As an XR developer, I am always on the lookout for new, unique, or innovative immersive experiences. I find that indie games and projects are often some of the best sources for out of the box approaches to mixed reality media. In the following post I will cover some of the indie XR experiences that I found to be unique and intriguing.
Below is a list of the indie XR games and projects I will be covering in this post.
Architect
The game Architect was one of the first indie VR games I discovered when I got my first VR headset. The premise of Architect is a very simple one, yet not one that I had encountered before in a VR game. The game starts with the player standing in front of a floating table, on top of which is the beautiful model of a building or mansion. Waiting just outside of where the front door of this mansion should be is the small shadow-esque caricature of a person. The goal of this game is to place doors, stairs, and elevators in such a way so that the little shadow person can travel along a path from the front door to a golden glowing exit door at the top of the building.
The gameplay mechanics of this game were very intuitive and simplistic in the best way. In order to move a door, staircase, or elevator, the user simply reaches into the model and grabs it. Placement of these objects is restricted to specific locations around the model where they snap back into place when the player sets them down. Although the interaction mechanics themselves were simple, the puzzles in the game were very fun and engaging.
Multiple times during gameplay I found my boundary of reality blurring into my sense of immersion with the experience. In order to get a different vantage point on the model, I found myself walking out and around the floating table holding the model as if there were really a table in the room I was standing in. Remembering only minutes later that of course there isn’t a table in the middle of my VR space, I would walk through the middle of the model, or stick my head through the walls of the model to see specific rooms. I discovered later on that the player can actually grab the rim of the floating table and rotate it, in case their VR space is too small to physically walk around to different sides of the digital model.
Aside from the unique gameplay style and intuitive interaction mechanics, the aesthetic of the game is fantastic. The art style in this game is elegant, minimal, tranquil, and downright beautiful.
The game Architect is a very peaceful, engaging, and fun puzzle game that I recommend to anyone with a VR headset. This game can be downloaded from the Architect Game website which is located at the following link.
Gravity Architect
The next indie VR game I want to cover is a game called Gravity Architect. This is a fun interactive puzzle game where the player has to use the gravitational pull of planets to manipulate a flowing string of cubes. The player can place or destroy planets of various sized around the environment to utilize their gravity. Each planet placed effects the flowing string of cubes. The goal is to get the flowing string of cubes to pass through a specific goal location around the environment.
This was another game with a playstyle and mechanics that I had never seen before. VR is the perfect place for a gravitational manipulation game like this since the 3D nature of the interactions would not translate very well to any 2D medium. Being able to move around in 3D and see the gravitational effects of each planet I added or removed from the environment was really fascinating.
Aside from being a very unique and entertaining game, I feel that an application like this one could have a lot of potential as an educational tool to help players of all ages learn about gravity in a fun and engaging way. Learning about physics and gravity from textbooks can get very stale very quickly for most people. This game exhibits the topic of gravity with the perfect amount of “come play with me” that so many science center exhibits aim to achieve.
For anyone that is looking for a simple, entertaining, and playful VR game, I highly recommend checking this one out. This game can be downloaded from the Gravity Architect Game website which is located at the following link.
Gravity Architect VR Game Website
FlickBlocks
Few games are as iconic and universally loved as the classic game Tetris. Well lucky for us, we can now play Tetris in 3D thanks to the VR game FlickBlocks. If you have ever played Tetris (and I’m assuming most people probably have by now), then this game needs little explanation. FlickBlocks in 3D VR Tetris, and its just as fun as you would imagine it would be.
The gameplay starts with a white table floating in front of the player and three colored tetrominos (Tetris pieces) slowly falling from the sky. The player must grab the falling pieces and place them on the table. Every time the player creates a complete layer with no cubes missing from it, that layer vanishes. This awards the player points and moves all layers above the removed layer down. If the tower of pieces gets too high, or if the player allows three falling pieces to land on the ground at the same time, then the game ends.
I will say right off the bat, this game is a lot of fun, like way more fun than you would anticipate. Given the simplicity and repeatability of the goal of the game, this game provides hours of entertainment, and a surprisingly great workout.
Like many great games, while playing this I found myself falling into one of those fantastic states of flow where I would tell myself “Ok, just one more round” for easily an hour straight. Similar to the experience I mentioned earlier with Architect, I frequently found my boundary of reality blurring into my sense of immersion with the experience. Having momentarily forgotten that the table I was stacking pieces on was not physically in the room I was standing in, I found myself repetitively running out and around the table to get to the next piece. Periodically I would realize how silly this was and would switch to walking through the table to reach the next piece faster. Each time though, this realization would only last a minute or two before the immersion of the experience sucked me back in and I reverted to running around the table instead of through it again. As I said before, this game can be quite a workout after a few minutes of play.
FlickBlocks is a fantastic, fast pace, and high energy game that I recommend for anyone looking for hours of fun VR gameplay, and especially for any Tetris fans out there. This game can be downloaded from the FlickBlocks Game website which is located at the following link.
Cube Dancer
Cube dancer is an indie VR game that feels in some ways similar to popular titles such as Beat Saber, but with its own variation and flare. This games style, gameplay, and presentation create a unique and satisfying experience while playing through each level. This game has a lot of personality, even the opening menu is amusingly different from any I have encountered before.
The game starts with an opening menu which displays the title of the game, and a single grey cube floating in front of the player just within arm’s reach. Touching this cubes starts the game with more character than I have seen from any other start button. When the user touched the grey cube, the cube starts talking to the player and challenges them to a dance competition in response to the insult of the player poking it.
The gameplay takes the form of the player standing in an interesting, yet simplistic scene created entirely of large colored cubes. In front of the player stands a collection of cubes that roughly form a human outline. When the music starts, the cube person in front od the player starts dancing and the player must respond with similar dance moves. As the cube person dances, two strings of cubes immerge moving toward the player and the player must move their controllers so touch and follow these strings of cubes. The tricky, and unique part of this is that at times a third string of cubes will appear which the player must line their head up with.
I have played music-based VR games such as Beat Saber before, which require the player to move their hands to connect with objects and, at times, dodge a single cube with their head. But this was the first game I have found that actively requires the user to place all three at the same time along with the music. I in no way, shape, or form am a dancer, but this game got me engaged and genuinely felt like I was doing a full body dance.
I was pleasantly amused on my second or third playthrough when I started noticing that the cube person I was dancing against was doing portions of famous dances, rather than just random dance like movements.
I recommend this game for anyone looking for an amusing, active, and engaging indie VR game, and especially for any players who are musically or dance inclined. This game can be downloaded from the Cube Dancer Game website which is located at the following link.
Hyper Cube VR
Unlike the other experiences covered in this blog, Hyper Cube VR is not a game. This project is titled “Interacting With 4D Virtual Objects”, but for the sake of brevity I will be referring to it as Hyper Cube VR in this post. Hyper Cube VR is an interactive experience that allows the player to interact with 3-dimensional representations of 4-dimensional objects like a hyper cube.
Wrapping your head around what a 4-dimensional object is or what it would look like is a challenging task for most people. Attempts to draw or display 4-dimensional objects can get even more confusing when trying to display them on 2D surfaces such as computer screens.
This program takes the next step and makes visualizing these complex forms a little easier on the player by representing them in a manipulatable 3-dimensional form. This project places the player in a room with a hyper cube floating in front of them. The player can rotate the entire structure or grab individual pieces of it and see how the shape changes when moving specific edges or points within the structure.
Although this project may not be a VR game, it is still a fascinating experience for anyone with an interest in 4th dimensional math or physics who has spent time trying to grasp the idea of hyper cubes. This project can be downloaded from the Interacting With 4D Virtual Objects (or Hyper Cube VR for short) website which is located at the following link.
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