inc is making steady improvements to the Oculus Rift SDK; the company recently launched version 2.3. Along with some other changes comes the Oculus Rift Configuration Utility which lets players measure IPD, input height, and create a profile to bring those settings into Oculus Rift games.

IPD, which stands for interpupillary distance, is the distance between your pupils. IPD calibration is important for nausea-free gameplay with head mounted displays like the Oculus Rift. The new configuration utility makes it a breeze to calibrate your IPD. Previously, players had to rely on optometrist measurements or Valve’s hidden ‘vr_calibration’ tool in the Oculus enabled beta of Team Fortress 2.

While you might think that IPD doesn’t vary much from person to person, it can actually deviate quite a bit. According to the 1988 Anthropometric Survey of US Army Personnel, the minimum measured IPD was 52mm with the maximum being 78mm for males and 76mm for females. The mean IPD for males is 64.7mm and 62.3 for females. Needless to say, making an assumption about IPD is not a good idea for Oculus Rift development or gameplay!

In a recent blog post titled “VR Sickness, The Rift, and How Game Developers Can Help“, Oculus’ Tom Forsyth notes that one of the contributing factors to simulation sickness is “Players not measuring their IPD and feeding it into the game’s settings.”

“We completely understand the eagerness to experience VR, and right now the calibration process does take a bit of time. But if this is not correctly set up for each person’s face, it can lead to some people getting queasy in seconds. Oculus now has a user configuration utility, so please encourage people to take the time to do the calibration.” he continues.

Download and Measure IPD with the Oculus Rift Configuration Utility

The Oculus Rift configuration utility is bundled with the Oculus Unity Tuscany Demo. You can find the demo for Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux at Oculus’ Downloads page here (you will need to be registered in with a free account). After you unzip the file, open the ‘ovr_unity_0.2.3_demo_win’ folder and find inside another folder titled ‘OculusConfigUtil’. Inside is the utility itself. Make sure you have your Rift turned on and resolution set to 1280×800, then go ahead and launch the utility.

Use the new button to create a new profile.

Give your profile a name.

Specify your gender and which eye cups you’re using.

With your Oculus Rift ready, hit the Measure button to launch into the IPD measurement tool. Follow the on-screen prompts to measure your IPD. The utility will automatically input the value into the box when you finish.

Input your height.

To check your settings, use the Launch Interactive Utility button, then select Settings Viewer. This will put you into a small virtual environment that uses the values from the utility to adjust the scene, letting you check to make sure things feel right.

Repeat the process to add additional profiles for other players.

Now that you’re properly configured, it’s up to developers to incorporate this data into their games.

The post How to Measure Your IPD and Create a VR Player Profile with the New Oculus Configuration Utility appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Using the Oculus Rift requires switching back and forth between your normal resolution and the Rift’s 1280×800. The standard method of doing so on Windows requires one too many steps for my taste, so I tracked down a handy free utility that switches between resolutions with a quick keyboard shortcut.

The utility is called HRC – Hotkey Resolution Control. You can download it here. The program is developed by Karsten Funk.

Once you download and install HRC, open it from the system tray.

Define the Oculus Rift resolution as one of the options and give it a hotkey. I used Ctrl+Shift+R for ‘Rift’ mode and Ctrl+Shift+D for ‘Desktop’ mode, just to make it easy to remember.

Once you have your settings configured properly, minimize the utility to the tray. Now simply initiate your keyboard shortcut and voila — quick Oculus Rift resolution changing!

Those of you who are using differential multi-monitor setups may be out of luck as the developer notes, “HRC is not able to deal with multi-display settings like different resolutions and extended or mirrored displays yet. Those settings still have to be made manually.”

The post Oculus Rift Quick Tip: Change Screen Resolution With a Keyboard Shortcut appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Mockup of consumer Oculus Rift shown by Oculus VR Inc at GTC 2013 – Photo credit: PC Perspective

Speaking with Edge, Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe confirms that we won’t see the Oculus Rift 2 / consumer version in 2013. Though not necessarily a surprise, this is the first official confirmation of that fact that I’ve seen; there could be a silver lining. Additionally, Iribe talks about the future of VR and how smartphones might play a role.

“Consumer release-wise we haven’t set a date yet – it’s not going to be this year but we would love it to be next year – we want it to be right… We don’t want to announce any dates because frankly we just don’t know when it’s going to be really ready for the consumer market where everything is tied together – you have the form factor, HD, motion blur eliminated… so we don’t know how long that will take, but it’s close – we have internal prototypes which have a lot of each thing solved and it’s such a magical experience when you see it all together,” Iribe told Edge.

Yes, it’s a shame to know that we’ll have to wait until 2014 for the future to truly arrive, but it’s possible that Oculus is looking to release a second Oculus Rift developer kit (called DK2) before 2013 is over. According to a roadmap that Oculus showed back in March at GTC 2013:

Photo credit: PC Perspective

The Oculus Rift roadmap shows that the company anticipated launching the DK2 in Q3, which we’re now part way into.

At E3 2013, Oculus showed off the Oculus Rift HD prototype. They said there were “no solid plans” to released the HD prototype, but it makes a DK2 seem likely. Still, there’s no way to tell how Oculus’ plans may have changed since the roadmap went public, especially with the recent influx of investor cash.

Oculus Rift and Your Smartphone

While the smartphones of today are not likely powerful enough to function as a compelling VR platform, Iribe thinks the time will come in the near future.

“I love consoles but internally we’re a lot more excited about where mobile’s going to go, and being able to plug it right into a next gen cellphone… It’s the innovation, and how fast cellphones are now improving – where we’ll be with the next Galaxy or the next iPhone compared to where consoles are. Those things are almost doubling every year, compared to a console that’s just stuck it out for eight years – it just makes us very excited. There’s a lot of improvements that can be made on the hardware side for VR that no-one’s doing yet because it’s a new thing. The mobile rate of innovation is going to be able to make a lot of those improvements,” he told Edge.

Oculus is constantly fielding questions about whether or not they’ll bring the Oculus Rift to the Xbox or PlayStation. The answer is always that they’d love to do so, but peripheral certification for consoles is not open for anyone who wants in. I personally feel that it’s more likely that Sony and Microsoft will launch their own gaming HMD rather than allow Oculus onto their platforms. In the mean time, a focus on mobile is probably a good strategy.

I for one am looking forward to hooking up my future Oculus Rift 4 to my iPhone 9 and using Ibex to have a huge virtual desktop space to work with, even when in a cramped airplane seat or on the train!

The post Oculus CEO: No Oculus Rift 2 / Consumer Version in 2013, Talks VR on Your Smartphone appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Sixense has published a new video showing their forthcoming virtual reality CAD program, MakeVR, in use with the Oculus Rift. The software is an ambitious project by Sixense, creators of the Razer Hydra, to combine advanced CAD modeling software with an intuitive control system, powered by the Hydra.

At GDC 2013, I spoke with MakeVR Product Manager Simon Solotko and Lead Developer Paul Mlyniec about the project. They told me that MakeVR is being built from the ground up with Razer Hydra and Oculus Rift support, but this is the first time we’re seeing it used with the HMD.

Sixense had anticipated taking MakeVR to Kickstarter back in April, but seems to have held off on that for the time being.

As someone who loves Minecraft, I’m very much looking forward to MakeVR. It’s great to be able to flex your creativity in the digital realm. Computer aided design has long fascinated me, but the cost and complexity of today’s software is quite daunting. MakeVR could change all of that

The post New MakeVR Video Shows Oculus Rift Integration appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

In a move that’s sure to excite Oculus Rift developers around the globe, Oculus has partnered with IndieCade for an worldwide ‘VR Jam’ game development contest. $50,000 in prizes are up for grabs, including a grand prize of $10,000.

When new gaming hardware hits the streets, it’s always a chicken and egg problem. Developers aren’t going to make games if no one owns the hardware. Consumers aren’t going to buy the hardware if there are no games to play.

In the era of app stores, we’ve see companies tackle this problem by trying to stimulate interest in their platform by offering up prizes and contests; Oculus is taking a similar approach with the forthcoming VR Jam. During the VR Jam developers “will be challenged to build new, innovative virtual reality games and experiences designed specifically for the Oculus Rift,” writes Oculus VR Inc on their latest blog post.

The Oculus Rift VR Jam, which will run from August 2nd to August 25th, is open to anyone worldwide. For those who don’t yet have an Oculus Rift, Oculus is opening ‘Playtest Hubs’ where Riftless developers can share and playtest their games. So far Oculus has announced two Playest Hubs at New York University and the University of Southern California. They will be announcing additional Playtest Hubs soon.

Oculus Rift VR Jam Prizes and Rules

Grand prize winners:

• $10,000 cash prize.
• Oculus will pay for travel and lodging for 1 member of the winning team to attend IndieCade and exhibit at event (up to $2,000).
• An invitation to visit Oculus HQ to meet the Oculus team.
• Oculus will promote the content through social channels.
• Opportunity to exhibit winning content at IndieCade 2013.
• Coupon for submission to IndieCade 2014.
• A limited edition Oculus + IndieCade VR Jam 2013 t-shirt.

2nd place winners:

• $5,000 cash prize.
• Oculus will promote the content through social channels.
• Opportunity to exhibit winning content at IndieCade 2013.
• Coupon for submission to IndieCade 2014.
• A limited edition Oculus + IndieCade VR Jam 2013 t-shirt.

3rd place winners:

• $3,000 cash prize.
• Oculus will promote the content through social channels.
• Opportunity to exhibit winning content at IndieCade 2013.
• Coupon for submission to IndieCade 2014.
• A limited edition Oculus + IndieCade VR Jam 2013 t-shirt.

Each finalist:

• $500 cash prize.
• Oculus will promote the content through social channels.
• Coupon for submission (any game) to IndieCade 2014.
• A limited edition Oculus + IndieCade VR Jam 2013 t-shirt.

Find rules and sign up for the Oculus & IndieCade VR Jam here!

The post Oculus & IndieCade Announce Worldwide VR Jam: $50,000 in Prizes, Starts August 2nd appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

On July 26th, Omnithon will be holding a 48-hour Oculus Rift gaming session, during which they’ll collect donations for the Child’s Play charity. If you contribute to the donation drive, you’ll be entered to win an Oculus Rift developer kit signed by Oculus!

Omnithon is a group of 14 gaming enthusiasts who come together to raise money for Child’s Play. The group says they’re raised $7,000 in past events for the charity.

For their latest donation drive they “will spend 48 straight hours playing any game  that works on the Oculus Rift and streaming it live on twitch.tv, with an emphasis on Minecraft, Half Life  2, and games that are requested by donors.” Their goal is $1000.

The Oculus Rift, which is signed by Palmer Luckey, Brendan Iribe, Nate Mitchell, and Michael Antonov, will be raffled at the close of the event to anyone who contributes $10 or more.

The event starts on July 26th at 5PM PST, catch all the action at Omnithon.com!

Child’s Play is a certified 501(c)(3) nonprofit charity. In 2012, they raised more then $5 million for their cause.

Child’s Play is dedicated to improving the lives of children in hospitals around the world through the kindness and generosity of the video game community and the power of play.

Child’s Play works in two ways. With the help of hospital staff, we set up gift wish lists full of video games, toys, books, and other fun stuff for kids. By clicking on a hospital location on our map, you can view that hospital’s wish list and send a gift.

Child’s Play also receives cash donations throughout the year. With those cash donations, we purchase new consoles, peripherals, games, and more for hospitals and therapy facilities. These donations allow for children to enjoy age-appropriate entertainment, interact with their peers, friends, and family, and can provide vital distraction from an otherwise generally unpleasant experience.

If you pre-order today, the Oculus Rift developer kit is not expected to ship until August — this could be your chance to get your hands on a Rift early, all while contributing to a good cause! Spread the word!

The post Omnithon 48-hour Donation Drive: Give to a Good Cause for a Chance to Win a Signed Oculus Rift appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.

Indie developer Owlchemy Labs recently announced that Oculus Rift support for their Futuristic Base-Jumping title ‘AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! for the Awesome’. We were intrigued, so we asked their ‘Chief Scientist’ Alex Schwartz to tell us more.

Virtually Awesome!

“Absurd and highly polished games” is the strap-line adorning the Owlchemy Labs’ website. Browsing the list of titles already published by the quirky independent it certainly seems apt. “Shoot Many Robots” and “Snuggletruck” exude that kind of whacky charm that the best indie studios do well. Clearly Owlchemy aren’t big on taking themselves too seriously.

However, after spending a good couple of hours with the non Rift-enabled (rift-unabled?) PC edition AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! (here-on in to be known merely as Aaaaa!), it’s clear Owlchemy Labs have some skills. As you’d expect from a developer who cut their teeth on insta-play mobile titles, Aaaaa! is pure pick-up-and-play joy with a healthy dollop of depth lurking for those willing to invest the time.  After then seeing their absurdly enthusiastic announcement about their Dev-Kit arrival and that Aaaaa! would receive Oculus Rift support I had to get in touch to find out more.

Not only did they happily agree to talk to us, they gave us access to an early build of Aaaaa! with Rift support. A full preview will follow soon, but I can tell tell you that the ‘kerrazzy’ gesticulations and explosive enthusiasm exhibited by YouTube megastar PewDiePie when he played it aren’t wide of the mark. It’s one of the best Rift-ready games I’ve played and the genre is perfect for VR.

More on that later, for now the questions:

Road To VR: Tell us a bit about Owlchemy Labs and it’s team.

Alex: Owlchemy Labs is an indie game studio developing “absurdly polished” games. We’ve been around since 2010 and have created multiple titles for iOS, Android, and Steam PC/Mac,  including Snuggle Truck (or Smuggle Truck, depending where you look) and Jack Lumber. We also worked with Dejobaan to create Aaaaa! for the Awesome and worked with Demiurge Studios to create Shoot Many Robots on mobile devices. Our latest thing is Oculus support for Aaaaa!, which we’re really excited about.

Road To VR: How did Aaaaa! originally come to be? Whose idea was it?

Alex: The original base-jumping game AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! was the brainchild of Dejobaan Games. They designed and created the game to much critical success, garnering awards and ending up finalists in IGF 2010. The semi-sequel, Aaaaa! for the Awesome was co-developed by us, Owlchemy Labs, as we worked with Dejobaan to bring the game to Unity, add several features, and bring the game to mobile. Some of the team even went skydiving… for research purposes.

Alex: Dejobaan’s fearless leader, Ichiro Lambe, is known to watch extreme sports from afar, and may also be the devil, according to this picture:

Road To VR: Had Owlchemy dabbled in any 3D technologies previous to working with the OR?

Alex: We’ve done some work with the Kinect and the Leap Motion, but nothing that wraps around your skull. This was a new experience for us, but during development we learned a ton about VR, best practices, and ways to reproduce certain feelings and emotions in haptic gaming.

Road To VR: What game engine is Aaaaa! based on? What do you like / dislike about it?

Alex: Aaaaa! for the Awesome is built in Unity. We love Unity and they love us. If swag is proof, then here’s proof:

It was surprisingly easy to get up and running with Unity’s sample Oculus integration. The hard part was the weeks of work making it feel ‘right’.

Alex: The dev kit, even in it’s early stages, is really quite amazing. We know that in the future, the resolution will be increased and we’ll be seeing an improved refresh rate, so we’re really looking forward to the production kits. Even without those, we’re in love with what we have.

Alex: Surprisingly (or not surprisingly) we’ve had zero cases of vomiting thus far. We learned early on that swinging the camera on the player without their input was nausea-inducing, so we’ve been careful to remove elements from the game that would shake the camera view, or auto-rotate the player’s view. Care definitely needs to be taken to remove opportunities to make the player uncomfortable.

Road To VR: How long did it take to get a version of Aaaaa! up and running on the Rift? What were the challenges?

Alex: We had our first build up and running on day one. The Oculus crew did a good job of providing sample code and a clear API to work with. The skyboxes were completely wrong and messing with our eyes pretty badly, nothing was tuned properly, and our interface was completely incorrect, but it was WORKING! And it was incredible. A couple of weeks later, we have a build where all of the levels are fully playable and the UI is readable.

Road To VR: Playing in VR versus a flat monitor raises challenges with scale that can be challenging. As scale is clearly pretty important to Aaaaa!’s mechanics, were there any changes you had to make to make Rift play make more sense?

Alex: In general, scale hasn’t been that big of an issue. We did make some changes to help with fatigue while playing and also some changes to increase the sense of *speed* in the game.

Managing fatigue: We soon learned that falling straight down in-game and requiring the player to look straight down at their feet to match that camera angle was going to be an issue. Our necks were hurting after only a half hour, and we decided to change it up a bit as an experiment. We attempted rotating the whole setup by a 90-degree-rotation forward (imagine that looking straight ahead at the computer screen would match with your avatar looking straight down in-game). This was much better for our necks but didn’t give the exact feeling we were looking for. It felt a bit more like Superman flying through a field of buildings. We ended up settling on a 45-degree downward angle. Reading this may be confusing, and is one of those strange behind-the-scenes details that almost no players realize.

What really happens is quite cool. When we start the level and the player is walking around on the top of a building, their camera angle is matched 1:1 with the real world, but once they jump off, the camera re-orients in a thrilling sensory moment where the player begins their fall. It truly feels like you’re weightless and actually hurtling through the air. Those with tangible fears of heights will feel that same uneasiness when looking over the edge of the building, down to the city below. It’s simultaneously thrilling and unbelievable. In that moment, we re-orient the camera downward by 45 degrees, and players feel completely natural starting their descent.

The fun part happens when players remove the Oculus goggles. It’s a bit disorienting to return to the real world. You could have sworn that you were looking right down at your feet, but in fact, you were not. It’s all Hollywood magic ;)

As for the sense of speed, we added some additional effects to the camera to help make the game feel faster. One of those is a ‘wind blur’ effect in your periphery. This was initially present in the PC version, but we re-worked it for the Oculus edition. Having particles stream past you in your periphery really adds to the feeling of moving quickly through the world, rather than a feeling of the world moving at you.

Road To VR: After you received your OR Dev Kits, were there any Eureka moments around new directions for the Aaaaa! franchise? Has the OR been an inspiration for any dedicated VR projects?

Alex: Only time will tell! At the moment we have nothing new to announce, but we’re very impressed by the Rift, that’s for sure.

Road To VR: When is Aaaaaculus! out and is it a Steam exclusive?

Alex: We don’t have a release date, but it’ll be launching on Steam at first, and that launch should happen “Sometime soon™” :)

Road To VR: Finally, you’ve proclaimed Aaaaa! to be the ‘best thing ever’ on the Oculus Rift. Should other developers give up now?

 Alex:  We challenge all other developers to join us in the “Best Thing Ever” club. It’s nice in here, and there’s an open bar.

Thanks to Alex and the team for taking the time to answer our questions. We’ll have a hands-on preview of Aaaaa!: Oculus Rift Edition for you soon. In the meantime you can grab the standard version on Steam now.

The post AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! gets Rifted. Interview With Developer Owlchemy Labs. appeared first on Road To Virtual Reality.