I had the opportunity to attend the Game Developer’s Conference Exposition for the first time last week. The event, known as the world’s largest professional game industry event, was held at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. The three days I spent there were frenetic – between networking events and workshops, I only managed to make it to the expo twice. The venue was so densely populated and widespread that it would take over a week of planned exploration to see everything the conference had to offer. So I prioritized, and tried to focus on as many Virtual Reality (VR) booths as I could.
In terms of VR game companies at the expo, it was the Los Angeles-based virtual reality video game development company, Survios, that maintained the greatest presence. From the fast-paced robot shooter Raw Data, to the quirky and competitive Sprint Vector, Survios games are pervasive and well-respected within the VR scene.
Survios was promoting two new VR Experiences at GDC; Creed: Rise to Glory (which I will henceforth refer to simply as Creed), and Electronauts. I had the chance to try them both.
Get knocked right out of your VR body
Creed is based on the 2015 Rocky tie-in movie, and features a virtual Sylvester Stallone to guide you through a quick tutorial–teaching you the ins and out of virtual boxing. The game is high-energy and immersive; promoting strong, precise punches while punishing you for being greedy and overextending. You’ll need to hide behind your gloves and weather incoming blows, before getting in a few jabs of your own. “Take your time” the demo assistant kept saying.
Creed sets itself apart from other VR boxing titles through its “Phantom Melee” system. As you swing your arms, your character will lose stamina and your arms will start to desynchronize from the avatar’s. If your character is staggered or knocked down, you will be knocked right out of your body, and will need to engage in a Sprint-Vector-esque run back to the ring and back into your mildly concussed body. It felt accessible but deep, with the capacity to get players to work up a sweat (albeit less so than Sprint Vector). I’m confident that this game will be a hit at VR arcades.
Become the DJ of the future
Next there’s Electronauts; an entirely different specimen of VR experience. Electronauts is a virtual DJ game. Many VR DJ games attempt to be simulators (Tribe, Vinyl Reality), allowing for someone to learn to use a turntable without having to actually buy one. There is a space for this, and it is a great way to try your hand at DJing before purchasing a rig. Electronauts is not trying to be a simple simulator, and uses some abstraction, providing a unique brand of DJ experience.
Players hold drumsticks which they can use to drag song components around, cycle through loops, and, of course, drum. It’s all nicely put together to ensure a solid amount of depth and customizability, while still ensuring that anything you play is in key and sounds decent. You can write custom riffs and loops by aiming and dragging notes around, set sequences of drums, and even throw sound-effect “grenades” with the flick of a controller-bearing wrist.
This type of balance between accessibility and depth is not easy to achieve, and worth noting. I’m hoping to gain access to the beta and exploring the game further to see how deep the customizable aspects really go.
The most badass rhythm game around
Survios dominated the VR gaming scene at the expo, but VR games from several other companies caught my eye at a SVVR (Silicon Valley Virtual Reality) mixer event. It was there that I was lucky enough to get the chance to try Beat Saber. Think Guitar Hero with lightsabers in VR. This game comes from Czech Republic studio Hyperbolic Magnetism, and early online playthroughs have been garnering a lot of attention. It’s easy to see why–the premise itself sells the game (why didn’t I think of it!), and the aesthetic is polished and unique.
I jumped in on Hard mode and it felt amazing–exactly how I expected it to. The note placement is intuitive, and slashing through each incoming block is extremely satisfying. While I found myself sometimes hitting notes from the wrong end, I’m confident that this would be avoided with a little bit of practice. This will be a joy to master, and will be a must-buy for me when it’s released.
More ad-libbed madness from Squanch Games
I also got the chance to try out “Dr. Splorchy: Space Heroes”, the latest offering from Squanch Games. Their previous releases, Rick and Morty VR and Accounting, are wonderfully weird little games. They use the VR medium to disorient and surprise, elements which I highly value in my own games. Dr. Splorchy is a Google Daydream exclusive, and the demo was running on the new Lenovo Mirage standalone headset.
The Mirage headset was impressively comfortable, lightweight and easy to put on. It boasts a simple strap reminiscent of PSVR. Apparently it is also capable of 6-DOF tracking (both rotation and translation – a feature that most mobile VR headsets do not offer), but Dr. Splorchy did not make use of this capability, so I have yet to try it out.
The game itself was exactly what I’ve come to expect from Squanch Games; clearly ad-libbed self-aware Rick and Morty-style nonsense. I was grinning throughout the demo. Actual game mechanics involved leaning side to side to dodge lemons, shooting aliens with a blaster, and being shouted at by a space-blob with Justin Roiland’s Morty voice.
Virtual Reality and the future
Recent rhetoric has suggested that VR is a fad. An article published in Bloomberg claims that because tech juggernauts like Apple and Amazon are not investing in VR headsets, that it will inevitably be “supplanted by augmented reality”. I do not think that this is the case. VR booths pervaded this year’s expo, showing off new impressive technologies that will only become cheaper and more accessible and the years go by.
Motion tracking companies like Vicon and Optitrack demonstrated impressive advances in full-body tracking for VR, while companies like bHaptics and HardlightVR showed off haptic-feedback vests and attachments to increase VR immersion. Not to mention the massive Oculus booth, the aforementioned game demos, the handful of indie VR titles, and all those that I did not have the chance to see. There was even an entire sub-conference dedicated only to VR and AR (which I will have to attend next year and report back on).
I posit that any rumors of VR’s impending demise have been greatly exaggerated. VR is alive and well; barreling forward with incrementing speed. Standalone high-quality headsets like the Lenovo Mirage and Oculus Go (300$ and 200$ respectively) are important stepping-stones for bringing highly immersive VR to the general consumer public. I look forward to seeing where the next few years take us, and believe that VR’s future is as bright as the glow from an OLED head-mounted display.