After spending the better part of 2016 learning, designing, playing, and demoing VR - here’s my top picks for VR in 2016 (in no particular order):
Fantastic Contraption (Vive, Oculus Rift, PSVR Coming Soon)
Yes it’s a great game about creativity and experimentation, but it’s also built from the ground up to solve the design challenges facing VR. The game’s devotion to physical interaction led to some brilliant design ideas that are already influencing the emerging industry in a big way. As the team has worked to port to other platforms (Oculus Touch and PSVR), they continue to come up with fun, creative solutions to pretty big challenges.
The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed (Vive, Oculus Rift)
An emerging trend in VR is to keep the players hands gloved or stylized so you don’t cause a disconnection between the player and having the wrong gendered/colored hands. The Gallery deliberately ignores this, because you are playing as a specific character. Something you are subtly but deliberately reminded of every time you see your 20 something, caucasian female hands. This is one small example of attention to detail that oozes from every dark corner of The Gallery. It’s one of the most polished of the early VR releases and is the only experience out so far that comes close to the promise of living your favorite movie or book.
AltspaceVR (Gear VR, Vive, Oculus Rift, plus 2D mode for Mac & PC)
Social VR is going to revolutionize how we interact with each other - Facebook even bet $2 billion on it. AltspaceVR is a great first step into that future. Hang out together with friends no matter where they are in the world. Play Cards Against Humanity, watch a movie, or even go to a live comedy show together.
VR is a unique story telling medium that allows for a much deeper connection between viewer and the characters. Henry is a beautiful animated short from Pixar and Disney alumni designed around empathy. It’s a proof of concept for an entirely new form of entertainment…so that’s kinda cool I guess.
One of the creators of Rick and Morty and one of the creators of The Stanley Parable got together and made a batshit crazy experience about accounting and reality and murder and explosives. It’s another awesome example of interactive storytelling that you could never do without VR.
theBlu (Vive, Oculus Rift)
Whenever I have someone who’s never tried VR, I start them with theBlu. It lets them to get acclimated to the headset and controllers without asking much of them and still blowing their minds. It’s a great argument for virtual tourism and educational content in VR. It’s also one of my favorite places to just hang out - sometimes I boot it up and lie down in the middle of a tropical reef for funsies.
Job Simulator (Vive, Oculus Rift, PSVR)
If theBlu is the first stop for new VR users, Job Sim is stop number two. Yes, it’s really funny - but it’s secret comes in how it teaches you to VR without you realizing it. Job Sim doesn’t shy away from the hard problems of VR. The result is one of the most intuitive VR experiences so far. It’s also one of the only games that’s more fun to play with other people in the room, becoming a stage to act out crazy things for your friends.
Tilt Brush is the first in a line of creation tools in VR - the MS paint to whatever the future version of Photoshop in VR will be. It doesn’t take much imagination to see the potential for professional artist tools once you’ve painted your first line of neon light in three dimensions. There’s already been a collection of drawing, sculpting and music recording tools following in Tilt Brushes footsteps.
Space Pirate Trainer (Vive, Oculus Rift)
2016 was the year of the wave based shooter in VR. It makes a lot of sense because it’s an easy way to avoid the locomotion problem. SPT shines as the top example of the genre. It’s among the most polished of the bunch, but it also avoids the discomfort and stress that might make you less likely to play it’s competitors for another round. The drones in SPT kindly stay out of your personal bubble and don’t stealthily sneak up behind you.
NYTVR (Cardboard, Gear VR, Daydream)
The New York Times has been an important force behind the early days of VR, sending out Google Cardboards to their subscribers and creating world class content that can be viewed without high end hardware. They’ve been defining VR journalism for over a year now (which is forever in VR time). Harnessing VR’s power of empathy, anyone can embed with Iraqi forces fighting ISIS, hit the presidential campaign trail, or meet the child refugees displaced by war.
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