And each locale has its own version of cooking, which enlarges the "kitchen simulator" from Owlchemy's first game. The beach has a fun, tricky series of sandcastle puzzles that ask players to build 3D sandcastles that match a 2D diagram, while the snowy resort has a reverse version of this, where players have to chisel specific chunks out of a solid block of ice to match a 2D diagram. Other attractions repeat across all three locales with mild twists to each. Some of these are unique to a locale, like the beach's sports zone (which includes volleyball and basketball challenges), the forest's rowing-to-the-music challenge (which plays like a simplified version of Beat Saber), and the snowy resort's jigsaw puzzle challenge. Spread across these locales are roughly 30 attractions, which either play out as mini-games, puzzles, artistic canvases, or tinker toys. With today's Vacation Simulator, out now on SteamVR and Oculus Rift (and coming soon to other platforms), Owlchemy Labs has learned from its prior games to deliver the pinnacle of VR goofiness-and all of the antics (and limits) that such a description implies. 2017's Rick & Morty: Virtual Rick-ality added a "campaign" to this idea, but the results felt a little thin. Job Simulator enabled that kind of "if you see it, you can mess with it" fun, only without much of a game-like structure. Like, why can't I pick up that animal, throw it into a microwave, nuke it, put it between two pieces of bread, add some cheese and sauce, lift that sandwich to my real-life mouth, eat it, and see my VR avatar puke up the result? The game's designers built a world whose best quality was somewhat invisible and therefore often overlooked: you likely won't realize how awesome Job Simulator is until you boot into another VR game and yell at its static, dead environs. That absurd premise was met by a quality still unmatched by most VR games: if you can reach for something in an Owlchemy Labs game, you can grab it, play with it, use it, throw it, juggle it, and more. Chief among those is Job Simulator, a hilarious mini-game reaction to the idea that the rise of VR and robots would lead to a future in which humans forgot what real jobs were like. Valve had been putting the final touches on its first SteamVR system, and the company invited a wave of interested developers to get in on the ground floor and make whatever weird demos they wanted, all in order to promote the nascent concept of "room-scale VR."įour years later, those early efforts remain some of VR's must-play games, apps, and experiences. When I think about the history of virtual reality as viable, consumer-grade tech, I think about a certain "game jam" in early 2015. Platform: SteamVR (reviewed), Oculus Rift (coming to PSVR, Oculus Quest)
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