vr

My second VR game completed! A Fisherman’s Tale is a first person point and click adventure game set inside a lighthouse. Only the twist is, inside the lighthouse is a model of the same lighthouse only that lighthouse is the lighthouse you’re in. In turn, the lighthouse you’re in is therefore inside a larger lighthouse.

A similar premise was used in the game Maquette, although the scope there was much larger, complicated, and not in VR. Being in VR it feels a lot more claustrophobic, partly because you’re right in the game but also because the lighthouse is pretty cramped.

Puzzles are mostly of the sort where you have to take an object and put it somewhere, but the various scales of lighthouses (lighthousen?) means that you sometimes have to shrink or grow them by dropping them and picking them up from a different lighthouse “level”. There’s a plot about fishing and storms and stuff, which are actually a metaphor for something else, and it’s clear that you’re not a real person but some sort of puppet lighthouse keeper which makes things a little surreal. That and the talking fish.

It’s a nice little game which can be a bit fiddly to navigate (mainly with moving around – it does that VR “teleport” thing which is tricky in an enclosed space), but is clever and funny.

I was recently bought a Meta Quest 2, which – naturally – meant I needed to figure out what games work well on such a thing and which were worth my time playing. One that was recommended over and over was Moss, so here I am telling you about My First Ever Completed VR Game!

If you take VR out of the equation, Moss is a nice little platformer with some puzzles and sword fighting as you take your mouse through some pretty areas like woods, a deserted village and eventually a castle. But, being in VR, it all feels like a set of interactive dioramas that you can reach into and look over walls and round corners as you do so. I suppose it isn’t immersive in the way you’d “traditionally” expect a VR game to be, but it is wonderfully tactile and immersive, like a kid’s playset come to life.

The Quest 2 itself doesn’t quite have a comfortable level of resolution so everything feels a bit pixellated and/or blurry, but Moss doesn’t seem to be affected quite as much as the other demos and apps I’d tried before playing it. All the depth effects feel “right”, and although I’ve yet to feel any VR nausea (not even in the VR rollercoaster sims) I can appreciate that the mostly static stage “scenes” would probably go a long way to helping those who do.

Graphically it is quite lovely, with nice lighting effects and detailed characters. Some of the backgrounds are populated with large objects and creatures (there’s a fantastic stag in one section) which help make you feel mouse-sized. Moss herself is animated really well and I love how you can pat or stroke her and she responds. She even high-fives you after tricky sections. Well, providing you don’t leave her hanging.

The gameplay isn’t actually that novel or unique, although physically reaching for handles and buttons with your own hands does change things a bit from the norm. It’s the way it is presented, the polish and the animations that really make it stand out for me. The VR is understated but impressive, the puzzles are OK but nothing too taxing, and the combat is a little quirky (especially when you use one baddie to attack another), but the sum of the parts is a beautiful little game with a lot of heart.

A Fisherman’s Tale (Quest): COMPLETED!

Moss (Quest): COMPLETED!