Hi I'm really intrigued by use of impossible spaces in VR! I love Tea For God, if you know of that one. I was wondering if you have any plans to bring this to PCVR, with a detection of the available play space to enable play in rooms that have wired VR but some space to walk around. Tea For God and Shattered Lights are two good examples of VR games with impossible spaces that each have different solutions for enabling play in a defined roomscale space.
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I had a discussion just yesterday when a good point in time would be to release for other platforms. Publishing to Rift is for me mostly pressing a button but I had feared a bit the additional testing process and build times. I will give it a try later this week now that there is a concrete request :-) Do you have a Rift?
I watched the play-through of shattered lights now. I did not know it before but wow that is a gorgeous looking experience! I added it to my field research list. Thanks for the tip!
My pleasure, yeah I enjoyed it :) Thanks for sharing your list. I have one other game to suggest, that I'm not sure would go on your field research list but maybe. Called Host. https://store.steampowered.com/app/828240/HOST/
From what it sounds like it's similar to the last one on your list, in that it doesn't use portals or non-euclidean geometry. It's a roomscale game on Steam that requires you to have ~3m x 2m playspace (I think you can get away with a little less). But it utilizes the space really well, with beautiful art and immersion, and uses 'sinking through the floor to a new layer' as its form of redirected walking. It's very short but very enjoyable imo.
Thanks for letting me know! I gave it a go. By the way I played on Rift S, RTX 2070 GPU, approx 2.5m x 2m playspace I think. Here's my thoughts:
Game ran smoothly. I liked the pyramid section much more than the training grounds. I think there's room for this to be differentiated more from Tea for God, but also could learn some things from it. The spaces in the training room especially felt a bit TOO impossible, ie. I was feeling the 'walking in circles' vibe a little too much. I think more dynamic objects like elevators and other things that make you feel like you're turning a corner into a new area would improve that a lot. I think what I liked more about the pyramid section, other than the general aesthetic being better, was that it felt a bit more mysterious and I think it was more often that I turned corners into something a little different from where I was just walking.
Overall it's a good start! I think if you expanded in the direction of exploration and puzzling and looked to innovate the fledgling 'impossible-space genre' in those areas, you could really come out with something interesting, and it would be differentiated from Tea for God!
Oh and I liked that you could actually fall in a couple parts where you were walking across a pathway crossing a pit that was inside your playspace to fall into. I of course had to try walking on air, and sure enough I fell, and it was a little scary and intense xD I liked it, and it made me actually nervous about falling after that. I do think though maybe you'd want some option to make for a non-intense fall, for those prone to motion sickness (but I liked the regular/intense fall, so I hope you leave that in as an option at least even if you do make a 'comfy' option!)