Game designer Kishan Emens wants to make “tangible science for virtual classrooms,” but that doesn’t mean he’s well-versed in science. “I took a chemistry class [and] I didn’t really get the best grade in the end,” wrote Emens in a Medium post. “But it made me think about what kinds of ways can students get more excited for chemistry.” And that’s where the idea of virtual reality came in. Emens went on to develop a science-driven prototype, and after tinkering with the particle system that coincides with Nvidia’s Flex graphics card, he dropped the chemistry-specific game idea and opted for something much simpler: to play with liquid bubbles.
Bubble Labs VR is that very experiment. With the player’s Splatoon-like gun, they squirt colorful bubbles at the slight touch of a button. From there, players can draw shapes, or obliterate them with the slightest hit of a makeshift fan. The bubbles themselves move slowly, as if in space, in the game’s zero-gravity atmosphere. Bubble Labs VR was made with the idea in mind to be accessible for anyone—whether in the short span of a demo, to a kid unfamiliar with the makings of games, to a person’s first-time VR experience.
Currently, Emens has listed the game as early access for Steam, citing potential iterations in the weeks to come. In the future, Emens hopes to implement more ways to interact with the player’s gravity gun, a way to freeze all the bubbles around you, and to add more localization options. You know, so that literally anyone can play.
If you have a PC with Nvidia’s latest Flex graphics card and a HTC Vive, then you’re in luck and can enjoy Bubble Labs VR in all its perfectly-particled glory. You can download the game on Steam or itch.io for $2.99.
