Physics-based emergent gameplay is still the most compelling aspect of most VR titles. HL2 pioneered and popularized it.
'Gravgun to gravgloves' is the three-word short story of Valve.
this post was submitted on 26 Dec 2023
0 points (NaN% liked)
games
20164 readers
152 users here now
Tabletop, DnD, board games, and minecraft. Also Animal Crossing.
-
3rd International Volunteer Brigade (Hexbear gaming discord)
Rules
- No racism, sexism, ableism, homophobia, or transphobia. Don't care if it's ironic don't post comments or content like that here.
- Mark spoilers
- No bad mouthing sonic games here :no-copyright:
- No gamers allowed :soviet-huff:
- No squabbling or petty arguments here. Remember to disengage and respect others choice to do so when an argument gets too much
founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS
Physics-based emergent gameplay is still the most compelling aspect of most VR titles.
Ehh, at least on foot. I played "The Key", which is a short serious game about a serious topic (don't wanna spoiler it) and there isn't really all THAT much gameplay in the traditional sense but it did hit me a lot harder than if it was on flatscreen
SPOILERS FOR THAT GAME
spoiler
It's very artsy and full of allegories and stuff for loss and it turns out in the end it's about the experience of refugees. It's all very much couched in weird artsy fever dream aesthetic up until the reveal, in which it transports you into a very realistic bombed out middle eastern house and gotta be honest, that hit like a ton of bricks
The sense of 'presence' in a space is the other special component of VR. I've only had a chance to play a few demos a few years ago, but the sense of scale and space is really profound compared to a screen. I think stuff like that could be really cool, but it doesn't fit well with the mainstream gamer preconceptions of a VR game. One of the early demos featured being underwater as a blue whale swam overhead, and it was intense. Thanks for the info about The Key.
I wish more devs would go hard on that. Stick the players in tesseracts, do all that stuff that Superliminal and the old Prey did. 720 degree circles, rooms that are longer when you cross north to south than south to north. You could get really fucking weird with space and presence in ways that are impossible in real life.
I think the medium is still very restricted - Economically it's very marginal with a limited audience. The tools are still quite limited. And the artistic language of VR is not mature at all.
I imagine a lot of devs are cautious about that kind of thing because of VR sickness.
The road of progress is paved with the bones of cowards.
The road of progress is paved with ~~the bones of cowards.~~ buckets of sick
Kinda ironic how Alyx is the complete inverse of this with the desktop mod.
What's wrong with it? I haven't dug too much into it but from what I heard it was received quite well
The gunplay is serviceable, but afaik none of the puzzles could be translated into desktop play, so there are significant chunks of the game just kind of glossed over.