Previews

Quill and I – hands on with Moss at E3 2017

[unitegallery mosspsvr]

I have played quite a few VR games, but I have never had the chance to play a platformer in VR. To me, the idea of a platformer in VR seemed like it would be a waste of the tech. When I play a VR game I want to feel immersed and I always thought that a game that wasn’t in first person would fail to satisfy that desire. Then I played Polyarc’s new VR game Moss and boy was I wrong.

When Quill walked over and looked up at me my first instinct was to look down at her. Immediately a smile came over my face, in the water at the bottom of the screen, I saw my own characters staring back at me. This is by far one of the coolest things that I have seen in any VR game; my mind was completely blown. I must have had a physical reaction as well because the developer knew right away that I had seen my face and mentioned how much he enjoyed that moment as well.

Once I had control of Quill I started moving her around the beautiful and colorful environment and the puzzles started. I was pleasantly surprised at the difficulty of the puzzles. While I could control Quill and use her to complete puzzles, I was also able to reach out and move certain structures on the screen with my own character. This allowed for the puzzles to be more complex. I was stuck on one puzzle for a whole five minutes because I had forgotten that I could manipulate the field. I had been sitting there moving Quill and a beetle back and forth over and over again completely confused when it hit me, all I had to do was reach out and turn the structure in the middle. Doing this was such a moment of triumph. Not only did I get past the puzzle, but I myself was the one who turned the structure making it possible. This adds an extra level of accomplishment that you can’t get in a non-VR game.

I initially thought that the game was going to be a straightforward platformer, where you would go to an area, complete the puzzle, and then move on to the next one. Then I got to a room full of beetles that all decided that they wanted to attack me. At this point Quill pulled out a sword and I was in a fight for survival. The sound of Quill’s sword striking an enemy is one of the most satisfying sounds I have ever heard in any game. I found myself eagerly awaiting each strike just so I could hear that sweet slice.

The final area was a very dark room with a few areas where light shone through. Instantly I was intrigued as to what this darkness was hiding. Then I saw it. Slithering out of the distance was a huge red snake that went straight over and stared Quill right in the face. Finishing the demo I was scared for Quill and excited to see what will happen next.

Zach has been a gamer ever since he picked up a PS1 controller and played Asteroids for the first time. From FPS games to Point-and-click adventures, Zach knows no genre that he can't get into. When not playing games, he spends his time looking at the newest computer components on the market and dreaming of a day when he can buy them.

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