While I’d hoped their panel at the ever-expanding South By Southwest Gaming Expo in Austin this past weekend would have produced a concrete release date for their consumer-friendly virtual reality system, the team behind the Oculus Rift remained as reticent as ever, offering only further assurances that their platform will revolutionize not just gaming but life as we know it...more or less. However, SXSW did provide plenty of opportunities to try out the system – which has already been distributed to software developers – thanks to a diverse group of demos also present at various events around town.
Brr! It's cold on this wall!
Such a nice view. Hope there aren't any undead warriors hoping to kill us down there!
The obvious show-stealer was the elaborate, immersive Game of Thrones: Ascend the Wall, which serves as the experiential centerpiece in HBO’s traveling exhibit for the show. Before strapping on the Oculus headset, I was ushered into a real-life replica of the winch elevator characters use to ascend (oh, I get it) Westeros’ infamous Wall. Once the headset was in place, I saw that same elevator, only my surroundings were now the snowy walls of Castle Black rather than the boring confines of a noisy exhibition hall.
As the cart slowly rose up the wall, I was able to swivel my head around and freely survey the 3D landscape while carefully choreographed blasts of air and jolts of movement from the floor further convinced my senses I was actually scaling the Wall. After finishing my ascent and trekking along the top of the Wall, the all-too-brief experience culminated in a swift, vertigo-inducing plummet that beautifully showcased the Rift’s ability to cultivate convincing 3D worlds. I mean, my stomach dropped like it would on a rollercoaster. That’s pretty hard to fake.
Sadly, Framestore senior producer Christine Cattano explained their team doesn’t currently plan to bring this experience to livingrooms everywhere, so you’ll have to catch the GoT exhibit if you want to climb the Wall yourself.
Where's Jon Snow to fetch me my dinner?
Maybe life wouldn't be so bad here...Bah, who are we kidding?
If you want to relive your childhood, however, you’re in luck! The guys at Globacore have created an homage to arcade classic Paperboy – appropriately titled PaperDude VR – that they plan to expand into a full game in time for Oculus Rift’s eventual launch.
Where the original Paperboy used a top-down camera, PaperDude gives players a first-person view of a fully 3D world that looks pleasantly Minecraft-y. The game also uses an optional sensor mounted on a real bike so players can physically pedal their way through the experience, hucking papers and avoiding obstacles by swinging their hands in front of a Kinect camera. While obviously not as staggeringly realistic as Ascend the Wall, I found PaperDude equally immersive in its own goofy way. Who hasn’t wanted to smash windows in a world made of giant pixels, right?
The proof-of-concept demo on display at SXSW didn’t allow me to steer the bike since, according artist/prototype programmer Mike Lambert, earlier iterations that allowed for greater movement control felt disorienting to some users. However, the unconfirmed home version of PaperDude – which would not require a bike or even a Kinect setup – could potentially ditch the current on-rails format as the Oculus itself evolves and allows for a more natural range of motion.
The final VR title I tested is the only one not based on an existing property; in fact, it’s really not like anything I’ve ever seen before. Classroom Aquatic is, in the words of producer/designer Remy Karns, “about being a foreign exchange diver student in a school of dolphins” who’s unprepared for the demanding course load and, consequently, must cheat his way to the top. So yes, the entire game takes place in first-person, underwater, in an academic setting where you are constantly surrounded by dolphins that behave like humans. I repeat, this is a real game.
The entire game takes place in first-person, underwater...where you are constantly surrounded by dolphins that behave like humans.
The single-level demo on-hand in Austin featured a multiple choice quiz with arcane trivia questions that basically couldn’t be answered unless I stealthily glanced around the classroom to copy off my fellow students. I was able to use an Xbox 360 controller to lean towards other desks and throw erasers to distract the teacher, but I still only managed to get four of the ten questions right. Thankfully, the finished game will include a variety of scholastic scenarios like science fairs and field trips, so my lackluster test-taking abilities may not ruin the entire semester.
According to Karns, the idea for Classroom Aquatic sprang from two unrelated realizations during an Oculus Rift game jam: first, that an underwater setting would look beautiful in virtual reality, and second, that dolphins are actually totally smart, man! Though arguably the least sensory-stimulating of the VR games I played, it was certainly charming in its uniqueness and was the only one that focused on puzzles rather than action.
As diverse as Ascend the Wall, PaperDude VR, and Classroom Aquatic might be, it was encouraging to hear all three team’s praise the Rift for being so accessible. According to Lambert, “The guys that built [the Oculus Rift] did a really good job with the Unity 3D integration. All we have to do is plug in the Oculus and it works, no programming required.” On the other hand, all three experiences severely limited my agency within the virtual worlds, so I feel like there’s still plenty of potential that needs to be tapped before the Oculus Rift really stands a chance against other platforms.
Scott Butterworth is a freelance word guy who knew Mitch Dyer back when he was still just MitchyD. Follow Scott on Twitter at @butterwomp.
Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com
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