🆕 blog! “Beat Saber is gaming without the bullshit”
★★★★★
Several years ago, at the start of the pandemic, I tried using Nintendo's Ring Fit as an exercise method. It didn't last long. I felt I was spending too much time earning in-game currency, making choices on what to spend it on, crafting, managing inventory, choosing power-ups, and all sorts of other tedious nonsen…
Several years ago, at the start of the pandemic, I tried using Nintendo's Ring Fit as an exercise method. It didn't last long. I felt I was spending too much time earning in-game currency, making choices on what to spend it on, crafting, managing inventory, choosing power-ups, and all sorts of other tedious nonsense.
In short, I constantly felt like I was working rather than working out.
If you like that sort of game mechanic; I'm happy for you. But it just turned me off the game so much that I never completed it.
A few years later, I got the Meta Quest 2 VR Headset. Most of the games on it are pretty crappy. Nintendo Wii level graphics, screaming kids on the online experiences, and pathetic battery life. There are a few charming experiences, but it mostly sucks.
I think Beat Saber might be my personal zenith of gaming. There are no complex instructions - you slice the blocks in the indicated direction. That's it. Here's me playing a level (with my microphone muted so you can't hear my huffing and puffing).
There are no power-ups to help you cheat your way through the levels. No boss fights. No collecting or spending coins. The only decisions you're ever asked to make are "what song would you like?" and "how difficult do you want this to be?" Much like the fabled L-Game, it is the distillation of ludic perfection.
Best of all, your only opponent is yourself.
As I've previously noted, most games aren't about you getting better at the game; they're about you getting better equipment. Beat Saber is the opposite. You have to physically practice in order to complete a level.
Note - you don't have to "beat" levels in order to progress. This isn't one of those games which holds content back if you can't complete the earlier levels. If you want to skip a song, or try something harder or easier, you can pick whatever you like.
In does have in-app purchases. Far from being the sort of loot-box bullshit most games are infested with, these are brutally honest. You can buy an album of songs for between £10 - £16. If you try to buy a single song, it will warn you that it is probably cheaper to buy the multipack. If you are happy with the base songs, it won't push the premium ones on you.
And, yes, there is online competitive play if you really want to test your mettle against people younger and fitter than you. But why bother? What good does it do you to know there's some kid in Seoul who can dedicate 20 hours a day to practicing? It doesn't.
I don't know if it is making me fitter. I'm certainly sweating more. And I don't know if I'll continue playing it. But, as long as it doesn't change its basic premise, I'm finding it delightful.
What if you never ever had to put your phone down? Ever?
Eddy Burback's "Apple's $3500 Nightmare" video essay is ridiculous, absurdist, and amazing. Low key humor exploring the dystopian nightmare that VR/AR is ushering in for... reasons?
If you are interested in, less about a tech review, and more about what tech like the Vision Pro mean for humans I recommend giving it a view.
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Tried out shadow.tech for cloud PC & PCVR gaming while I'm travelling.
It worked reasonably well playing #NMS (No Man's Sky) in #VR, but I wasn't able to multiplayer Age of Mythology across our home LAN network. To first order, this is because the cloud PC isn't on our LAN, but I connected it to our other computer via "tailscale" which should have mimicked them being on the same network. I remain rather baffled as to why that didn't work... 🤔
Without a doubt, one of the most common questions we've been asked over the past week is "Will you be supporting VR?" Well, after today we can respond with a resounding yes!
We can now take on the additional resources we need to produce a polished VR experience.
The big pain point in #VR development for me is the cycle of "make changes in the editor and-or the IDE/put on HMD/build project/fumble around for controllers/test/take off HMD/go back to editor."
I'd be thrilled for a VR development environment that works in VR. Unreal Engine 4 had the option of using the editor in VR, but IIRC there was still a fair bit of jank in their system.
Really all I need is passthrough so I can see my physical keyboard in VR. Huh. I wonder if I could build that...
Was happy to see that Fanatical launched a new VR game bundle recently for a fairly good price and seems like it has games that haven't been bundled often before.
This is a build your own bundle offer with these price tiers: 3 for 4.99€, 5 for 7.99€, 7 for 9.99€
List of games you can pick:
Fruit Ninja 2
Ragnarock
I Expect You To Die
Swarm
Audiotrip
Warplanes: Battles Over Pacific
Yupitergrad
Fruit Ninja
Karnage Chronicles
Warplanes: WWI Fighters
Down The Rabbit Hole
Table of Tales: The Crooked Crown
Amid Evil VR
Wraith The Oblivion: Afterlife
Visionarium 2: The Descent
VR Furballs Demolition
The Curious Tale of Stolen Pets
Trickster VR
Monster Showdown
Dance Collider
Mental Hospital VR: Child of Evil
Pinball FX2 VR
The beginning of Myst drops you on an island with... absolutely... zero instructions. While that can be a frustrating start for the uninitiated, it felt incredibly realistic with the headset where game play details can ruin (a little) the immersion.
So, super excited! There's also an updated version for the computer (presumably with free movement) for keyboard warriors.
Join the other patrons at https://live.gamerstavern.online and get ready for some stealth (cough) fun action with Ratto and Alex, playing Vampire the Masquerade: Justice!
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Insightful analysis on the Apple Vision Pro from someone who worked at Oculus: what Apple got right that Oculus has not, why it’s intentionally “an over-engineered devkit”, and why it’s not worth buying yet.