VRodeo: 10: To the Top, Giant Cop, and More

Throttle Powah seems like a potentially great concept, just needs better execution and more to do than just "drive" around.

Is Throttle Powah the strongest argument one could make for a Kinetica reboot on PSVR?

One thing Jeff deserves recognition for is that he has a steady head. I don't even mean that metaphorically. He's one of the only people I can watch playing a VR game without getting immediately motion sick from all the head bobbing and wiggling.

"You don't know the intent of a butterfly."

Wow. Too the Top seems like on of those rare reminders that VR is actually still really cool and full of potential. This seems like straight up fantasy fulfilment to me anyways, in the way that people say videogames "let you live out your wildest dreams" but actually don't since no one really dreams of 90% of the stuff in games :p

It got me thinking though. Are there any good "Swinging" games in VR yet? I'd really love some kind of Bionic Commando/Spider-Man simulator that just let's me zip around some huge environment in first person.

@pilgore said:

Captain's Log, Stardate 2341.082 - The entity calling itself "Dan" is continuing to subject the crew to endless hours of Mario Party in a sick attempt to drive everyone on the ship mad. He has also reprogrammed the replicators to only respond to requests for Taco Bell. Unless a solution is found quickly, I fear the entire crew will lose their minds.

The green screen work looked great in this video.

To the top seems like a legitimately cool idea for a VR game, but I hope they get better art at some point.

@crapdragoon: That is a legit amazing deal for anyone who is interested in VR but was on the edge because of the hefty price.

"That's not paint."

teehee

Jerrftgh <3

To the top seemed like a neat Grow-home like :)

Most of those shooting games are okay, but you can immediatly tell which game they are trying to remake, (Soundstage, The Lab minigame, Superhot). It's no surprise that the standout games were the ones that brought the most originality to the table.

Giant cop could use some more AI though. Think about standing in the middle of a city where stuff just pops off. Buildings are being set on fire, Cars chase eachother, people shoot guns at eachother, protests erupt. That seems more fun than picking up guys to see if they're bad and throwing them in jail for it. games like Theme Hospital, Black & White, The Sims, Simcity and Cities Skylines are fun because the game makes stuff happen.

I'm kinda sad because A) I bought the Rift+Touch and a third sensor just over one month ago and paid lots more than what it is TODAY, and B) my headset is having random disconnect issues, which appear to be hardware related (where the cable connects to the headset itself... many have reported similar issues). Now I'm going through dealing with Oculus Support, and to be fair the support is fairly good so far. We've ruled out software issues and it seems like they're leaning towards hardware replacement. The downside is that I will have to ship off my Rift and won't have any VR action for a while. It's unfortunate because I babied my headset and none of my (well, two other) friends have had any issues with their units. :( :( :(

They end the video saying they're working on a solution to play Bridge Crew, likely by the next episode.

Hey Matey here from Electric Hat Games. Yeah Capyac is awesome, they let us show off our game at one of their shows in Austin. Really great guys and I hope more people discover them. Actually our whole soundtrack is made up of Austin artists, besides one track from Future Islands. So we love to support our local arts scene however we can. Here is our full track list.

• Capyac - Speedracer
• Capyac - Mixed In
• Capyac - Fascination
• Capyac - Talk About
• Future Islands - Vireo's Eye
• Mirror Mask - Get Back
• Mirror Mask - Rhinestone
• Night Drive - Easy to Lie
• Night Drive - Rise and Fall
• Slooom - Honey
• Slooom - Honey (Shoplifters Utd Remix)
• SIP SIP - Continental Breakfast

We will be looking at doing a PSVR version in the future after we finish our free content updates on the PC in the next couple of months. It can work, you just might need two move controllers.

@spacerunaway: I knew this would have to be in the first page of the comments. Still so friggin' funny.

Awesome, I am really glad you like "Slide" I made that level after playing Uncharted 4 and seeing all the cool sections they had with sliding. I also wanted to make sure we could cover the base mechanics that can be done in the Uncharted series...in first person VR... on a independent budget haha.

Haha We never thought of this but maybe? We do plan on experimenting with multiplayer when we get the base racing done, I will keep this in mind until then.

That To The Top game actually looks really fuckin neat. Pretty easy to imagine getting into a great flow, and the basic visuals and that goddamn bounce sound effect are kinda perfect.

Some great music too. Had to pause and look up that Fascination song.

@r_matey: Never been so glad to be so wrong, haha! If it all works out and you get it on the store, I'll definitely be getting it. Already have two Moves, so I'm set.

Are the Soundstage devs here, too? Maybe I could get a twofer of good news. :P

Uhhh, I think you mean seven minutes of revvin', Ben.

Dude he's joking.

Rain Drop

Drop Top

You Gotta Tell me

If you're a Giant Cop

Just a heads up in case nobody has pointed this out (re: the first 10~ minutes of the video). Jeff, in SteamVR Home, I noticed you were trying to activate the scenery and the like through the old/traditional SteamVR interface (button below touchpad). While within home however, the button *above* the touchpad will bring up the main SteamVR Home interface, and from there you can spawn in objects, customize your avatar, swap environments, etc.

I'm sure you guys are long past figuring this stuff out, but in the off chance..

Keep up the great work duders! I freaking love these videos.

Seems like that left controller might just have got damaged by hitting one too many walls.

At least there's only 3 wave/arena shooter

the music and To the Top are stand out

I think no one around him got it, and 99.9% of the viewers won't get it, but the way @jeff casually referenced that Dr. Octagon skit about "there's a horse in the hospital" gave me life!

I can always count on Ben to pack humor into every video.

#legalizecabbage

To The Top actually seems like a neat concept and has a good music selection, but it definitely needs a better artstyle and polished controls.

I picked up 'To The Top' in the Steam Summer sale and it's quite fun! They still need to check out Racket NX and Sairento VR in one of these as well!

@jeff So...this may just be from you trying to counter adjust to it, however it is likely that your floor was "tilted" because your headset was WAY tilted on your head. Left side was way higher than your right side. Again, this may have been purposefully done because you were trying to counter the tilt you were seeing, but if not, that may be why.

still no Diesel Power? Would like to see Jeff tackle it, even though it's too hard

I don't know if this has been said, but I'm pretty sure the reason Jeff feels like the floor is off angle from being flat in the new steam hub is because his eyes are at different heights. I'm not trying to be silly, but if one eye is higher on your face than another than your headset will be a bit crooked. Again, I'm not trying to be silly, most people's faces are not symmetrical and a lot of people have eyes that are slightly offset height-wise.

Also, the videos have been really great lately. The new members of the bomb crew are great additions to the site! And here's to hopefully getting a Star Trek Bridge Crew video soon!

@sweetz: Just in case you were wondering and no one else has mentioned it, Rift will be able to play anything Vive currently supports.

With a third sensor, rift + touch does full roomscale, and there's currently no way of locking out rift users from vive content (google temporarily tried it with earth vr but a workaround was almost immediately available)

"Get Back" by Mirror Mask

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=deQVgjeIltk

"I love it when my boss grooms me". You heard it here first, folks. Ben loves it when Jeff grooms him... ... for success.

Dartrix most beautiful boy.

Buuuuut POPPLIO BEST BOOOOOOOOOOY.

@jeffgerstmann a few technical things:

1. If you are having tracking issues, cover up any reflective surfaces in the area. That's the likely culprit. Florescent lights can also cause it.

2. I'm guessing the reason you were getting Oculus prompts in some games is because you have an Oculus set up/installed on the same PC. Most games will let you pick which SDK to run.

3. I believe your Giant Cop problem with menues wasn't the game but a defective touch pad controller. Unfortunately it' s a common problem. The Vive trackpad rubber piece inside comes loose sometimes and gets knocked off center. You can sometimes give it a solid "tap" to get it back in place, or take the controller apart and recenter (many people have superglued it). but you could also just have HTC/Valve send you a replacement.

To the Top and Throttle Powah are both neat small indie games. I also recommend checking out the following:

Climbey (they really should have checked this out by now; it's mechanically really neat and was/is ground breaking)

Mage's Tale (new Oculus game by the Bard's Tale guys)

Knockout Kings - Its Punch Out clone in VR but a pretty good one with nice production values

Distance - a great stunt car game in VR. Probably the best arcade style VR game. A bit like Rush 2049 in VR but with a tron aesthetic.

@fontelroy: That's a fun little fact, but it doesn't account for the fact that we can see it, too. From the viewer feed I can also notice the view being slightly tilted. If I can notice it on screen it would have to be 100x more noticeable in the headset. Also, if it were a problem with his eyes he would be having this issue in every VR game across all VR headsets.

@larmer: I think I know where you're coming from here - This is a real brain fryer to think about. However, I think the asymmetry of his face still does account for the tilted view - since we are indeed seeing Jeff's feed the world would appear a bit off angle to us as well. When we see Jeff in the real world you can see that the headset is sitting on him crooked, I'm guessing that is so it is lined up with his eyes. The crooked headset translates to a tilted view for us, the viewer, as well as himself, which is why he brought it up.

It really does get confusing to think about, at one point I was considering if maybe the headset was showing Jeff a view out of 2 "level" eyes and since he's been seeing out of eyes at slightly different heights his whole life that this "leveled" viewpoint would now cause him to perceive things as crooked. But, since we, the viewer, can also see how the world looked a bit off-kilter, I do think it is because he has to wear the headset slightly crooked so it will line up with the geometry of his facial features and not a perception problem.

The one thing that has me thinking is then why hasn't he brought this up before? Since a lot of games have a headset directional alignment reset feature to tell the game that whatever position in your currently in should be your default, maybe the new steam vr launcher doesn't take into account any sort of tilt - I think it is still a beta launcher.

No handbrake turn jokes during Throttle Powah VR. I miss Drew.

@jason killer quote, that is like poetic. Transcendent, really.

popplio

That motorcycle arm game looks pretty fun. Hopefully there is more to it than that area we saw.