No plans to go out tonight? Consider ringing in the New Year from the comfort of your cozy home by joining the virtual celebrations in High Fidelity, VRChat, or AltspaceVR where they’re celebrating New Year’s Eve in VR around the world.
High Fidelity, VRChat, and AltspaceVR are among the most active social VR spaces, and all three platforms are holding open New Year’s Eve celebrations across timezones to celebrate the start of 2019.
High Fidelity
High Fidelity is celebrating New Year’s Eve with a ball drop in every timezone. The fun goes down in ‘TheSpot’ a virtual venue that’s been dressed for the occasion. Best to refresh your memory on the lyrics of Auld Lang Syne as “spirited singing” is promised.
How to join: Find your way to TheSpot in High Fidelity, which you can navigate to directly with this link, provided you have High Fidelity installed.
VRChat
The VRChat community has given the VR Times Square venue a complete makeover for the celebrations. The ball will drop at midnight in every timezone and you can expect plenty of dancing and probably some anime inspired avatars. Additionally the DDVR community is hosting dance party celebrations in various virtual clubs with live DJs to set the mood of the New Year. The full schedule of DDVR New Year’s Eve club parties can be found here.
How to join: Open the Quick Menu and navigate to ‘Worlds’. Search by ‘Active Worlds’ to find VR Times Square. To join the DDVR club parties, send a friend request to the host listed for the event in the full schedule and then join the host.
AltspaceVR
AltspaceVR is planning to ring in the New Year by livestreaming various real world New Year’s Eve countdowns into the virtual venue, with a final livestream celebration from New York’s Times Square at 12AM ET / 9PM PT.
The studio used the interface for their two most recent titles, Floor Plan & Along Together. But TButt has also been used by other studios, most notably by Tender Claws for their hit Virtual Virtual Reality.
Turbo Button additionally stated that the interface already supports Oculus Quest, and that several in development Quest titles are already using it.
The issue TButt aims to solve is the fragmentation that exists between VR platforms SDKs of today. Without an interface like this developers have to rewrite code to achieve the same result on different VR platforms. TButt abstracts input, performance settings, tracking data, and more.
Input (handling controllers) is a core focus of the interface. Input is the most significant difference between VR platforms today. TButt handles everything from basic 3DoF laser pointers to dual 6DoF controllers. A useful feature is that it allows for emulating a 3DoF controller in the Unity editor for more rapid development than pushing a full build to a standalone headset.
TButt supports the Oculus, SteamVR, Windows MR and DayDream platforms. Crucially, it also complies with the publishing requirements of the default stores for each platform, meaning it can be used to ship real games.
TButt is free and open source, leveraging the popular MIT Licence. This lets any developer use and modify it even for commercial projects. It’s encouraging to see the spirit of co-operation in the VR development community- hopefully it lives on as VR enters the mainstream market in coming years.
Exploring the massive supernova remnant of a 400-year-old star has never been easier.
A team of researchers lead by Kimberly Kowal Arcand of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) and the Center for Computation and Visualization at Brown University have begun development of a one-of-a-kind VR experience that utilizes data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory mission, infrared data provided by the Spitzer Space Telescope, and optical data from various other telescopes to render a VR simulation of the youngest known supernova remnant in the Milky Way Galaxy, referred to as Cassiopeia A.
Roughly 15 to 20 times the total mass of the sun, the 400-year-old dead star was first rendered into 3-D by NASA using optical and X-ray data. It was based off these initial renderings that Arcand and her team were able to build an immersive VR experience; built using multiple visualization platforms, including MinVR and VTK.
“Our universe is dynamic and 3-D, but we don’t get that when we are constantly looking at things” in two dimensions, spoke Arcand.
“Astronomers have long studied supernova remnants to better understand exactly how stars produce and disseminate many of the elements observed on Earth and in the cosmos at large.”
The colorful interactive experience allows users to explore the various portions of the cosmic graveyard.
“The first time I ever walked inside the same data set that I have been staring at for 20 years, I just immediately was fascinated by things I had never noticed, like how various bits of the iron were in different locations,” Arcand continues. “The ability to look at something in three dimensions and being immersed in it just kind of opened up my eyes to think about it in different ways.”
“Who doesn’t want to walk inside a dead star?”
The Cassiopeia A simulation is available in multiple forms of VR experiences, from a “VR cave” featuring 3D visuals projected onto the floor and walls, to a more conventional Oculus Rift VR experience. Arcand and her team have also developed a mobile VR rendition for Google Cardboard and other smartphone-based VR solutions.
In the future, the team hopes to add additional functionality for visually-impaired users, such as various sound cues.
Community Download is a weekly discussion-focused articles series published every Monday in which we pose a single, core question to you all, our readers, in the spirit of fostering discussion and debate.
Today is the final day of 2018 which means it’s time for reflection. As we look back on the year and celebrate some of the best games and experiences it brought to our headsets, it’s time to look forward to the future as well.
By all accounts, 2019 is shaping up to be an important year for immersive technology industries. Facebook is betting big on standalone VR following the success of the Oculus Go with its fully 6DOF Oculus Quest headset and two controller combo to offer “Rift quality experiences” at the all-in-one cost of just $399. We tried it at OC5 and were all blown away by the tracking quality and visual clarity of games like Tennis Scramble and Superhot VR.
Oculus Quest on display at Oculus Connect 5 | Photo Credit: David Jagneaux, UploadVR
This is also going to be an important year for the PSVR as Sony starts to shift focus to the PlayStation 5 and (presumably) the next iteration of their VR platform. With no presence at E3 this year it’s going to be a very different show and other than a handful of titles like Megalith and Blood & Truth there isn’t much on the horizon for next year after Sony absolutely demolished the competition with a slew of amazing exclusives this year.
For HTC we’re mostly just waiting to see what happens next. The Vive Pro and Vive Focus both came out this year, as well as the Vive Wireless Adapter, but the software side is still lacking. Without any real exclusives to speak of and the vast majority of the Vive ecosystem living mostly on Valve’s Steam could be problematic for HTC in the long-term.
Then you’ve got the scrappy Windows VR platform, the constantly evolving mobile VR landscape between Google Daydream and now the Oculus Go, new contenders like Shadow VR and Pimax, and so much more. There’s a lot going on in our industry right now — and that doesn’t even start to consider AR platforms like HoloLens or Magic Leap.
So, with so many questions and moving parts still: What are your predictions for the VR/AR market in 2019? Who will rise to the top and who will fall? Do you think the Oculus Quest can sell a million (or two million) headsets in a single year?
Let us know your thoughts down in the comments below!
Did you know we stream games over on Twitch? We’re getting into a rhythm that will allow us to stream VR games each and every weekday (except in the case of holidays or traveling for events of course) and we’re having a lot of fun doing it. We’ve moved all of our VR game streams to Twitch and want you to help us build a community.
Every week we will post a new Livestream Schedule like this. You can click here to see all past livestream archives and scheduled streams. This way everyone can anticipate what’s coming for the week and know when to tune in. If you have suggestions for games you want to see us stream next, leave those ideas down in the comments below!
We’ll embed archived versions of each stream after they’re done and if we’re live right now when you’re reading this then you can watch right here.
Tuesday, January 1st 2018 @ 1:00 PM PT
Vengeful Rites on Rift
Vengeful Rites is a VR RPG that’s been on our radar for a long time and we’re finally going to check it out. With an intuitive combat system and lots of freedom to explore, it’s like a spiritual successor to Vanishing Realms from a new developer.
Wednesday, January 2nd 2018 @ 11:30 AM PT
Electronauts on Rift
We’re back behind the DJ booth in Electronauts on Wednesday spinning up some funky beats and catchy tunes. Survios released three different VR games and experiences this year and as the middle-child of their release schedule, we don’t want Electronauts to be forgotten.
Thursday, January 3rd 2018 @ 1:00 PM PT
From Other Suns Co-Op on Rift
From Other Suns is still one of our favorite Rift games and is an excellent shooter to play with friends in co-op due to the procedural generation and replayable premise. We’re diving back in for some co-op fun on this one today.
Friday, January 4th 2018 @ 1:00 PM PT
Beat Saber Custom Songs on Rift
We’re topping off the week with Beat Saber, the viral sensation that’s still just as fun to play now as the first time. This will be our last stream of the week and the last one for a little while because CES is the following week. We’ll focus on doing custom songs and letting viewers decide which songs we play.
Musician and comedian Reggie Watts is no stranger to AltspaceVR, Microsoft’s social VR platform. This weekend you can enter to win a chance to get on the stage and improv with the man himself.
Watts (The Late Late Show) will be climbing the virtual stage on January 18th, 2019 to present another live concert, showcasing his comedy, live music, and improv skills.
If you’re keen on meeting Watts and getting a chance to improv with the comedy/music virtuoso himself, AltspaceVR will be holding a preliminary ‘Improv Night Battle’ with organizers We Are ImproVR.
Improv Night Battle will be taking place Saturday, January 5th, 2019 from 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM PST (local starting time here). You can RSVP here; make sure to read the description below:
Now is your chance to win the opportunity to improv live with Reggie Watts!
In order to compete, you MUST arrive at the start of the event and check-in. All competitors will be put through a series of improvisational challenges to ultimately determine who is the wittiest of them all!
No comedic experience or skill is required, so come up on stage and be the biggest, funniest doofus you possibly can be.
Can’t improv but want to spectate on the action? Come join us for laughs, weird stories, madness and most importantly, have fun!
Watts will be on stage January 18th at 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM PST (local start time here). If it’s going to be anything like his previous shows, event-goers will be treated to an awesome showcase of Watts’ famous steam-of-thought comedy/music translated through a full-body tracking setup.
Multiple rooms will also likely be hosted, so a hypothetically infinite number of users can watch Watts in action. Check out the event page here.
Jason Rubin joined Oculus in 2014 and has been a key figure in guiding the company’s content investments and strategy. Following the recent Oculus shakeup and deeper absorption into Facebook, Rubin is now overseeing AR and VR content & partnerships at Facebook.
While Oculus had been running largely independently from Facebook after the 2014 acquisition, the years following would see the VR startup slowly pulled deeper into the mothership as several key Oculus figures departed and made way for greater Facebook oversight.
The most recent—the departure of Oculus co-founder and former CEO Brendan Iribe—came amidst reports of a major restructuring of the Oculus unit, purportedly more deeply integrating it into Facebook in an attempt to create a more cohesive immersive technology strategy currently divided among mobile VR, PC VR, and augmented reality.
In that restructuring, Jason Rubin has been officially pulled under the Facebook banner and his purview has expanded from VP of VR content to VP of AR/VR Content & Partnerships.
Rubin’s new role began at least as early as November. A Facebook spokesperson confirmed the role change to Road to VR.
“Jason continues to lead our teams that deliver amazing content to VR. There were some internal changes but nothing that impacts how we work with our various developer and creator communities.”
SEE ALSO
On the Hunt for VR’s Killer App with Oculus' Head of Content, Jason Rubin
Rubin brought significant games industry experience to Oculus when he joined in 2014. A co-founder of game studio Naughty Dog and director of noted titles like Crash Bandicoot (1996) and Jak and Daxter (2001), Rubin joined Oculus as the President of Oculus Studios following a brief stint as President of THQ. He was eventually promoted to Head of Content and then to VP of Content before his most recent role change. Rubin has been a key spokesperson and a tempered voice for Oculus throughout his time at the company; he is also seen as one of the last visible pillars of the ‘old’ Oculus.
Rubin’s LinkedIn profile indicates that the role adjustment comes via the “newly combined AR/VR Partnerships and Content teams,” and that his responsibilities in addition to VR are expanding to “Augmented Reality, Portal, and other future technologies developed across Facebook.”
Portal is Facebook’s recently launched videophone; Rubin’s hand in that part of Facebook’s business supports reports of significant restructuring of Oculus within Facebook. Increasingly, Oculus feels more like a brand and less like its own company, though this is quite by design considering the ‘Oculus by Facebook’ branding that began appearing in 2016.
Celebrate New Years Eve with the Loud House crew using Nick’s Screens Up AR companion app.
Getting ready to rock into the new year? Get your dance shoes on, pack your crazy confetti party poppers and call over Luan, Leni, Lori, Lincoln, Clyde, Luna, Lynn, Lucy, Lisa, Lola, Lily, Lana and any of your siblings or closest friends for an extra special “New Year’s Eve Loud House Party” — Nickelodeon is bringing its signature Screens Up AR app to its hit show The Loud House for a New Year’s Eve interactive augmented reality (AR) marathon packed with fan-favorite episodes.
Nickelodeon is one of the first kids and family entertainment companies to create interactive TV through gamification and AR. The first Screens Up interactive AR experience launched in July for Kids’ Choice Sports Awards, followed by another in October for the Henry Danger, Stranger Things-themed Halloween event. Now Nickelodeon is rockin’ into the New Year with the New Year’s Eve Loud House Party interactive marathon.
Rather than plopping on the couch and zoning out to a traditional TV viewing experience, kids can get interactive through the Screens Up App allowing them to unlock and collect AR versions of their favorite Loud House characters and bring them to life straight from their living rooms.
The marathon features main character Lincoln Loud enlisting the aid of the viewers for an important mission: help “collect” his family and best friend – represented in the form of AR “stickers” – to make his party the best ever; all culminating in a massive New Year’s Eve celebratory dance.
Viewers will be on the lookout for each of Lincoln’s 10 sisters, as well as his best friend Clyde, who will be popp up in graphic overlays throughout the on-air marathon. When they spot one, they can “capture” it by pointing their phone’s camera at their television screen. Doing so unlocks special animated AR stickers that can be placed anywhere in their world. When all the characters are collected, users unlock a bonus sticker of the entire Loud crowd doing a special New Year’s Eve dance right in their living room!
Viewers can use the Nickelodeon Screens Up app to collect the stickers and unlock the bonus elements, as well as participate in Loud House live votes, meme makers, trivia and polls with real-time results tallied on-air.
It’s an action-packed party merging the wonderment of kids favorite Loud House characters and gamifying the experience in ways that are true to how kids play and interact with the world.
Kids and parents can download Nickelodeon’s free-to-play Screens Up app from the App Store and Google Play. Kids not using mobile devices can access the live votes, polls, trivia, and other interactive elements during the marathon at www.loudhouseplay.com.
Gather your 10 sisters and closest friends, launch the Screens Up app and get the party started Monday, December 31 from 5-9 p.m. ET/PT.
The 14-room facility features vibrating floors, haptic peripherals, and artificial wind.
Location-based VR made serious headway in Malaysia this month as immersive entertainment specialists VAR Live launched what is now the largest VR-based theme park in the entire country.
Located inside the MyTOWN Shopping Centre in Kuala Lumpur, VAR Live Malaysia offers 13 of their in-house VR experiences spread across 14 different rooms, some of which featuring various haptic feedback technology; from shaking floors and custom peripherals, to enormous fans and other 4D elements.
The current layout features HTC Vive and Window Mixed Reality headsets tethered to ceiling-mounted PC’s; although VAR Live has already indicated plans to upgrade to 5GHz WiFi in the near future, along with support for multiplayer experiences and VR backpacks. This would no doubt take advantage of VAR Live’s infrared positioning technique, allowing friends to move freely throughout various co-op experiences.
Some of these titles include Zombie Jail, a bone-chilling multiplayer horror experience featuring haptic gun peripherals and a shaking floor; City Hero, an action-packed cooperative shooter where players are tasked with saving the city from a robot turning its citizens into flesh-hungry zombies; and Treasure Hunter, a VR-puzzler featuring real-world interactive items and plenty of immersive treasure hunting.
VAR Live will reportedly keep its catalogue of immersive experiences on regular cycle, offering 3 to 4 new experiences with new hardware options every year.
Along with support for potential VR-based esports, the company is also looking to open its services to local companies and government sectors for training purposes.
“If the police need to train what to do if five people attack one person at the same time, it can be done in the interactive computer-generated experience taking place within a simulated environment,” said VAR LIVE Global Limited chief executive officer Steve Ngu.
VAR Live Malaysia is open to the public now at L2-015 of the MyTOWN Shopping Centre. VAR Live features several other locations throughout Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, China, and Pakistan, with plans for expansion throughout other cities in Malaysia, including Kota Kinabalu and Johor.
Steam is chocked full of free games that support HTC Vive, but it may be difficult with all that choice to know exactly which games to start out with, especially if all that holiday shopping blew you wallet to smithereens.
Also, don’t forget that as an HTC Vive owner, you can pop into Oculus exclusives, designed for the Oculus Rift, using the Revive software hack. Check out the bit near the bottom for the skinny on games worth a nod or two.
5 – Waltz of The Wizard
Synopsis: What’s Waltz of the Wizard doing on the list if it’s not a game? Well, it is and it isn’t. Not only an awesome showcase for VR object interaction, Waltz of the Wizard also has its own story to tell, albeit a short and sweet one. You mix potions, levitate objects and discover a world that is just begging for a more expansive game. It’s certainly worth a look, as the level of polish is pretty much through the roof.
Studio description: Waltz of the Wizard is a virtual reality experience that lets you feel what it’s like to have magical powers. Combine arcane ingredients into a boiling cauldron with the help of an ancient spirit trapped in a human skull. Unleash creative or destructive wizardry upon a fully interactive virtual world.
Synopsis: You don’t really play Accounting so much as Accounting plays you. Created by Justin Roiland (of Rick and Morty) and Crows Crows Crows, Accounting is a fever dream of comedy, imagination, and a healthy dose of WTF. It’s also a great appetizer to the much more expansive paid app Accounting+ (2018).
Studio description: The modern field of Accountancy is a serious and honorable profession. Many human beings have spent their lives toiling over the hard science of numbers. Thousands have died so that we may get to the level of understanding that we have today. Thousands have died.
Synopsis: Steam doesn’t allow real cash gambling, but that hasn’t stopped the world-wide online poker site PokerStars from developing their own free-play VR poker casinos spanning locations such as Macau, a Monte-Carlo yacht, and a wild west saloon. So while you can’t play Texas Hold’em with this month’s rent, you’ll be able to polish your live poker game, replete with the ability to stack your chips and handle cards just like in Vegas. Just make sure to hide those tells.
Store description: Step into the future with this game-changing release from the biggest name in the business. Visually stunning environments; realistic chip and card movements; an endless supply of interactive toys, props and accessories; and the world’s best poker software powering multiplayer Texas Hold’em action.
Synopsis: When Valve published The Lab on Steam back in 2016, it was basically the highest quality VR game/experience there was by default. Now two years running, it still holds up as a shinning achievement of what Valve is capable of when they release a game. Yes, we’re still waiting on their promised ‘three full VR games‘, but until then, we’ll just play Longbow.
Studio description: Welcome to The Lab, a compilation of Valve’s room-scale VR experiments set in a pocket universe within Aperture Science. Fix a robot, defend a castle, adopt a mechanical dog, and more. Still not sold? It’s free!
Synopsis: Rec Room isn’t really a bespoke game, but rather a social VR app that contains a number of engaging and fun games within it. You’ll get swept up in the multiplayer adventures, casual sports, and the newest addition Rec Royale, a battle royale-style team shooter. Against Gravity are always updating too, so there’s typically always a fresh co-op Quest to conquer.
Store description: Rec Room is the best place to hang out with friends from all around the world! Play intense multiplayer games like Paintball, Laser Tag, Quest, and Rec Royale, or just chill with friends in the park. There are thousands of player-created game and event rooms for you to discover, with new ones added daily. You can even build your own rooms with your friends. Rec Room is cross platform and free, so come and join the fun!
If you’re looking for a portal to more free, awesome quality games, look no further than Revive, the tool that lets you play Oculus Store exclusives. Check out our top games to play with Revive below:
Echo VR
Store description: In Echo Combat, you will play as a futuristic battle-ready robot armed with an array of weapons and abilities as your team of three competes against the opposition in high-speed objective-based zero-gravity mayhem! Echo Arena now supports parties of 15 players and 5v5 private matches, with 5 more slots available for spectators! In the Arena, your team will face off against the competition in a zero-gravity clash of robotic glory as you glide, boost, and punch your way to scoring goals in a breathtaking virtual arena.
Store description: Lucky’s Tale is a delightful platforming adventure game designed exclusively for the Oculus Rift. Join Lucky as he runs, jumps, climbs and spins his way through a bright, colorful world filled with thrilling challenges, wacky creatures, and all the shiny things a little fox could ever want!
Synopsis: Play head-to-head online or in Conquest story mode from your Oculus Rift, Gear VR, or Facebook Gameroom account on desktop. This immersive collectible card-battler mixes high fantasy with World War II on a 4×4 grid battlefield that is alive with rampaging giants, intimidating war-machines, and soaring projectiles.
FlixBus, the low-cost tech-forward bus service out of Europe that launched in U.S. this year, has added a VR experience to some long-distance routes to and from Las Vegas.
For now, the FlixBus VR feature, which includes about 50 virtual reality games and travel experiences, is limited to routes from Tucson, Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego. And it will run for three months.
Travelers who reserve a panoramic seat on these routes will get the VR experience for free. Once on board, passengers will receive VR headset loaded with content.
The Pico Goblin 2 headsets are from Pico Interactive. Inflight VR provides the content and software updates of the VR platform. Inflight VR has experience with offering a platform to people who are traveling. The company already provides the platform for airlines and airport lounges.
If the VR feature is received well — meaning people use it, enjoy it, and don’t have ill effects like vertigo — it could stick around longer. A company spokesperson told TechCrunch that the VR experience was tested on bus routes in Spain and France and received positive feedback from customers. Flixbus also picked routes that tend to be straight and without a lot of winding roads to reduce the risk of a bad experience with the VR feature.
This VR experiment matches the company’s tech-forward and youthful approach to bus travel.
FlixBus competes with traditional bus company Greyhound with fares between U.S. cities as low as $4.99. However, it has a different business model that is more comparable to ride-hailing company Uber. FlixBus, which now operates in 28 countries, manages the ticketing, customer service, network planning, marketing and sale of its product. The driving is left to local partners, which get to keep a percentage of the ticket receipts.
These local bus partners manage the daily operations of the brightly painted FlixBuses, which are outfitted with free Wi-Fi, power outlets at every seat and complimentary onboard entertainment portal. The company launched in the U.S. in May, starting with routes across California, Arizona and Nevada.
Feelreal's newest VR mask includes a feature that gives VR headset users the ability to experience certain scents while viewing videos or playing games in virtual reality. The company's crowdfunding campaign is expected to launch soon.
Researchers at the University of Cambridge developed a virtual reality app which vizualizes cancerous tumours. The project was part of the Cancer Research UK Cambridge Institute (CRUK) Grand Challenge Awards.
The tumour to be analyzed is cut into wafer thin slices which are stained with markers. These slices are digitally scanned and the system constructs a 3D representation of the tumour from these scans. The model can be magnified and rotated in a virtual lab.
Graphic from Cancer Research UK
The software features networking allowing researchers to view the tumour together, even remotely over the internet. Each user is represented with a basic 3D avatar and can communicate with their voice. This kind of direct remote collaboration was much more difficult with existing technologies.
In the past researchers relied on 2D scans or basic 3D models on a monitor. Neither provides the easy level of understanding of depth that VR does. Seeing tumours in this way may allow researchers to more easily identify patterns in how they spread throughout tissue.
Starlight is a well-known charity organization with the mission to create “moments of joy and comfort for hospitalized kids and their families” through a variety of initiatives. Initiatives include issuing gowns that let kids dress up as whatever they want to feel powerful, fun centers with things like video games, and Starlight Sites to transform hospitals into fun play zones. The most recent program, Starlight Xperience, is all about bringing the magic of virtual reality to the hospital.
In partnership with Google and Lenovo, Starlight delivers a Starlight Xperience kit to participating hospitals. The VR headset is a custom Lenovo Mirage Solo headset pre-loaded with over 20 VR experiences and customized for hospital use. The kit also includes headset-mounted headphones, charging cables, and a branded carrying case. Inside the headset the software has all been modified as well so instead of being in the Daydream UI. Instead you’re actually inside of a Starlight-branded portal with strict access to only the pre-approved age-appropriate content.
The Starlight Xperience
Starlight is a 35-year old charity with a mission to make the hospital experience for seriously ill kids and family as positive, fun, and comfortable as possible,” said Chris Helfrich, CEO of Starlight in an interview with UploadVR. “We see children getting immersed in VR during painful medical procedures and the immersive distraction therapy lessens the need for heavy painkillers and anesthesia. VR can even take the place of pain killers in some cases.”
Distraction therapy is a well-studied and well-documented form of therapy. The tricky thing is finding the right balance of stimuli. If something is purely passive, such as watching a video, it may not be enough. But if it’s too intensive and challenging, children give up or get frustrated, which exacerbates pain during a procedure.
The Magic of VR
“Our partners at Stanford developed very basic games that let administrators click a button to make it more challenging on the fly,” says Helfrich. “That lets them administer more of a cognitive load, forcing them to focus extra hard when the need is higher, so they’re fully distracted during the most painful points.”
“Whether they want to go snorkeling in the ocean or on a trip to the top of Mt. Everest, we accommodate as many interests as possible,” says Helfrich.
The types of experiences on offer vary as well, but they’ve partnered with Disney for some apps, such as the Droid Repair Bay, to deliver familiar characters in an interactive space.
“Just because you’re in the hospital doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to experience the wonder and magic of child life,” says Helfrich.
There are a lot of VR shooters, especially on Steam for PC headsets. Between Onward, Pavlov, Stand Out, Zero Killed, War Dust, Zero Caliber, and countless others there are more than just a couple of ways to get your FPS thrills with a Rift, Vive, or Windows VR headset. One of the latest new ones to hit the market just two weeks ago, Contractors, is certainly one to keep on your radar. It’s focused on fast-paced gameplay, sharp visuals, and lots of action to keep players coming back for more.
We’ll be playing Contractors on Rift using a two Touch controllers. We’re starting right around 1:00 PM PT and we’ll aim to last for about an hour and a half or more. We’ll be livestreaming to the UploadVRTwitch page where you can interact with us directly and chat among yourselves. Streaming is something we’re going to double down on doing more often very soon so you should get in on the ground floor of our Twitch community early! You can see the full stream once it’s live right here:
You can see our most recent past archived streams over on the UploadVR Twitch archive right here. There’s lots of good stuff there! And don’t forget to check out our coverage of other VR shooters like Firewall Zero Hour on PSVR, the Battlefield-like War Dust on PC, or the original realism-focused team-based VR FPS, Onward.
Let us know which games or discussions you want us to livestream next and don’t forget to follow the Twitch channel and sign up for notifications.
Editor’s Note: With so many new people getting VR headsets this holiday season we thought it would be valuable to republish this listicle from 2017 focused on ways to overcome VR motion sickness. If you’re experiencing severe effects the best thing you can do is take off the headset and stop right away, but there are some other steps to take that might help you grow more accustomed to the immersive realm more quickly.
Motion sickness: it’s far from the flashiest aspect of VR, but it’s a real problem for some people when they put on a headset and enter a virtual world. VR motion sickness happens when your eyes tell your brain you’re moving around in a VR environment, but your body feels like it’s sitting in a chair or standing still. If you’re prone to the problem, these conflicting inputs cause you to feel miserable. Specifically, you might experience sensations like nausea, dizziness, headaches, sweating, excessive salivating, or all of the above. Even worse, these symptoms can continue for hours after you take off the headset and compound together.
Even if you’ve experienced VR motion sickness first-hand, don’t give up hope just yet. It’s possible to mitigate and even overcome VR-induced motion sickness altogether. We’ve already gone over a few tips that developers can use to limit reactions here, so we’ve included some advice specifically for consumers below. Next time you’re having issues, give some of these a try.
Baby Steps
Let’s say you’ve had a bad experience playing a VR game. You tried it, and the moment you started moving around in the virtual world, your stomach lurched and your head started to spin. You might not be inclined to venture back into VR, but if you give up now, you’ll be depriving yourself of some truly amazing experiences. It’s actually possible to overcome VR motion sickness without using any crazy tricks at all. You can do it simply by taking it slow.
If a game makes you feel queasy, start out by limiting your play sessions to just a few minutes at a time. When you start feeling uncomfortable, shut your eyes, breathe deeply, and take a short break before trying again. If you gradually increase the time you spend in those games, there’s a good chance you’ll overcome the discomfort in just a few days’ time. Before long, you’ll be cruising around imaginary worlds like a pro. For many people, getting their “VR legs” just takes patience and practice.
Have Someone Tell You You’ll Be Okay
This one sounds bizarre, but at least one study suggests it’s rooted in scientific fact. According to the report, you may be able to overcome VR motion sickness simply by having someone tell you you’re going to be fine. The study focused on naval cadets who, prior to boarding their assigned vessel, were told they were unlikely to suffer from seasickness, regardless of whether it was true.
As a result, the cadets who’d been given this “verbal placebo” got seasick at a lower rate than cadets who hadn’t. Assuming the findings are accurate, this method could help anyone who’s anxious about VR motion sickness before trying. Now you just have to get over your anxiety about asking someone for such a strange favor.
Eat Ginger Beforehand
That thin, slippery garnish that comes with your sushi isn’t just for cleansing your palate. According to some studies, it’s also good for kneecapping nausea before it starts. If you eat ginger — or take a ginger supplement — an hour or two before putting on a VR headset, you may lower your chances of losing your lunch. Whether it works for you or not, it’s as good an excuse as any to make some quick additions or alterations to your diet.
Aim a Fan at Yourself
Another potential VR motion sickness cure that might sound strange is to have a fan blowing your direction while you play. It’s not clear why a cool breeze on your skin makes you less likely to hurl, but many nausea-prone forum goers have reported that it does indeed stop the discomfort before it starts. If you have a fan handy and you’ve struggled in a VR game, why not give it a shot? At the very least maybe it will help stop you from sweating inside the headset so much.
Take Dramamine
If you’ve ever felt seasick on a boat or gotten dizzy from reading in a car, there’s a good chance someone recommended you take Dramamine. Dramamine is an antiemetic medicine you can use to curb any symptoms you might get from motion sickness — which includes the VR-induced variety.
Dramamine comes in a number of forms, from standard pills to chewable tablets, and under a number of brand names. There’s even one that’s designed to provide 24 hours of nausea protection, which would be a good fit for anyone who likes to marathon their way through games.
Wear a Wristband
If you’re looking for a potential solution that doesn’t involve taking medication, Sea-Bands might be the right choice. Sea-Bands (and other similar products) are wristbands that put acupuncture pressure on what’s known as the Nei-Kuan point in your wrist. The result, for many people, is a reduced susceptibility to motion sickness. Like some other potential solutions on this list, Sea-Bands are primarily marketed toward travelers, but VR users have reported that they work in virtual worlds as well. You can buy Sea-Bands and other similar products online or at most drug stores.
Marijuana
If you live in an area where marijuana is legal and you’re old enough to use it, you may find the solution to VR motion sickness in medicinal weed. After all, one of the primary applications of medical marijuana is to curb nausea. It’s not for everyone, but if it works, it works.
Now the bad news: it’s possible none of these potential solutions will help you feel better in motion-heavy VR experiences. If none of them work for you, your best option is simply to avoid playing games that bring motion sickness on. Racing games, flying games, and games that let you move freely to explore virtual worlds are good ones to avoid if you’re susceptible to VR motion sickness.
On the plus side, that leaves plenty of VR experiences as fair game. If you simply focus only on games and apps where your viewpoint remains locked in place, or only lets you move through actual roomscale movement or teleportation, you’ll probably fare just fine.
Verizon is the latest company to use VR to guide employees through dangerous scenarios.
Imagine that you are an employee at a retail store getting ready for the start of the day. Then, just as you unlock the front doors, a group of strangers come barging in with guns pointed directly at you, yelling out fast instructions as a way to intimidate you and cause confusion; all with the intent of robbing the store.
How do you think you’d react in this particular situation?
Traditional on-the-job training covers this scenario, usually with a manager going over each step while you and other employees sit in a classroom with a handout that includes pictures and text to help you better visualize the situation.
With 1,600 stores throughout the United States filled with the hottest smartphone tech, Verizon knows their commercial locations are viable targets for those looking for a quick buck. One wrong move could end with someone getting seriously hurt or even killed, whether it be a store employee or customer. To give their employees the knowledge needed for better decision during potentially violent altercations, Verizon has turned to VR training specialists STRIVR Labs to help train their team members via a virtual reality experience in which the user finds themselves being robbed at gunpoint.
According to the Immersive Realities report published by the Masie Center, there are huge advantages in VR training. Employees are able to be placed into incredibly dangerous situations without the risk of physical consequences. “They can do things that aren’t possible in a real-world environment, all while enabling a physical and emotional response with risk and empathy playing a large role in the overall experience.”
During Verizon’s VR training simulation, a pair of gunman enter the store just as you begin to open. One employee is taken hostage, while you are facing the other gunman as he shouts instructions. You need to make decisions that are smart, that won’t put you or anyone else into danger; all without hesitation. As the VR experience plays out, you are given a selection of options for you to choose as your next step, but it’s done in a way that you are never taken out of the experience.
You are always on the store room floor with the gunmen, and your brain doesn’t see it as a game – so your emotions and your decisions are real – you’re in the moment.
In an interview with CBS News, Derek Belch, founder of STRIVR said, “Virtual reality takes your brain elsewhere. I’m standing here in a classroom and my brain thinks I’m on a factory floor, an airplane tarmac, or a Verizon store.”
Chief Security Officer for Verizon, Michael Mason saw the value in VR training and how employees can face extremely dangerous situations without real-world consequences.
STRIVR’s Verizon training program has three different scenarios.
Armed Robbery at store opening.
Armed Robbery at closing.
Smash and Grab during store hours.
Each VR scenario is designed to be emotional, traumatic, raw, and hopefully an awaking of what more you can do if you find yourself in this situation.
For Mason, the goal isn’t about protecting the store inventory, it’s about protecting Verizon employees and making sure they have the necessary training to be safe. “It’s a reality we can’t ignore,” said Mason.
Previously, STRIVR revolutionized how athletes trained by exposing them to various VR training simulations; working with football quarterbacks, NHL hockey players, and even the U.S. Olympic Ski team. From there, the company saw the potential of taking VR training and using it for employees. The company was recently in the news after the announced that they would be training every Walmart employee in customer interaction and store operation through the Oculus Go standalone headset; a program that put VR training into the hands of over 1 million Walmart employees across nearly 5,000 Walmart store locations.
There are plenty of great games out there for Oculus Rift, with the Oculus Store and Steam featuring a number of top titles certainly worth your hard-earned money. But before you crack that wallet too wide open, you may want to take a look at some seriously cool free content out there right this second.
High production value, engaging VR mechanics, native Touch support: the games below have it all. Without further ado, here are our best five free VR games for Rift.
Note: We didn’t include tools or experiences below, only games!
5 – PokerStars VR
Synopsis: Platforms like the Oculus Store and Steam don’t allow real cash gambling, but that hasn’t stopped the world-wide online poker site PokerStars from developing their own free-play VR poker casinos spanning locations such as Macau, a Monte-Carlo yacht, and a wild west saloon. So while you can’t play Texas Hold’em with this month’s rent, you’ll be able to polish your live poker game, replete with the ability to stack your chips and handle cards just like in Vegas. Just make sure to hide those tells.
Store description: Step into the future with this game-changing release from the biggest name in the business. Visually stunning environments; realistic chip and card movements; an endless supply of interactive toys, props and accessories; and the world’s best poker software powering multiplayer Texas Hold’em action.
Synopsis: The Lab is an oldie, but it’s very much a goodie. If you’re looking to jump into free VR games, you definitely shouldn’t miss out on Valve’s first VR title. It’s really supposed to be more of a glorified tech demo than a proper game as such, but there’s something about the simple, but insanely polished mini-games Valve whipped up that has us coming back even two years after it was released.
Store description: Welcome to The Lab, a compilation of Valve’s room-scale VR experiments set in a pocket universe within Aperture Science. Fix a robot, defend a castle, adopt a mechanical dog, and more. Still not sold? It’s free!
Synopsis: Rec Room isn’t really a bespoke game, but rather a social VR app that contains a number of engaging and fun games within it. You’ll get swept up in the multiplayer adventures, casual sports, and the newest addition Rec Royale, a battle royale-style shooter. The team at Against Gravity are always updating too, so there’s typically always a fresh co-op Quest to conquer.
Store description: Rec Room is the best place to hang out with friends from all around the world! Play intense multiplayer games like Paintball, Laser Tag, Quest, and Rec Royale, or just chill with friends in the park. There are thousands of player-created game and event rooms for you to discover, with new ones added daily. You can even build your own rooms with your friends. Rec Room is cross platform and free, so come and join the fun!
Synopsis: Epic Games knows Unreal Engine—after all, they created it. Undoubtedly costing a few million, Robo Recall definitely boasts some of the highest production value on the store right now. As a single player game, Robo Recall uses Oculus Touch to its fullest; you’ll be grabbing battle bots and twirling your six shooters just as if you had your hands in the game.
Store description: You used to push lead with a pencil, but now you’re pushing it with a gun. A recent barrage of defective, homicidal robots has created openings in RoboReady’s perpetually underfunded and suddenly swamped Recall Department. Thrown into the fray as a Recaller, you must rely on your wits, reflexes and a vast arsenal of weaponry to eliminate the robot uprising.
Synopsis: The newly rechristened Echo VR first started out on the Oculus Store as Echo Arena, a futuristic team sport that features a unique zero-G locomotion style and 5v5 multiplayer matches. The impetus for the rebranding: Echo Combat, the $10 VR shooter expansion recently released that puts you in the battle-ready chassis of a combat bot armed with an array of weapons and abilities. Featuring two teams of four, you compete in payload mode or point capture. Echo Arena is still free though, and definitely worth your time.
Store description: In Echo Combat, you will play as a futuristic battle-ready robot armed with an array of weapons and abilities as your team of three competes against the opposition in high-speed objective-based zero-gravity mayhem! Echo Arena now supports parties of 15 players and 5v5 private matches, with 5 more slots available for spectators! In the Arena, your team will face off against the competition in a zero-gravity clash of robotic glory as you glide, boost, and punch your way to scoring goals in a breathtaking virtual arena.
Store description: Lucky’s Tale is a delightful platforming adventure game designed exclusively for the Oculus Rift. Join Lucky as he runs, jumps, climbs and spins his way through a bright, colorful world filled with thrilling challenges, wacky creatures, and all the shiny things a little fox could ever want!
Store description: Step into a world full of gunslingers and ghosts in Dead and Buried. Grab your Touch controllers and become the best gunslinger in the wild west in this multiplayer action shooter. Battle it out in the old saloon. Rob a runaway train. Team up with other bandits and defend against hordes of ghastly creatures. Finally, you can live out your wild west fantasies thanks to virtual reality.
Store description: Play head-to-head online or in Conquest story mode from your Oculus Rift, Gear VR, or Facebook Gameroom account on desktop. This immersive collectible card-battler mixes high fantasy with World War II on a 4×4 grid battlefield that is alive with rampaging giants, intimidating war-machines, and soaring projectiles.
Store description: Pilot massive weapons of destruction and fight over post-apocalyptic lands in this free-roaming shooter: It is an explosive clash of god-like mech weaponry and team deathmatch gameplay.
