Indie publisher Raw Fury says it’s bringing three VR adaptations of popular flatscreen indie titles to Quest: Call of the Sea (2020), The Signifier (2020), and Per Aspera (2020).
Revealed during UploadVR’s Winter Showcase this week, Raw Fury showed off an updated gameplay trailer for Call of the Sea VR, which was previously announced back in September. It also revealed two other titles in its upcoming publishing portfolio, The Signifier VR and Per Aspera VR.
Check out the trailers below:
Call of the Sea VR
Description: Call of the Sea is an otherworldly tale of mystery and love set in the 1930s South Pacific. Explore a lush island paradise, solve puzzles and unlock secrets in the hunt for your husband’s missing expedition.
Description: This story-driven adventure follows a mystery of death and despair from reality into the surreal realms of objective memories and subjective experiences. Search the mind, solve puzzles, and unravel the dark truth in this psychological thriller.
Description: Make Mars your own! Take control of the world’s most sophisticated AI (AMI) and terraform the surface of the Red Planet for a city-building experience on a planetary scale. Transform this barren world into a lush paradise and explore the surface for any ancient secrets that may be waiting.
Learning a foreign language typically requires some level of full immersion, meaning you spend a significant amount of time interacting with the target language in order to make the sort of transformative gains that allow you to function effortlessly in normal, everyday situations. That’s where Noun Town comes in, a gamified VR app that offers basic immersive instruction in six major languages, letting you interact with over a dozen NPCs who speak the lingo.
Ideally, the fastest way of acquiring a new language is by mixing with native speakers on a daily basis, although that can require significant life changes like moving to a foreign country, or constantly engaging with language partners online. Getting face-to-face with a native language speaker is also probably one of the most anxiety-inducing things to do as a beginner, which is where Noun Town looks to ease things.
Noun Town includes basic instruction in Japanese, Chinese, Spanish, French, German, and Italian. This includes stuff like numbers, greetings, questions, colors, and phrases to get you started on your language learning adventure.
The app, which features 1,000+ words and phrases in each target language, is all about learning by doing, as 16 voice-activated characters offer up basic conversations. Including seven mini-games, your overall objective is to bring color back to the island as you learn, developers realiaXR say.
Noun Town is now available on the Quest Store for $15, and is also set to launch on PC VR headsets via Steam on December 15th. There’s already a Steam demo available, which includes a good slice of the app’s reported “50+ hours” of content.
Fortnite doesn’t natively support VR headsets, and although rumors have been floating around recently that allege the popular battle royale shooter may eventually include a VR mode, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney says it’s not happening.
Update (December 9th, 2022): In an interview with Tim Sweeney from The Verge, the Epic Games CEO made it clear that the company has “no plans” for a VR supported version of Fortnite. According to Sweeney, it just wouldn’t work well:
“The thing that we do in Fortnite every day as gamers is run through an environment rapidly, and it’s the kind of experience that involves intense motion and doesn’t work as well in VR,” Sweeney told The Verge.
This comes as stark contrast to previous rumors, which alleged that code found in recent updates included mention of Oculus. The rumor, detailed below, was most likely a case of leftover residue from Unreal Engine 5 development. The original article follows below:
Original Article (August 30th, 2022): Update 21.50, the game’s fifth and final update to Season 3, is rolling out today, and it seems data miner and itinerant Fortnite leaker HYPEX has gotten a look under the hood, maintaining that Epic has added “stuff related to Oculus.”
We haven’t been able to independently verify this, however HYPEX, who is known in the community as a reliable leaker, surmises this could point to VR support being added at some point in the future.
Epic added stuff related to Oculus (Quest, Quest 2 & Mobile) in today’s update. Most likely proper VR support in the future..
If Fortnite can manage the go native on the Quest platform like HYPEX’s tweet suggests, it’s a pretty big deal. Fortnite on Quest 2 would not only stand a chance at eclipsing its largest VR-supported competitors Roblox and Minecraft, but also offer up competition to multiplayer VR experiences and games like Meta’s Horizon platform, Rec Room,VRChat, and Population: One (2020). In short, Fortnite getting on Quest could make it one of the most popular VR games there overnight.
Of course, there’s the matter of shoehorning the large-scale multiplayer shooter onto Quest 2’s modest Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 processor, which is a challenge in its own right. Still, Epic Games has been a big proponent of VR since the launch the original Oculus Rift in 2016, having pioneered VR support for its Unreal Engine whilst putting out one of the slickest VR arcade shooters to this day, Robo Recall (2016). It basically wrote the book on optimizing games for VR headsets, and is a founding member of the OpenXR initiative, an open standard for VR/AR app development.
In more recent years however, the company has focused on building its own Epic Games Store distribution channel and pushing Fortnite way past its original conception point as a free battle royale shooter. It now includes multiple game modes, a creative sandbox mode, and regularly hosts live events such as concerts and special in-game events.
Earlier this year Epic secured a $2 billion investment to stoke its metaverse ambitions, something CEO and founder of Epic Tim Sweeney said at the time would “accelerate our work to build the metaverse and create spaces where players can have fun with friends, brands can build creative and immersive experiences and creators can build a community and thrive.”
The Netherlands is one of the best places in the world for startups and businesses working on green tech. Managing the climate is deeply rooted in Dutch culture. With nearly a third of its land below sea level, the country has been highly-adaptive to environmental challenges — finding ways to turn them into opportunities for technological growth. Think, for instance, of how the Dutch have managed to reclaim land from sea with polders, or avoid flooding from the North Sea with the construction of the Delta Works, a series of dams and surge barriers along the southern West coast. The…
VR robots are slowly moving into the mainstream with applications that go beyond the usual manufacturing processes. Robots have been in use for years in industrial settings where they perform automated repetitive tasks. But their practical use has been quite limited. Today, however, we see some of them in the consumer sector delivering robotic solutions that require customization.
Augmented by other technologies such as AR, VR, and AI, robots show improved efficiency and safety in accomplishing more complex processes. With VR, humans can supervise the robots remotely to enhance their performance. VR technology provides human operators with a more immersive environment. This enables them to interact with robots better and view the actual surroundings of the robots in real time. Consequently, this opens vast opportunities for practical uses that enhance our lives.
Real-Life Use Cases of VR Robots
1. TX SCARA: Automated Restocking of Refrigerated Shelves
Developed by Telexistence, TX SCARA is powered by three main technologies—robotics, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. This robot specializes in restocking refrigerated shelves in stores. It relies on GORDON, its AI system, to know when and where to place products. When issues arise due to external factors or system miscalculation, Telexistence employees use VR headsets to control the robot remotely and address the problem.
TX SCARA is present in 300 FamilyMart stores in Japan. Plans to expand their use in convenience stores in the United States are already underway. With TX SCARA capable of working 24/7 with a pace of up to 1,000 bottles or cans per day, it can replace up to three hours of human work each day for a single store alone.
2. Reachy: A Robot That Shows Emotions
Reachy gives VR robots a human side. An expressive humanoid platform, Reachy mimics human expressions and body language. It conveys human emotions through its antennas and motions.
Reachy
Users operate Reachy remotely using VR equipment that shows the environment surrounding the robot. They can move Reachy’s head, arms, and hands to manipulate objects and interact with people around the robot. They can also control Reachy’s mobile base to move around and explore its environment.
Since it can be programmed with Python and ROS to perform almost any task, its use cases are virtually limitless. It has applications across various sectors, such as research (to explore new frontiers in robotics), healthcare (to replace mechanical tasks), retail (to enhance customer experiences), education (to make learning more immersive), and many others. Reachy is also fully customizable, with many different configurations, modules, and hardware options available.
3. Robotic VR: Haptic Technology for Medical Care
A team of researchers co-led by the City University of Hong Kong has developed an advanced robotic VR system that has great potential for use in healthcare. Robotic VR, an innovative human-machine interface (HMI), can be used to perform medical procedures. This includes conducting swab tests and caring for patients with infectious diseases.
Doctors, nurses, and other health practitioners control the VR robot using a VR headset and flexible electronic skin that enables them to experience tactile sensations while interacting remotely with patients. This allows them to control and adjust the robot’s motion and strength as they collect bio-samples or provide nursing care. Robotic VR can help minimize the risk of infection and prevent contagion.
4. Skippy: Your Neighborhood Delivery Robot
Skippy elevates deliveries to a whole new level. Human operators, called Skipsters, control these VR robots remotely. They use VR headsets to supervise the robots as they move about the neighborhood. When you order food or groceries from a partner establishment, Skippy picks it up and delivers it to your doorstep. Powered by AI and controlled by Skipsters, the cute robot rolls through pedestrian paths while avoiding foot traffic and obstacles.
Virtual reality is an enabling technology in robotics. By merging these two technologies, we’re bound to see more practical uses of VR-enabled robots in the consumer market. As the technologies become more advanced and the hardware required becomes more affordable, we can expect to see more VR robots that we can interact with as we go through our daily lives.
Developments in VR interface and robotics technology will eventually pave the way for advancements in the usability of VR robots in real-world applications.
