Recent reviews by jashan

Trombone Champ: Unflattened is an excellent example of how a game originally designed for flatscreen can be ... well ... unflattened. I love rhythm games and I don't play flatscreen games, and this game is just hilarious. Just the pure gameplay, with the audience reacting to your toots is amazing. But then, you get all these different trombones, some of them really crazy. The only thing I miss is a good way to play with friends, with local leaderboards because sharing is caring and this game rocks as a party game.

Bought this for the VR support. First thing I got was a tiny login Window that was impossible to read. So I had to restart without VR. Unfortunately, it wasn't just a bad first impression. It only got worse:

Turned out this game doesn't support VR controllers at all. I have Valve Index controllers, so I'm used to using my hands in VR. The cockpits are fully modeled and certainly nice to look at. But instead of using the instruments like I would if I was actually sitting in that thing, and like I'm used to in VR, I need to press keys on the keyboard (that I can't see because I'm in VR), use the mouse to steer, or a gamepad or HOTAS. To be honest, I didn't expect a game with VR support to be that anti-immersive. The hands in the game have nothing to do with my physical hands - are you kidding me? It's not 2015 anymore.

This is the first time I'll refund a game. If you just want to play on flatscreen, or if you have a fancy HOTAS setup, it's probably an awesome game. But this just isn't ready for VR.

Awesome. Timeless. Only problem with it: Wasn't designed for VR.

Well, because back then, they didn't have VR.

Half-Life: Alyx, here I come!!! ;-)

I have just played my first session, and I love it! Also, I had to stop (after about 20 minutes) because I'm already too exhausted due to the need to duck a lot (also, a bit of nausea; see below). So while other rhythm games tend to give you sore arms, this complements the workout by giving you sore legs.

It's also quite different from all the other VR rhythm games out there in that you have complete creative freedom in how you play this game. No specific hand assignments (do this with your left hand, do that with your right hand), no specific locations because the targets are moving and - and this is the part that impresses me most: You can even decide the timing and order of shooting the targets.

So you could shoot the enemy immediately when you see it (which is safest), or wait for the next beat, or wait a little longer and then shoot a few in a rhythmic sequence. I haven't figured out if this is also encouraged by the scoring algorithm but it's definitely a lot of fun.

Either way, I'd say, this game is John Wick merged with Funky Drummer.

But ... one word of caution: For me, the movement is really not compatible with the intense gameplay. A few times I almost lost balance (this has never happened to me in VR before, except for when tracking went crazy), and I always move forward while playing, towards the wall without noticing it. Besides, for the first time in a long time, I feel a bit of nausea.

So what I'd really love is a mode where the levels feel more like boxes and enemies moving instead of me moving. I know this will be a lot of work because it probably means setting up the scenes almost completely differenly (I'm the developer of Holodance, so I have an idea of how I would implement a change like that) ... but: If the floor has a strong texture and doesn't move, and the walls / boxes / ceilings move in maybe one foot steps, with a cool transition effect, this could probably work and might even look better. I know there are levels with holes in the floor, those holes could move the same way that the walls move (in jumps, maybe on every eighth-note, with the correct distance to get the same pace as now).

I usually hate VR games that don’t use motion controllers and was too lazy to connect a Steam or Xbox controller yesterday, so I ended up playing using the keyboard (which IMHO is by far the worst way to play a game in VR). I have my Vive set up for "standing" in my own area, so when I play seated with my Vive, I do get tracking dropouts.

Also, I’m not a fan of dark fantasy.

... but ... this game totally rocks! The only problem I have with it, really, is that I have work to do and don’t know when I’ll get to continue playing without staying up all night.

It also works quite well on my 980 Ti so far (CPU: i7-5820K @ 3.30GHz).

Surprisingly, it also doesn’t make me feel nauseous most of the time (there were one or two places that did make me feel weird but I could easily continue playing, one was after the first fight, which I lost, when the camera hovered close to the ground). I recently played Lucky’s Tale for half an hour and felt terrible afterwards, for about an hour. So, I'd say I'm not super-sensitive to VR motion sickness but also not immune to it (the elevator in Raw Data also make me feel very uncomfortable but there, I can easily just close my eyes to avoid that).

I was really surprised how well this game works (3rd person, seated, using a keyboard ... I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t played it). Kudos to the developers for giving us this VR version (I'm not interested in flatscreen games at all, so I bought this only for VR and will only play it in VR).

The one thing I don't like is when it goes into "big screen mode". For what this is, it's done really well, and so far, it didn't happen too often for my taste ... but it just really breaks the immersion for me when it does happen. If this was added as an experiment, I'd say that experiment failed. I can see how this is a "stylistic element" but I'd really rather have full 360° all the time.

EDIT: Ah, one more thing I don't like: I understand that the game does not support motion controllers - I could kind of make it work with Touch controllers, but not at all with Vive wands. It would be really nice if both would be supported, and would show up (with a skin fitting the theme), so we can see the buttons. Playing with a controller blindfolded isn't that great, tbh.

What a beautiful game! I just started, looked around a little bit and I guess I completed the first "level", or maybe the second. It's a really nice flow from one experience / puzzle to the next, so it's kind of hard to say. So far, it was a little challenging here and there but after playing around for a little while, I could solve everything (one kind of seemed like luck, though ;-) ).

It's half past midnight here, so I had to stop - but I am very much looking forward to continuing this mystic, beautiful journey into whatever it is that I am puzzling myself into. A game to return to :-)

EDIT: So, I have just finished Form yesterday, and it is indeed a fairly short experience (I have 1.3 hours playtime, and I did also "play around" a little). I still think it's a great game totally worth its money. Even if you can probably finish the game within an hour if you hurry, there's a great variety of different kinds of puzzles that work really really well in VR with motion tracked controllers (i.e. for using your hands), it's visually stunning, great audio and consequently immerses you in a great atmosphere. It's basically entering and becoming part of a little fantasy movie. The trailer gives you a really good idea of what to expect.

I can probably play this game one or two more times and still enjoy it before it gets boring - but might then still be able to return to it later (like with a good movie). There were two puzzles in the game that I didn't quite "get" but still was able to complete them before it got frustrating but YMMV.

So, if you expect the game to last many hours - you probably should not buy this. But if you think about it vs. going to the movies (approximately the same price and time spent), and appreciate a high level of polishing, this game is probably for you like it is for me :-)

What an awesome game! The wait was well worth it. Very high level of polish, super-immersive, I love it. The only problem: I need a lot more time to play this now ;-)

We have used the LIV client even in the its earliest stages and in combination with the LIV Cube also at several events where we showcased our game Holodance. It's an awesome tool with great developers behind it, and constantly improved. They also have an active Discord Server with a large community of content creators, developers, and of course the LIV team (which is distributed across several time zones). So if you ever have a question or run into issues, that's probably the best place to go to get it resolved quickly.

To other game developers: Adding the LIV SDK is really easy - but it's also flexible: In Holodance, we use a custom implementation of the SteamVR Unity plugin quadrant approach, and we have also customized how we use LIV SDK. But that is something you can do if you feel you need to, not something you have to do to make it work. You can also just drop in a prefab and be done with it. There is really no excuse to not do this.

To content creators: If you have ever set up greenscreen Mixed Reality, you know how much trouble this can be (and usually it is when you least need it). With the LIV platform, for us, that trouble has ended. It's quick and easy, and gives great results.

SelfieTennis has been a lot of fun and I really enjoy firing up every once in a while. It's not a game I spend a lot of time with but the time I do spend with it is a lot of fun.

The only thing I'd be rather cautious with is your play area: I did push my controller into a wall at least 2 or 3 teams and actually hurt myself. So, if you want to play it safe, you might want to make sure you have a little "safe space" around your play area before playing with yourself ;-)