News

Awaken a neolithic civilization in Monument Valley creator’s VR debut, out today

Living in the Bay Area, Land’s End for me is the overly windy cliffside overlooking the chilly, probably densely-polluted San Francisco bay. For critically acclaimed Monument Valley creator Ustwo Games, Land’s End is something else entirely—a quiet, meditative VR game that was released today. In its Samsung Gear VR debut, an ultra consumer friendly and portable VR-headset for those with Samsung phones, Ustwo Games has crafted a surreal, completely hands-free experience. With the Gear VR, Land’s End gives players the opportunity to navigate an ancient and beautiful world, said to be inspired by isolated regions from across the world, including Iceland,…

News

The Archer is bringing intertitles to VR, and it works

I experienced director Jessica Kantor’s The Archer on Samsung’s Gear VR headset, a $200 piece of kit that, if you believe its manufacturer, “lets you feel the world beyond your peripheral vision.” I did not experience the world beyond my peripheral vision, and was all the happier for it. Clocking in at a brisk 90 seconds, The Archer reimagines the aesthetic of early silent films for the VR era. It tells the story of a man who visits a female archer for lunch. She goes all William Tell and persuades him to balance an apple on his head that she can…

News

Here are a couple of lovely, surreal GearVR games to float through

Balthazar Auxietre, creative director and CEO of Innerspace VR, has emphasized his focus on having a user be able to “feel the space” around them, a sense of spatial presence that he says is the “magic” of virtual reality. Two of Innerspace’s current projects, The Fifth Sleep and The Cave, were demoed alongside the Samsung GearVR at IFA Berlin in September, show the non-gaming possibilities for the unit. Auxietre wants to create this “magic” by making his virtual reality worlds feel like they have substance; that you can “feel” them and interact with them. The controls, or lack thereof, of both titles are similar:…