hey right it's Norm from tested and
welcome back to projections they're a
show about virtual reality and augmented
reality and this week I'm gonna be
talking to you about an upcoming game
that comes out in just about a week and
a half time no it's not half-life Alex
though that does come out on March 23rd
but that same week there's another game
for the oculus quests as well as other
VR platforms in fact all of them I'm
very excited for and that's the room VR
a dark matter from fireproof games it's
the latest in a series of puzzle games
our previously designed for mobile
devices iPads and tennis which there is
a PC version as well but it's the first
of the room series of puzzle games
that's made for VR headsets and I got a
chance to play some of this game two of
the levels the two first levels I
believe back at oculus connect and did
an interview with developers back there
but wasn't able to show that experience
until recently I was able to get a early
build a preview build of the room VR and
capture some footage now it is a puzzle
game it's kind of a bit of an escape
room game so I'm gonna try to present
the footage in a way that won't spoil
the puzzles you won't exactly know
what's going on but I want to get it
give you a sense of how you actually get
around the world
so you think escape room style puzzle
game and VR these are genres that go
really well hand-in-hand we've seen some
great examples of them for VR I expect
you to die is a wonderful kind of escape
room game and it's all kind of in one
place you can remember that from a snail
games you're kind of sitting at desks
you reach out or in the car the drivers
seat and grab objects and manipulate
things here in the room because of its
namesake it's actually putting you in
physical environments and these are
pretty detailed rooms the environments
are all based on turn-of-the-century
period it's very Lovecraftian there's a
lot of great atmosphere pretty creepy at
times but the rooms themselves are not
just rooms there are full-fledged
environments for
offices to the underbelly of a museum
now I want to get something out there it
is
teleport based locomotion so while I did
play this on the oculus quest I was able
to freely 360 move around there are
nodes that you basically jump to and
when I first played this preview back
late last year at OC 6 I really resisted
that teleport locomotion what I really
wanted in my head from a VR escape room
game was the ability to walk around use
free locomotion and kind of explore it
and all the detail that the developers
and level designers have put in look
under desks kind of manipulate objects
and behind doors and when I quickly
realize is while that might work for a
real-world escape room where there are
just discrete objects that you can
physically interact with in our VR space
that actually becomes really
overwhelming really fast because the
game even as it is when I'm teleporting
between these half dozen or so nodes in
a level it's pretty challenging I'm
actually really glad about the ability
to really zip between the points and
jump between them so look at the objects
in front of me look around and solve
these puzzles and focus on the puzzles
that are there as opposed to trying to
find the puzzles in the room themselves
I could see myself easily mistaking
something for being a puzzle when it's
not the puzzles themselves are
wonderfully designed again trying not to
give away any spoilers but the mix of
kind of matching objects whether it's
shapes or symbols to dexterity puzzles
we're actually manipulating them with
your touch controllers or your motion
controllers although with the
manipulation side at least in the first
two levels it's mostly single hand
manipulation you're grabbing things and
turning them or lifting them there's not
a lot of the two-handed manipulation
that I think would take better make
better use of VR hand controllers in
hand presence everything is kind of near
field so the depth is really great and
you can kind of look in and move your
head and kind of move the objects around
the animations for the puzzles boxes
themselves are really lovely they're
really intrigued
design mechanical puzzles that I think
would be almost impossible to design the
real world that worked really well in a
virtual environment now with every type
of escape room or puzzle game you're
bound risks the players getting stuck
because they might be missing a clue and
that actually happened to me a couple
times I definitely had that moment where
I spent 10 minutes just standing in
front of two or three of these locations
and just was scratching my head and it
couldn't figure out what I was missing I
felt like I had grabbed items in my
inventory and manipulated them or tried
to manipulate them with every single
object I could put that was in front of
me until there was the one thing that I
miss and there is a pretty good hint
system that you can use and access from
the menu to just drag down which you can
turn on and off it's not the type of
hint system that automatically lights up
an object or plays a voiceover when
you've been stuck for too long you have
to proactively select the hint and say
okay give me something to work on and
the way they've written the hints which
I've played after a second time through
to read what they were are actually
really really good they're little mini
puzzles within themselves so they don't
feel like they're making it too easy
some of the tools you are manipulating
or handheld objects there is this lens
that you use to kind of see into a kind
of ghost-like dream world it's green
tint in and you see objects a little
differently it's almost like shining
ultraviolet light into a room into some
some symbols that you might not see and
that part's kind of spooky there are no
jump scares that I could tell so far but
it is an isolating game it's not
multiplayer it's not that type of social
escape room experience where you're
working with someone you are just by
yourself oftentimes standing there and I
admit I looked over my shoulder a couple
times because I didn't know if something
was changing there were in the room
without me actually having activated it
and thankfully none of that actually
manifested it is what's in front of you
is there and if there is any creepy
moment it's because you activated
something in an
Meishan unfurls
I was only able to play again the first
two levels and apparently the later
levels gets deeper there are more
puzzles it gets hard of course and it
made me want to continue on for sure and
it also made me realize of wanting this
game to have complete free locomotion I
think it's gonna play great with
teleporting to those nodes and I think
the best way to play is probably on
something that will let you do a full
360 turnaround so you're not feeling
constantly tethered I did play on the
quest it was wonderful
there and actually made me want to go
back to previous versions of the room
and play some of the other puzzle games
in that series the wave and told is that
some of the lessons and some of the
iterative puzzle design elements that
you see in those past games may actually
build on into this game as well it's
called the room VR a dark matter I'm
really looking forward to coming out
it's on oculus it's on Steam it's on
psvr
as well you'll need the motion
controllers and it's out on March 26 and
we back next time with more coverage of
yes that game that you're anticipating
on March 23rd half-life Alex and it will
be back then and see that thanks for
watching
you
