vr puzzle

‘Laser Dance’ Coming to Quest in 2024, From Creator Behind One of Quest’s Best-rated Puzzle Games

AR Game, cubism, laser dance, laser hallway, laser puzzle, laser vr, News, VR Game, vr laser game, vr laser hallway, vr puzzle / Ryan Harris / October 3, 2023

Thomas Van Bouwel, the developer behind popular VR puzzle game Cubism (2020), is nearing launch of the long-teased mixed reality game for Quest that turns your living room into a moving grid of lasers straight out of Mission Impossible.

Update (October 3rd, 2023): Van Bouwel announced Laser Dance is coming to Quest sometime next year. There’s no release window yet, however users looking to get early access can become beta testers. The developer hasn’t confirmed precisely which headset the game is coming to, so we’ll just have to stay tuned. We’ve altered the original article to reflect this, and have put the change in bold.

Check out the new teaser below to see Laser Dance in action:

Original Article (October 24th, 2022): Called Laser Dance, the Quest game aims to turn any room of your house into a laser obstacle course—basically recreating the old laser hallway trope you may recognize from a ton of films, TV shows and video games over the years.

There’s no word on release dates yet, although progress is looking good. Check out a work-in-progress level of Laser Dance in action:

Walking through a laser wave 🏄#ar #vr #MetaQuest2 #madewithunity pic.twitter.com/PLQrAkE7Hv

— Thomas Van Bouwel (@tovanbo) September 3, 2022

Van Bouwel came up with the idea over the two-day Global Game Jam 2022 earlier this year, and has since fleshed out the game to include parametrically-generated laser patterns based on room size and layout, meaning the action should dynamically fit to your space and serve up a challenge no matter how big (or cluttered) your space.

Although the game has been shown working with Quest 2’s monochrome passthrough, Laser Dance wouldn’t be out of place on Meta Quest Pro, which is capable of more realistic passthrough AR thanks to its five external sensors, offering a higher resolution color view with improved depth-detection. Van Bouwel however hasn’t confirmed which Quest headset the game will support at this time.

We’re looking forward to learning more about Laser Dance, as Van Bouwel is excellent at creating deceptively simple gameplay that really makes you think—look no further than Cubism, which has also kept lock-step with passthrough and hand-tracking updates on Quest since its initial launch in 2020. If you want to follow along with progress on Laser Dance, check out the game’s official Twitter.

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Quest’s Most Graphically Intense Game is Coming to PSVR 2

News, psvr 2 adventure, psvr 2 puzzle, puzzle adventure, red matter 2, red matter 2 psvr 2, VR Game, vr puzzle / Ryan Harris / April 22, 2023

Red Matter 2, the sci-fi VR puzzle adventure for Quest 2 and PC VR, is bringing its best-in-class graphics and interactions to PSVR 2.

Vertical Robot says the sequel is slated to arrive on PSVR 2 “very soon,” noting in a tweet it will feature a smooth 120fps with no reprojection, foveated Rendering, 4K re-mastered textures, and enhanced lighting.

And while some may rightly bemoan it as another Quest 2 port, it’s really much more than that.

Launched in mid-2022 on Quest 2 and PC VR, Red Matter 2 features some of the most impressive graphics and immersive gameplay to date—of any VR platform—easily drawing comparisons to some of VR’s most visually intense games, such as Lone Echo and Half-Life: Alyx. It’s really that good.

Here’s the setup: in Red Matter 2, you take on the role of Sasha, an agent awakened in a lunar base by an undercover operative and tasked with uncovering the secrets of ‘Red Matter’, a mysterious substance introduced in Red Matter (2018).

The sequel introduces combat for the first time, which although not a high point, definitely makes for an interesting break from the game’s wide variety of puzzles. Enough said. Check out our spoiler-free review to find out why we gave it [8/10].

There’s no word on when we can expect the original Red Matter on PSVR 2. We’ll also be keeping our eyes peeled for a more precise launch date for the sequel, so check back soon.

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VR Adventure ‘Firmament’ Releasing March 18th, From Studio Behind ‘Myst’ & ‘Riven’

cyan, cyan inc, cyan worlds, firmament, firmament kickstarter, firmament vr, HTC Vive Game, News, Oculus Rift Game, PSVR Game, puzzle game, SteamVR Game, Valve Index Game, VR Game, vr puzzle, vr puzzle game, Windows Mixed Reality Games / Mike M. / March 9, 2023

Cyan, the studio behind iconic puzzle adventure games Myst (1993) and Riven (1997), garnered their fair share of success with their April 2019 Kickstarter campaign, which sought to bring to life their next VR-compatible title, Firmament. Now Cyan says the long-delayed game finally has a release date: March 18th.

According to a Kickstarter backer update, Firmament is now set to launch on March 18th, coming to PC VR headsets including Meta Rift and Rift S, HTC Vive, Valve Index, and Meta Quest headsets through Quest Link. A flatscreen mode is also available for play on MacOS and Windows.

The studio says it’s also set to target PSVR 2, PS4 and PS5 at some point “down the line.”

Two months ago the studio released an extended look at some of the game’s preproduction footage, which we’ve included below:

Once targeting a July 2020 launch, Firmament has slipped again and is now targeting a Q1 2023 launch date. Here’s that statement is full; we’ve also included a 9-minute look at the work-in-progress game, embedded below this update:

“As a result of discussions with key team member and staff, Cyan is making the important decision to move the launch of Firmament to Q1 2023. The game is very closed to complete, and the development is rapidly approaching its final phase.

To our Backers, Fans, and Friends, thank you for your continuing patience and support. Your enthusiasm and excitement lifts our spirits daily. We cannot wait to share launch day news with you in (early!) 2023.”

Original Article (July 13th, 2020): Firmament’s launch window seemed a bit tight from the onset, however from an experienced studio that had previously created its latest VR-compatible puzzle adventure game Obduction to both PC VR and PSVR, it seemed not all together impossible.

The reality of creating a game however is admittedly “often quite a bit messier,” the studio says in a recent Kickstarter update.

Here’s a bit of Cyan’s reasoning behind the delay, which is said to push the game’s release date possibly to 2022.

With that in mind, Firmament’s Estimated Delivery date of July 2020 was- as it turns out- a wildly optimistic one. We know some of you had your heart’s set on playing Firmament this summer, and we’re genuinely sorry that you’re not going to be able to play it yet! We’re really bummed about that too!

Although there is no Release Date to announce today, we can tell you a couple things with some level of certainty: Firmament is not coming in 2020. And unless the stars align (which we all know happens rarely in game development), it is unlikely that Firmament will be coming in 2021.

In the studio’s own defense, Cyan says it has “always been about shipping things when they’re ready to be shipped, not picking a date and then trying to shoehorn the game into the box in an artificially limited amount of time.”

Firmament is said to be “something bigger than a studio [of Cyan’s] size would ordinarily be able to produce,” and that it will include a “richer and more substantial story” than was previously planned.

Whatever you thought of Obduction (and its initially uneasy technical performance on both PC VR headsets and PSVR) Cyan has a good track record of delivering, leaving the only real concern to when Firmament will arrive, and not if.

Food for thought: a prospective 2022 release of Firmament is slated to happen well within the lifecycle of next-gen consoles and PC hardware—and possibly VR hardware as well—so there’s no telling what technical advances the studio will need to adopt along the way if it’s looking to significantly lengthen the development roadmap. I guess we’ll see in a few years. As it is, Firmament is targeting PC, SteamVR headsets, macOS, and PS4 & PSVR.

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