Tag Archive

Killing Floor Comes To The World Of VR In A New Release

Posted on June 13, 2016 by Les Major

Killing Floor Incursion

Creating experiences in VR is a difficult task, and a unique one. Seeing what is happening on a TV screen and experiencing it through a pair of goggles are two separate worlds really. As discussed during the E3 2016 PC show even something like gun recoil needs to be rethought for VR. It needs to feel powerful just the same, but not take the user out of the experience. The game itself cannot control the players head. Instead developers need to find new ways to convey the sorts of motion and also direct the players attention toward the action as it unfolds. That’s what is being thought through for Killing Floor: Incursion.

From what we learned about Killing Floor: Incursion at the conference, it seems they are taking things like this into account. It’s a different experience and something that must be handled with VR in mind. I’ve personally worked with some VR video editing myself, and it is a completely different medium to work with. Seeing developers keeping this in mind is an important thing. We are just scratching the surface of a brand new entertainment platform and so far this is looking really awesome!

Check out the content below from Killing Floor: Incursion’s trailer.

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HTC now shipping Vives within 72 hours of placing an order

Posted on June 8, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

HTC is all caught up (im looking at you Occulus) with their orders for the Vive and are now shipping them with in 48 hours of them being ordered. uploadvr.com is reporting that the HTC group has today announced that it’s stepping up shipping of the HTC Vive. Orders placed through the official Vive site will now ship within two to three business days to any of the 24 countries that the kit is available in.  Well shit, Occulus still hasn’t even gotten their headset out to most of the world and here HTC is just stepping it up, like you want an HMD you can have one in 48 hours practically anywhere in the world. Not only that but the Vive is now available to buy at select retail sites including some Microsoft Stores, GameStops, and Micro Centers. So if you want one in a many places in the US you can just drive down to the local computer store, or Game Stop and get one!

In addition to that over 100 US locations of those stores will be getting demo units in the near future, allowing the common public (like my self) who could never afford a VR HMD to go and take a look at how the other half lives! This can mean nothing but good for HTC whom have clearly come out with an early lead in the VR wars.

HTC’s vive offers whole room vr, with touch controllers, while the Occulus is still having logistic issues with shipping preventing any new orders from going. Occulus does cost less, but they also dont have the whole room VR and the touch controllers are not included. Which one do you prefer? Leave us a comment and let us know.

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Oculus Driver V1.4 Breaks Popular Cross Platform Game Solution ‘RIVIVE’

Posted on May 21, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

A new update to the Oculus Home platform, driver version 1.4, breaks the community created cross-platform enabling RIVIVE modification. RIVIVE allowed owners of the HTC Vive to play Oculus home exclusive titles like EVE: Valkyrie and  Lucky’s Tale without owning an Oculus device.

It appears, according to CrossVR’s research as posted to Reddit, that the latest Oculus Home Update adds a new DRM check that checks whether or not the users Oculus headset is connected to their online platform. While RIVIVE is able to spoof the presence of a headset locally, it does not communicate with Oculus’ servers meaning there is no current way to circumvent the new DRM present in driver 1.4.

Here is the full post from CrossVR:

New Oculus update breaks Revive from Vive

Some users like StarGateCommand have speculated that this new DRM scheme could be part of a long-term plan onthe part of Oculus to  fracture the market.

Comment from discussion New Oculus update breaks Revive.
oculusRiftCV1

Personally, I am all for open standards in VR, as the medium is so new and there are so many different competing standards I can’t help but worry that millions of people will invest in platforms that could be dead within a couple of years.  As it stands right now, this early on, Oculus is kind of the defacto “VR Company”. For non hardcore / enthusiasts users surely the name Oculus carries more weight than VIVE, Google Cardboard or OSVR. Here is hoping that in the long run VR developers can decide on a set of open standards or we could quickly see the death of a number of platforms as exclusive games become walled off behind one VR platform or another.

What are your thoughts on VR exclusivity and walled gardens when it comes to emerging technologies like Virtual Reality?

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Rise From Your Grave! Can Arcades Come Back?

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Broken Joysticks

Ahh the 80’s… Slightly before my time as I was born in ‘91, but thanks to older relatives’ hand-me-downs of computers like the Commodore 64 & ZX Spectrum, being raised on reruns of classic cartoons (and the odd horror film courtesy of aforementioned relatives), and most importantly, spending my youth at the local arcades, I feel like I can almost remember that decade.

Arcades were definitely in their peak around the 80’s and 90’s, being the best place to play the latest games with, for the time, mind-blowing graphics, and until relatively recently were the only place to really get your gaming fix.Read More

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Marble Mountain Rolls in | Review

Posted on April 11, 2016 by Erika

Marble Mountain Logo

When I first looked at Marble Mountain, it reminded me of a game that I used to play back in my Commodore 64 days: Marble Madness back around 25 years ago. For people not familiar with that game, the goal was to guide the marble to the exit. Simple, right? With small pathways to navigate and obstacles that deliberately tried to knock you off, along with a very short timer proved many a gamer wrong. Lose enough marbles and you’ve lost the game while probably in a mood to throw a controller due to how difficult the game was. While this game looks deceptively easy to start out in, the difficulty ramps up decently quickly. Thankfully, this game gives some considerations and doesn’t have a lives limit, nor a strict time limit. Billed as combining the gameplay of Marble Madness and Super Monkey Ball (both game series I’ve played before), and giving a cinematic experience of Indiana Jones, Marble Mountain does a good job of conveying those concepts.Read More

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Oculus Rift Launch. Things Begin to Look Up

Posted on April 3, 2016 by Broken Joysticks

The 28th of March was the exciting big launch date of the Oculus Rift, when the premium VR headset would ship to those who had pre-ordered it. Except… It didn’t. Oculus originally generated a lot of excitement by shipping some units early, with some Kickstarter backers of the original devkit, who were promised a free consumer version, receiving their Rifts on launch day. In spite of this promising news, only a small amount of units actually went out to a handful of customers who pre-ordered, and only US Kickstarters received their free Rift. A considerable amount of people who were promised their Rift in March, myself included, had the date pass by without any sort of update from Oculus.Read More

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GDC Preview: Manus VR

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Renee Gittins

This week at GDC, I was able to test several virtual reality peripherals that I was excited about. One of those was Manus VR’s glove set, gloved-based controls intended for virtual reality use.

Manus_productphoto

The gloves themselves are lightweight with a battery-pack on the back of the hand. It works by taking advantage of the Vive controllers tracking and using custom flex sensor within the glove. The sensors have two bend areas per finger, allowing for tracking of precise finger movements. Unlike other hand-tracking solutions, such as the Leap, there is no constraint on where your hand movement can be sensed.

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GDC Vive Review: Universe Sandbox ² VR

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Renee Gittins

Valve took over a large section of the Game Developers Conference to show off the Vive and virtual reality games coming soon for the device.

Universe Sandbox ²’s VR mode was one of the stars of the demos. Universe Sandbox ², by Giant Army, has previously impressed me with its gorgeous space simulations, but seeing and interacting with them in virtual reality brought the experience to a completely new level. Planets zipped by my head, I threw suns and moons out into the nether and the rings of Saturn swirled beautiful around me after I displaced the planet.

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Oculus Shows Their Hand: Launch Title Prices

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Renee Gittins

Oculus revealed the prices of their release titles at the Oculus Game Day event. The event was held in San Francisco, just outside of the popular Game Developers Convention, dozens of games intended for launch were being shown.

IMG_20160316_161958

There is a huge range of prices for the launch content, Adventure Time: Magic Man’s Head Games listed as $4.99 while there are several $49.99 and $59.00 titles. Below is a list of the launch games, their “comfort” rating, and their prices:

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Preview: Dead & Buried Multiplayer on Oculus Rift with Touch

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Renee Gittins

A few blocks away from the ongoing Game Developers Conference, Oculus hosted an exclusive preview event for their launch titles and other games coming to the Oculus Rift shortly after launch. One of the games being shown was Dead & Buried, a gunslinger game that makes use of the Oculus’ Touch controllers.

Dead & Buried is being developed internally by Oculus Studios and the noticeable intent of the game is to highlight the Touch controllers. While Oculus has previously showcased their single player mode of the game, at the event they set up four stations with Dead & Buried and placed four players together at a time in a 2v2 shootout. Of the dozens of games at the event, it was clearly the most popular to both play and watch, gathering a bemused crowd of developers and media. 

dead-and-buried-oculus-touch-oculus-connect

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Crytek Announces CryEngine V Alongside New Pricing Model

Posted on March 16, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

CryEngine, the engine, and tool set that power AAA franchises like Crysis, Far Cry and others had a brand new version unveiled yesterday at the Games Developer Conference in San Francisco. Titled CryEngine V this brand new iteration of the development toolkit from Crytek focuses on making game development more accessible for AAA, developers on a budget and indies alike.

How exactly does Crytek hope to make their engine available to more developers? By shifting away from an expensive paid licensing model to a more flexible “pay what you can” model. This means that developers can gain access to the CryEngine source code, toolkit and feature set without paying any royalties to the original developers.

CryEngine V also puts an emphasized focus on emerging Virtual Reality headsets. It will support the development of games for Oculus Rift, PlayStation VR, HTC VIVE and Razor’s Open Source VR Platform.

Like other leading engines CryEngine V will also support the sale of assets through an online marketplace for use in developer’s projects. This new marketplace not only gives developer’s access to thousands of community created assets but also a vast library of objects, sounds & code developed by Crytek themselves. Alongside the announcement of the new structure Crytek and Humble Bundle launched a PWYC asset bundle – so if you want to grab some resources that are engine ready, these start as low as $1!

In a press release issued by Crytek the following features were highlighted:

· C# Enabled: A new API that allows developers who know C# to start scripting in CRYENGINE V right away.
· Reworked Low Overhead Renderer: Significantly increases the performance of today’s hardware in graphically intensive applications.
· DirectX 12 support: Utilize the latest branch of DirectX to take greater control of hardware resources.
· Advanced Volumetric Cloud System: Optimized for VR to give clouds full 3D spatial rendering for higher quality with minimal performance hit.
· New particle system: Create stunning real-time fluid effects, handled almost entirely on the GPU.
· A new launcher and UI: Navigate CRYENGINE more intuitively thanks to a streamlined UI which includes realigned features and new icon groupings.
· FMOD Studio support: Allowing greater flexibility in audio middleware selection.
· CRYENGINE Answers: A dedicated channel where the CRYENGINE community can share questions and answers.

Want to see the new engine in action? CryTek released the following 2-minute trailer to show off CryEngine V.

[youtube id=”wcnrt1pX5XA”]

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Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes sells over 200,000 copies

Posted on March 15, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

Wildly popular bomb diffusal game Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, was released in October of last year. Since then it has sold over 200,000 copies on Steam. The game’s popularity has been boosted by several factors including its integration of VR. Plus its just a dam fun game. Ben Kane gave a talk yesterday at GDC (attended by our very own Rae and Renee team!) where he discussed the sucess of the game, and announced it had sold over 200,000 copies on Steam. So what made the game such a sucess?

The game was first brought to my attention when I saw it floating around on Youtube, with Reddit backing.  As for  unexpectedly wide appeal of the game, Kane attributed it’s stellar sales,  to the widespread appeal the game has, despite its niche intended audience. The game started out as a VR demo, but found widespread popularity on Steam with non-vr players. The true fun of this game, is the edge that you ride one. Playing with friends and feeling the creeping panic as your timer counts down, trying to communicate with the person who has the manual.

As for the Games core principals, Kane referred to their convention demos as the place they really figured out what they were making, “demoing was going to fundamentally shape what our game would be. the cat was out of the bag” said Kane. Since not many people had access to VR to try it at home. The game was able to find its popularity in spite of that.

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Kôna: Day One or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Canadia

Posted on March 7, 2016 by Kyle Scarboro

Intro

Let me just say that out of the gate, Kôna Day One captures the idea and view I have of Canada: Ice Age.

Heh, all joking aside, I really liked this game. I got to see a little of it at PAX Prime last year and I was intrigued with what they were going to do with it. This game is a multi-episodic game and Day One just refers to Episode One, so if you thought this was an one shot, then you would be mistaken.

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HTC Vive Pre-Orders Go Online @ $1200 Canadian

Posted on February 29, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

HTC Vive

The impressive VR system that is aware of your movements across an entire room, the HTC Vive is now available for pre-order and they ship to Canada! If you’ve got $1200 dollars laying around then you too can be one of the first to experience consumer ready Virtual Reality.

HTC VIVE Canada

In terms of hardware specs the Vive’s head mounted display contains two 1080×1200 displays each set for 90Hz – meaning your VR games should no at no less than 90 FPS for an optimal experience. Your movement in 3-D space is calculated thanks to an onboard camera and a separate “lighthouse” sensor pods that is placed within your room.

Anyone have a spare $1200 I can borrow?

Here are the official minimum specs for the HTC Vive:

HTC Vive

  • Graphics Card: GeForce GTX 970 or AMD Radeon R9 290 or better
  • CPU: Intel Core i5 4590 or AMD FX 8350 or greater
  • RAM: 4GB or more
  • Video port: HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2, or better
  • USB port: 1 USB 2.0 or faster port
  • Windows 7 SP1 or newer

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GDC 2016 Survey: VR Support Up, PS Vita Support Nowhere To Be Found

Posted on January 20, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

The upcoming Game Developer’s Conference will be held in San Francisco this coming March and ahead of the conference GDC has released their annual “State of the Industry” survey results. State of the Industry captures the pulse of the development community thanks to over 2,000 participants, the results give developers, students and the media (heh.. that’s us) a sense of what is trending in development circles.

Here are some of the interesting findings from the 2016 survey:

VR’s Popularity Among Developers Is On The Rise

Oculus-Rift-5

Development kits for the popular Oculus Rift have been available for sometime, Samsung has entered the fray with the Samsung Gear line-up of headsets and the consumer version of the Oculus will go on sale for $600 later this year. With all of that providing unprecedented levels of hype for Virtual Reality it is no surprise that 16% of respondents said that they were developing games with VR in mind.Read More

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