{"id":9638,"date":"2018-10-08T13:02:35","date_gmt":"2018-10-08T17:02:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/?p=9638"},"modified":"2018-10-08T16:09:14","modified_gmt":"2018-10-08T20:09:14","slug":"benies-vr-adventures-day-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/2018\/10\/08\/benies-vr-adventures-day-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Benie’s VR Adventures – Day 5"},"content":{"rendered":"

Holy hell, now this is a super delayed post! This was originally supposed to be published on the 1st (before I had gotten Moss<\/em> (then VRChat gets updated and I need to be there for that)… then my back goes out on me, and I was unable to do the rest.
\nBut finally, after just over a week of a delay, I’m able to publish it!<\/p>\n

So anyway, I’ve downloaded seven free VR games from Steam (to give me something else<\/em> to do than VRChat all the time), that use motion controllers.
\nConsider this as a mini-review of all these games, and if they’re right for you if you’re also low on cash after buying your VR set;
\nCave Digger
\nDanger Room VR
\nGuns’n’Stories: Preface VR
\nLa Camila : A VR Experience
\nMSI Electric City: Core Assault
\nTaphouse VR
\n<\/em>and finally…
\nWaltz of the Wizard<\/em><\/p>\n

Without further adieu, here’s the games I played in no particular order…
\nCave Digger<\/strong><\/em>
\nVR Orientation Type:<\/strong> Standing(Room-Scale)
\nI originally read the title as ‘Grave Digger’ when I saw it on Steam. It features the VR player in a mine elevator (that cannot be exited). Infront of them is a simple pickaxe, used to mine the exposed sides of the shaft. The player is given 60 seconds to mine precious ore and gems as fast as they can, and grabbing them with the other empty hand, then throw them in the bin in the middle of the elevator to get money. They can see how long they have left by looking at the top of one of the hands. Once time runs out, the elevator automatically goes to another floor, and the process starts again with another 60 seconds.
\nThere are about three floors. After the third, the player’s findings are counted up to be the total of that run.
\nHere the player can use their money to buy special tools, such as a drill to place dynamite in, a saw to cut the rock around hard to reach gems, a detector that locates gems in the rock, and others.
\nThe trick is to choose these tools carefully (while still trying to beat the clock). The player also has to have one of their hands open in order to pick up gems, but I believe (from what I’ve seen) they can also use the bucket to scoop them up as the gems go by them. In one level, the player can also extract oil from the rock (by using the drill and the bucket), which nets them lots of cash.
\nBack at the tool purchase screen, the player can either choose this Challenge Mode or play Regular Mode (by using one of their available hands to click on the button with the primary trigger).
\nFrom my observations, getting the scanner, the cutter, and the bucket are the most efficient ways of making money. But if anyone else playing this game knows of a better way, be sure to tell me.
\n– I have two complaints about this game, though.
\n1. I’d like to see a sandbox mode, to get a feel for the tools (plus understand the overall value of each gem\/ore, including the oil). Being rushed feels like I’m barely learning. Granted, it does<\/em> give the player a tutorial on how to use the tool after starting a new run.
\n2. The upgrades (to me) feel too cheap. Once the player gets them all, the only thing the ingame money can get them is more dynamite. By then, money becomes
\npointless (IMHO).
\n——
\nMSI Electric City: Core Assault<\/em>
\nVR Orientation Type: <\/strong>Standing\/Sitting
\nFor owning an MSI-born AMD graphics card, I should feel honored to play this (with all the MSI licensed logos (such as the dragon logo on the floor).
\nThis feels similar to that ship defending minigame of The Lab<\/em>, including having two
\ngamemodes; Time Attack (the main gamemode) and Survival Mode (permadeath).
\nSo there’s a surprise twist from that other game. Not only does the player got to dodge fire coming towards their ship, they have friendly turrets that must be protected. The player can also occasionally fire ‘destroy everything infront of them’ rockets.
\nThe game is really, really fun. But if I was to choose which is the better game, I say the one from The Lab (for having the homing missiles coming after the player’s ship-mounted hand).
\nBy the way, Feel free to beat my high scores: 16200 on Survival Mode, and 13250 on Time Attack.
\n——
\nTaphouse VR<\/em>
\nVR Orientation Type: <\/strong>Standing(Room-Scale)
\nWhat an interesting name for a game title. So this game involves the VR player tending to a bar (which is best played while standing up).
\nThere are five levels of difficulty. Each level has a normal and sandbox mode. IMHO, playing in Sandbox mode is highly recommended, because it helps the playe master all the mechanics, for there is a lot to learn. Drink size (and where these drinks are), drink
\ntype (especially when it’s a mix), and so on.
\nAs soon as the customer orders their drink (be it a single one, or a mix of 2 or more drinks), the player has 45 seconds to complete the order. Simply grab the glass they want, find their requested drink (or drinks if it’s a mix), and pour. If it’s a mix of two or three, be sure to pour the one the guy wants more of, and topped with the other. Then hand it over to the guy.
\nIf it’s what he wants, he’ll drink it and pays the player.
\n-One thing that actually annoyed me with this game, is when a customer wants a mix of three (all at 33%). It seems no matter which way I do it, the customer doesn’t like it. It came to the point where I said “fuck you, get out of my bar!”
\nThey need to make it (in Sandbox mode), where it would actually show just how much the player puts in (to make sure they get it right).
\n——
\nGuns’n’Stories: Preface VR<\/strong><\/em>
\nVR Orientation Type:<\/strong> Standing (main menu), Standing\/Sitting (main game)
\nThis looked like a hell of a game, based around one of those old arcade shoot’em’up games where the player is in a stationary position, defending themself for attacks from multiple directions.
\nNow this game, is actually a free demo of the actual game Guns’n’Stories: Bulletproof VR<\/em> (which is a single Alexander Hamilton(a $10 bill) on Steam).
\nIn this demo, there are a total of three levels. And they can get quite intense with more enemies filling the screen. The player can set the difficulty from ‘Baby’ (gives infinite ammo with no reload) to ‘Elite’. I was quite surprised there’s actually a difficulty level below ‘Easy’.
\nWhat’s even more hilarious, is the player starts with a baby bottle in their left hand, and a rattler in their right (it even makes rattling sounds if the player shakes their right controller). Gotta love that dev humor.
\nAs I said before, the gameplay is the player versus enemies popping in at random spots. Longer the player plays, more enemies will pop up (and the harder they’ll get, such as ones that are running towards the player). And it can get pretty intense. If the player takes enough damage, time slows down for them to more accurately line up their shots (and kill anyone causing them to hit this state).
\nIn two of these three levels, the weapons available to the player, change into much more powerful ones (to where they’re mowing down enemies left and right).
\n——
\nLa Camila : A VR Experience<\/em>
\nVR Orientation Type:<\/strong> Standing(Room-Scale)
\nNow this one isn’t really a game, but a semi-interactive story in VR. After RL suffering from a bad back (due to my own stupidity of dancing in VR), I’m finally back to properly review this game.
\nFirst off, VR player receives two tools; the right hand is one of those old time spyglasses. When the controller vibrates, look for a blue eye and use the spyglass to keep that eye centered. Do it long enough, and the player will be teleported to that location. The left hand, is a ‘cloud hand’. Put it inside of a cloud to make things happen.
\nAnd to best explain the story (this took awhile until it finally started to make sense in my head); imagine where mother nature had a natural enemy (other than what us humans are doing to our planet), but the power to control weather via sheep wool (and also have the availability to surf on a cloud).
\nHowever, mother nature is always watching, and one night spawns in these strange reddish clouds to destroy the large cloud-making machine.
\n– The issues I had with this thing, are thus;
\n1. It was too short, but this is to be expected (as it’s free).
\n2. There are a few parts where I wish I could control the volume, where my ears feel like they’re in pain.
\n3. It assumes the player has a large playspace.
\n——
\nWaltz of the Wizard<\/strong><\/em>
\nVR Orientation Type: <\/strong>Standing(Room-Scale)
\nWho doesn’t like shooting fire from your hands, and controlling the gravity of nearly everything in the room? This is what this game is about, and it features a rather unique way of movement.
\nInstead of typically teleporting the VR player to the spot you choose, it creates a path it will follow to reach where they release the primary trigger. The player then starts mini-teleporting themself over to it. The player can also ‘run’ to it (by moving their controllers back and forth). ..Personally I’m not a real fan of this new way of movement, especially if you make a mistake.
\nThe main room is where the (literal) magic happens. The player has a bunch of items on the table, and things scattered around the room. The object is to combine some of these items in the pot to hopefully unlock a spell. There is no hand-holding; it’s all guesswork and experimentation of trying to figure out the correct recipe, only a skull that tends to nag at you if you get it wrong.
\nIf the player accidentally throws things off the table, wait a few seconds and the item(s) will magically re-appear where they were (including the skull, which I personally wish would -not- respawn).
\nThere is also another area I’ve discovered (that wasn’t seen in the video provided by the creator on the store page). Here the player can brandish …weapons for some reason (swords and a crossbow). Apparently there is a FPS-like element in this game. Turning one corner, and I see this knight humanoid-like creature on the far side of the room. Then he starts walking towards me in a brisk pace, and I’m frozen in fear not remembering the controls.
\nThis thing is now a few feet from my RL face, and I finally kill it. Stand there, then put the controllers down and take the headset off, saying “NOPE! NOPE nope nope!”… fuckin’ HELL, that scared the shit<\/strong> out of me!! My body clearly wasn’t ready for this.
\n——
\nDanger Room VR<\/strong><\/em>
\nVR Orientation Type:<\/strong> Standing(Room-Scale)
\n…Hoo wee! So many things to dodge in this game, is quite crazy.
\nI was warned that my play space was too small for this game. Luckily I was still able to do it.
\nSo what is this<\/em> game? It’s actually more of a simulation (as most VR games that I’ve seen are), but it’s a lot more interactive than La Camila : A VR Experience<\/em>. First, let’s talk about what the player will have in their hands. The left hand is a grabber. It grabs orbs during gameplay. The right hand is a blaster (unlimited ammo, but has a cooldown time if the player uses it too much).
\nTo start, the player gets this orb (that the game tells them to). A round lasts for a minute, and it’s the job of the player to gather as many orbs as they can before time runs out, while also defending themself against enemy orbs, lasers coming from the ceiling, mines coming from the wall, and a space squid that will hamper the player’s ability to grab orbs.
\nI imagine if I had a much bigger play space (with a lot less furniture), it would feel more fun (aka why it said I didn’t have the required space needed).<\/p>\n

.
\n.
\nAnd that, finally<\/strong>, completes this overly-delayed blog post. Since this post, I downloaded more free games that I’ll be playing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Holy hell, now this is a super delayed post! This was originally supposed to be published on the 1st (before I had gotten Moss (then VRChat gets updated and I need to be there for that)… then my back goes … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9638"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9668,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9638\/revisions\/9668"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/benies-blogs.com\/games\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}