HTC Vive

chef-borjan · 17 Oct 2016 at 09:12

Man, I find it amazing to keep finding indie VR apps/games to try out.

It's strange, this is clearly early adopter techinilgy but people are clamouring for AAA. Sure those will come, but the beauty is to try out the Wild West that is VR now. Can't wait to try out the Dont Blink demo, I loved playing with GPU cubes. The other day I tried out this trippy experience in a room in the woods with a radio (the name escapes me right now).

You need to approach current VR with a sense of discovery/curiosity. Don't expect it to be spoon fed to you, at least not yet.

misterjingo · 17 Oct 2016 at 10:34

One of the things which has kept me occupied is building my own stuff. I'm a programmer, but have little knowledge of 3d game construction.

Downloading Unity and the steamvr toolkit (both free), you can literally have a room scale environment set up within minutes.

Call me a geek, but learning to do stuff like this

is amazing.

chef-borjan · 17 Oct 2016 at 10:48

Yes exactly, that was amazing to see. I'm planning on putting together some stuff myself...

A few months ago I experimented with importing models that can print with my 3D printer. Haven't had the chance to do much else because of a crazy workload, but now I have a bit more time... looking forward to picking this up again.

Combat squirrel · 18 Oct 2016 at 10:43

Yeah seems to be for power users/developers then, no amazing killer apps for people who just want to play a game or have fun with it - yeah there are a few titles but nothing like, i guess, 'essential' - really needs time and work i think

hyperseven · 18 Oct 2016 at 11:43

Purchased Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope last night and must say for EA is very pretty and polished at the moment.

Buttery smooth with mostly ultra and an external SS of 1.5.

It is another wave based shooter, a 180 not full room scale, but I would say its the best I have played (have Brookhaven and Raw Data and a few others), but you can just tell an established dev team have produced it.

Oh, its bloody hard too

On sale at the moment for £23.99 instead of £29.99, money well spent IMO.

ZeroG · 18 Oct 2016 at 12:01

Combat squirrel said:
So whats the deal with VR now ? Seems to be dead in the water - the hardware seems pretty good, but there isn't any software, nothings come out, no killer games, seems to have ground to a halt :/ when wide spread killer apps come, I'll prob invest, but seems not the time now

People seem to forget really good games take years to develop and release. We're not going to see the likes of Doom or Call of Duty in VR this quickly.

Nismo · 18 Oct 2016 at 12:26

Combat squirrel said:
So whats the deal with VR now ? Seems to be dead in the water - the hardware seems pretty good, but there isn't any software, nothings come out, no killer games, seems to have ground to a halt :/ when wide spread killer apps come, I'll prob invest, but seems not the time now

PSVR has just come out, and by all accounts is being well received, this gen of VR was always going to be won or lost on the success of Sony's offering when it hit the mainstream.

I've just bought Serious Sam for the Vive and it's the best "game" I've played since launch. I get the feeling the next 6 months-1 year we are going to get a lot of good stuff coming now that developers are pushing a little harder and are more comfortable with what they can and can't do in VR.

It's far from dead, we have just experienced the lull that follows any initial platform launch.

sgavan · 18 Oct 2016 at 20:33

Golf club have added vive support, might be worth keeping a look at

http://store.steampowered.com/app/489600

chef-borjan · 19 Oct 2016 at 11:10

Yes I think AAA games with feature parity to mainstream console games are not completely here yet. Game development is a gamble, and devs are just testing the waters at the moment.

Still, the magic right now is dipping into the internet and finding stuff like this.

https://maybetall.itch.io/dont-blink

Going to whip this one out for a Halloween party!

hyperseven · 19 Oct 2016 at 12:29

sgavan said:
Golf club have added vive support, might be worth keeping a look at

http://store.steampowered.com/app/489600

this is out now and on a week sale for £16.14 :eek:

sgavan · 19 Oct 2016 at 13:58

hyperseven said:
this is out now and on a week sale for £16.14

Not played the game before and not really into golf but tempted to give this a try

hyperseven · 19 Oct 2016 at 14:51

sgavan said:
Not played the game before and not really into golf but tempted to give this a try

you've got your 2 hour Steam safety blanket

sgavan · 19 Oct 2016 at 15:33

hyperseven said:
you've got your 2 hour Steam safety blanket

Is that really ethical?

Might take a look at it later

Surfer · 20 Oct 2016 at 11:24

hyperseven said:
you've got your 2 hour Steam safety blanket

and a lot of VR games you could argue dont have content or last longer than this

e.g. new PSVR game Batman VR apparently is around 1 1/2 hours long (sadly its PS exclusive for now)

ZeroG · 20 Oct 2016 at 12:37

sgavan said:
Is that really ethical?

Might take a look at it later

If a game doesn't offer a demo or a trial period I think it is acceptable as it may not run properly on your system or you really don't like it.

hyperseven · 21 Oct 2016 at 13:21

'Accounting', on Steam, free, just install and enjoy ?

misterjingo · 21 Oct 2016 at 13:46

hyperseven said:
'Accounting', on Steam, free, just install and enjoy ?

Yep. Theres quite a few free VR "experiences" which are worth a go. It's worth checking out the Vive Portal thingy too. They frequently put new games on there at vastly reduced prices for the first couple of days. Such as 70p rather than £7-15 etc.

sgavan · 21 Oct 2016 at 14:37

hyperseven said:
'Accounting', on Steam, free, just install and enjoy ?

Tried it yesterday and made me laugh

SKILL · 21 Oct 2016 at 22:01

Wow, after putting off getting a VR headset I finally went and bought one, went for the KFA2 1070 + Vive bundle, arrived today and I set it up basically as just seated/standing, not full roomscale, but it's way better than I thought.

I put off due to cost but kinda regret not buying it earlier now, well worth it

Tomorrows task will be to determine which room to switch to my new Roomscale VR gaming room, just trying a few things like Audioshield makes me *need* to try proper roomscale...

misterjingo · 22 Oct 2016 at 17:49

I had an eye test today and asked the optician to tell me my IPD. I was setting it around 65-66, and it turns out my IPD was 67. So wasn't too far off!