Queerskins: ark
NOTE:
Unfortunately, Steamworks has decided to inexplicably censor this 6DoF interactive VR. If you want to support queer content and voices, please let Steam know of your displeasure. And, head to Viveport to download this woman produced and directed interactive experience, part of a Peabody award winning series! https://www.viveport.com/bcbd1d54-ac06-4b2e-a393-3851e6173440
Queerskins: ARK is a 6DoF interactive virtual reality experience. Reading a diary left by the estranged son, a Catholic mother (Hadley Boyd) finds a way to transcend herself and her grief by imagining him alive and in love. With heart-wrenching performances by Michael DeBartolo and Christopher Vo in volumetric video and the storytelling potential of spatial sound, Ark allows you to enter her imagination and co-create the lovers’ intimate dance through your body position and movements. An Intel Studios Original co-produced with Cloudred.
The Attic
The viewer finds herself in a dimly lit attic bedroom, a place that seems to be stuck in time, heavy with memory. Here, you assume the passive role of an observer in a 360˚ environment. Unable to move, you can examine the memorabilia-laden surroundings and begin to get an idea of time, place and what the story might be about. Mary-Helen begins reading her son’s diary.
El Matador
As Mary-Helen begins to imagine her son’s world, you are transported to a beautiful beach at dawn. Sebastian and his lover Alex appear, like a daydream nearby in the landscape. We allow Sebastian to break the 4th wall and directly implicate you in the scene. We position you quite close to the two men, just outside their personal space as you listen to their conversation. As Mary-Helen finds freedom in her imagination, you too now have the freedom to move around the beach as the experience transforms into 6DoF.
The Memory
The scene crossfades to an abstraction of the beach. Sebastian and Alex begin an intimate dance. Depending on how you move in the space, the dancers appear to respond to your presence. The performance has been choreographed as a series of segments, each visitor sees only 5 out of possible 24 combinations within each play session. Replay it to see other potential variations, follow the blue glowing lights to hear Mary-Helen reading Sebastian’s diary entries. Raise both arms to gain a new perspective, point your arms forward to fly!
Back in the Attic
As the lovers fade away, you are now back in the attic. It is the magic hour. The room is lit with a flat, golden light, reminiscent of the light on the beach. With a return of detail and color, it feels like the room has come back to life. Mary-Helen contemplates her new found sense of self.
Note
Queerskins: ARK is a room scale experience. It can be adjusted for available space:
— Small (10’x10’ / 3x3 m)
— Medium (20’x20’ / 6x6 m) — Default
— Large (30’x30’ / 9x9 m)
Subtitles are available in English, Spanish, Italian and Polish. Subtitles can only be set at the beginning of the experience by using your controller or by pressing corresponding keys on your keyboard. Please see the experience splash screen for details.
Read More: Best 6DOF 360 Video Games.
Curious Alice
I liked this. Very short, but the price is right.
– Real player with 0.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best 6DOF Adventure Games.
A tiny little game made as a part of a V&A gallery on the influence of Alice in Wonderland on art and design. You will finish this between 15-20 mins, but the price reflects that and it is certainly replayable thanks to Kristjana S. Williams’s unique art style and how the VR brings several charming episodes from Lewis Carroll’s fiction to life. There are three scenes, besides the initial tumble down the rabbit hole and the main menu area, involving the rabbit, the cards and the caterpillar. If I had a single complaint it would only be the omission of the tea party.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Laid-Back Camp - Virtual - Fumoto Campsite
Fumoto Comf!!! This version is really full of cuteness and healing especially because of Nade’s energy and the giant fluffy dog. The price might not be worth it for those who aren’t into the anime or into CGDCT, but it’s a great game for fans of Yuru Camp and those who want to see Nadeshiko’s radiant cuteness and to pet a dog. The graphics are the same technically the same as the Motosu version, only a bit duller because there’s no animated lake, but still a nice treat especially since we get to see the sunrise in retrospect to the 3rd episode of Season 1. Same criticisms from the Motosu version too, needs a bit more interactivity, music, and exploration, but definitely gives you tons of comfort and healing. The new OST during the sunrise is also a huge plus (sasuga Akiyuki Tateyama again).
– Real player with 7.2 hrs in game
Read More: Best 6DOF Cute Games.
Now that the comfiest game ever has been made, it’s all downhill from here…
This follows the standard Gemdrops formula of being a 20-30 minute anime episode in VR with barely any interaction, only 2 or 3 characters and only 1 environment while selling for $25 (or $20 in the case of this game). It’s honestly not a great formula. There’s a lot of missed opportunity for camp-based interactivity like setting up a tent, making a fire, cooking some food, etc. They like releasing on all platforms including mobile, Switch, etc, though, so it’s unlikely they’ll start improving upon the formula any time soon.
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
Madrid Noir
Nice little detective story about mysterious uncle. It is not a game, more like an experience, with few small interactions. Played on HP Reverb G2 with Index controllers. I had to lower resolution to 50% (otherwise the game crashed right after launching) but it still looked great and sharp and felt like it is still at 100% resolution.
– Real player with 0.8 hrs in game
Madrid Noir is a VR interactive animated movie that is paid program. It worked on my HTC Vive system with RTX 2070 super, looked good, sounded good, played ok, was understandable. No help or instructions in-game, make assumption you know your way around VR. Has 3 languages to choose from: English, French and Spanish. Has some interactive objects to use to move the story along or to play with. Was a wonderful story with a good plot. Has a 45 minute runtime. You have only play space movement, the story will move you where it needs you to be. You might wanna be standing for this one, the movie goes all around you. You have a choice of 5 hand colors. The voice over in English was good. Not sure what the French and Spanish version are like, but i guess the be of same quality. Has cartoon Violence. Has good animations and textures.
– Real player with 0.7 hrs in game
Spice&Wolf VR2
This game is heavier than Cyberpunk and Half Life ALYX. For this game, I need to use 70% resolution scale on GTX 1660 Super and Ryzen 5 2600.
They also gave no option to disable or lower the quality of the desktop vr view mirroring. Unlike other games (e.g. beat saber) where you can put the mirror in lowest quality and keep high quality in VR.
btw,
Why they didnt put the subtitle above their heads? Just pin its location to head and direction to player camera…. Currently the subtitle are a pain to read and detract from the experience.
– Real player with 4.6 hrs in game
This is fantastic! It’s a great step in the development of the concept of a VR anime/OVA, though it is expensive for how much content you’re getting. The quality of this is SUPERB, everything about this is well done and really enjoyable to watch/experience. Acting all around is great from Holo and Miyuri, both are fantastic and express the characters amazingly well.
It’s a no-brainer to buy.
Only thing I wish we had was an option for the “petting” mode for 2D screens using the mouse as a hand, That’d allow for a better value for everyone.
– Real player with 3.6 hrs in game
Hagia Sophia VR Experience
This is basically one single level room. It’s a very nicely done single level room with some neat audio attached to the objects in it but within minutes I’d come to the conclusion that I wasn’t keeping this ‘game’. There just isn’t enough to it to keep me interested for even the two hours after which Steam won’t refund my purchase. I intend to go through it a bit more and then delete it. I’d rather have the $5 back than keep it.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
Unfortunately, this is a half-assed “experience” that is limited only to a part of the ground floor of Hagia Sophia. You do not get access to the top floors or to certain parts of the ground floor. Additionally, it is chock full of translated verses of the Quran instead of providing historical information on this magnificent masterpiece of a building. Perhaps the developers are attempting to promote the Islamic religion, as I really cannot find a convincing explanation as to why verses of the Quran have been placed throughout the building instead of something more relevant to the experience. Additionally, it can only be experienced as an overlay of steamVR, otherwise it won’t work. There is no option to adjust the video settings in spite of this experience being clearly non-optimised for PC as evidenced by the horrible amount of tearing I experienced in spite of running it on RTX 2080 ti. and a 9900k processor I do not recommend bothering with this experience.
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game
Queerskins: a love story
This left a bad taste in my mouth.
There just wasn’t enough time for reflection or enough moments to challenge the perspective that is being driven into us (that being Gay is wrong because it is against God). I suspect (hope) the intention was to prompt reflection and thought, but in a 15 minute 360 video, there is no opportunity for this, and the developers don’t fuel it at all.
The result, whether intentional or not, is a mess of bigotry and “cruel and irreligious piety.” I hate this. It should be withdrawn until it can be amended so that it isn’t provoking hate. I have reported it.
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
game bad and about hating gays
– Real player with 0.3 hrs in game
TERMINUS
This is the most Trippy VR experience out there right now…. Excellent space face melting music… Better than I expected… Worth it and I want to do it again….
– Real player with 2.3 hrs in game
A lot better than I thought it would be!
Yeah I’ll be honest, I was looking for a trippy VR app to space out to whilst under the influence - and from the screenshots I thought “this will do”.
But actually - the sound design, the physics collisions, the way it ran.. overall it totally exceeded my expectations, had my synapses firing all over the shop with thoughts / memories and ideas.
Highly recommended - if you enjoy this would also suggest Art Plunge, Air Car, Ayahuasca, Conscious Existence and Sheaf Together
– Real player with 1.1 hrs in game
BATTLESCAR: Punk Was Invented By Girls
Got it for 56 cents as a part of a bundle. Still got disappointed.
To be fair, it is well executed in terms of visual storytelling and cinematography. Some really creative sets there!
Unfortunately, these can’t do much if the narrative and the main characters are bland and uninteresting. The abrupt and undercooked ending made the already underwhelming story - a complete waste of time for me.
Also, it is an oculus exclusive, has a good amount of gender politics at its core, and if your chapter gets interrupted, like USB disconnection (thanks AMD) you need to suffer through the whole chapter without the option to skip forward.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
As a VR artist, I really enjoyed this experience. It is quite daring in terms of the format of narrative and also mixing a kind of “book” feel into the VR aesthetic. I would recommend it for any VR artists as a source of inspiration.
The story is not the best however, a bit tacky and shallow but still enjoyable.
Disappointed that it took much longer to get on Steam than on Oculus Store and also that they only support Oculus headsets, especially since there are almost no interactions (any?), so it’s not like supporting controllers of other headsets would’ve been difficult.
– Real player with 0.9 hrs in game
Laid-Back Camp - Virtual - Lake Motosu
As the biggest fan of Yuru Camp, it’s super comfy!! The price might not be worth it for those who aren’t into the anime or into CGDCT, but it’s a great game for fans of Yuru Camp and those who want to experience something calm and comfy once in a while. The graphics are pretty nice; it might need a little more detail to the environment and further exploration of the whole Koan Campground area instead of being stuck in two places, but I guess that’s how most VR story-telling games work. The story is pretty much what you’d expect from a Yuru Camp episode, pure comfy and heartwarming cuteness that makes me love the two girls even more. I even like the small bit of NadeRin moment at the end of it~ Though I wish there was more to the gameplay and interactivity to make us feel more immersed in the campsite.
– Real player with 13.8 hrs in game
First of all, at the time of this writing the listing says “VR Only” but you can totally play it without.
I have played it with and without. VR Headset is an HP Reverb G2 and working without problems. Also take note that this is more an “experience” than is a “game”.
For the price, as much as I’d like to, is hard to justify if you don’t have VR headset.
The interactions are limited and the game could use some chilling music during downtime if you just want to stay in a scene.
The graphics are okay but it’s nothing groundbreaking. The atmosphere in the scenario greatly improves during the noon/evening and night, but it feels a bit cheap during the morning. I’m wondering if it has taken some damage on the PC release being a cross-platform title that includes android phones.
– Real player with 2.5 hrs in game