XR in NL - Dutch VR games
A look at the virtual reality games from The Netherlands
It’s difficult to pick what to begin this post with. On the one hand I could argue that Amsterdam’s Force Field VR, being by far the largest virtual reality games studio in the Netherlands, should kick off things. On the other hand, it’s the much smaller Vertigo Games from Rotterdam which has punched far above its weight with its smash hit Arizona Sunshine.
Vertigo Games
Let’s get that undead giant out of the way first, because there’s no going around the fact that its gory zombies have managed to stumble their way into an impressively great many VR headsets in the less than a year since it was released. Besides being a commercial success, it was also received well by critics and players, while gathering up some important award recognition.
I recently played through the game and must admit that I thoroughly enjoyed it. Trying to figure out its attraction, I think it comes down to three main factors:
- The basic mechanics of a first person zombie shooter simply work very well in VR. Swinging around a submachine gun in one hand and a shotgun in the other with the Oculus Touch controllers, while trying to survive in the middle of a zombie horde, gets very intense and exciting.
- The game feels very polished throughout everything ranging from the visual design and the player movement to the guns and the voice acting. Such a trait is hard to quantify, but you only need to play five minutes or so to feel it and it makes a huge difference in the overall experience and enjoyment.
- Most importantly, it has a spark of life throughout the game. This comes out the strongest in the writing and voice acting, which really pulls the game from just the mechanics working well into a story which you want to see through to the end.
All together I would definitely recommend you try it out!
With such a success, it’s going to be interesting to see what Vertigo Games comes up with next. It has resumed work on Skyworld, a title which it worked on in the past, but which was put on hold to allow them to focus on Arizona Sunshine. With the PlayStation VR version of Arizona Sunshine now also finished, it has given the team a chance to get back to finishing Skyworld.
It’s a completely different type of game, combining both turn-based and real-time elements in a tabletop strategy game. As the release of the game (planned for fall 2017) draws near, more and more information is appearing in the open and a closed beta is expected in October. It will be fun to see what they make of it!
Force Field VR
While we wait though, let’s turn out attention to that other big name in virtual reality gaming in The Netherlands: Force Field VR.
The key to understanding Force Field VR is its origin. Originally known as Vanguard Games, it was best known for creating the twin-stick shooter games Halo: Spartan Assault and Halo: Spartan Strike. In April of 2016 the team behind Vanguard decided to take the risky gamble of going all in on VR and announced that it would dedicate the entire studio to VR projects under the Force Field VR brand.
There was method in their madness though, because underlying this was a deal with Oculus to create a showcase game funded by Oculus Studios, which greatly reduced the business risk of this transition. That first game was an attempt to translate the twin-stick shooter mechanism to VR and took the shape Force Field VR’s first VR title Landfall, understandably an Oculus Rift exclusive.
While developing Landfall, Force Field worked on a second game in parallel called Term1nal, which shares some similarities such as the topdown camera viewpoint, but applies these to a different genre (stealth puzzle game) on a different platform (Samsung Gear VR).
The game reminded me a lot of the Commandos games from back in the nineties, which were great fun. I would note that the game was a bit liberal in the multiple-reuse of level environments to extend the length of the game without having to create immense amounts of original artwork, but I can live with that.
I played through both Landfall and Term1nal and the most noticeable characteristic is how polished both games are. They run well, play smoothly and look and sound good. To be honest, I would be very surprised if they had been any different, considering the size and experience of the team which built them.
And yet, and this is a personal opinion, I was a bit disappointed. Somehow these games did not manage to grab me the way Arizona Sunshine did. They are both solid games, but I never got pulled in completely. And to match this feeling they haven’t managed to get a lot of traction in the media either after the initial PR spike at launch. Look at any list of ‘best VR games’ and there’s a decent chance of finding Arizona Sunshine being mentioned, but it’s only rarely you’ll encounter either of Force Field’s games there.
This made me curious as to what made this difference. My first instinct was that it had to do with that the top down camera type of game which Force Field built was just less of a natural fit to VR than the first person shooter perspective of Arizona Sunshine. However the more I thought about it, the less I felt that that was the main cause. Especially in Landfall, the top down perspective at times worked quite well in giving the sense that I was really looking down on the battlefield from above as a sort of all-seeing general. It didn’t always work, and to a degree it would have worked just fine as well when played from that perspective on a regular monitor setup without VR glasses, but I don’t think it was the crucial difference.
The root cause I believe is not actually specific to VR and has much more to do with storytelling. It has to do with those little details that make things interesting, a well-written and well-told story, a bit of charm, which manages to move the focus from just the game mechanics to the entire experience. Arizona Sunshine is really strong in this area, it pulls you into a gripping world with an engrossing main character, while simultaneously sprinkling in enough humour to not take itself too seriously.
In the case of both Landfall and Term1nal, and this might sound a bit harsh, it felt a bit like the backstory was at the level of a 1980s arcade game. More a mandatory bit of glue to connect the missions than an important part of making the game appealing. It’s strange to see how much of a difference that makes in how you perceive a game and how it is received.
Let me reiterate though that it doesn’t mean these are bad games. Not at all! I enjoyed playing them quite a bit and it wouldn’t hurt at all to check them out. It just means that unfortunately they don’t make it into the great category. And that’s a shame, because I think it’s fair to expect great games from a team as experienced and well-staffed as that at Force Field VR.
Luckily we’re still early in the early days and everyone is still finding their way in the medium, so I’m eager to see what Force Field VR has up its sleeve next. That might actually be in other areas than the direct to consumer games market, judging by the recent investment it received earmarked for developing location based VR (experiences for theme parks, VR arcades, etc), the stake it acquired in the more business-focused Isaac VR and the enjoyable Rembrandt-themed interactive experience it released a few weeks ago.
With 80 people and a lot more being recruited I do hope they find the time to crank out a great game or two while doing all that serious stuff to keep the chimneys smoking.
Pillow’s Willow
It’s not only the major players making interesting games, as Eindhoven’s Pillow’s Willow demonstrates with its atmospheric Samsung Gear VR game Spark of Light. They’ve managed to put together a not too long, but enjoyable game with a very well executed fairy tale feeling to it. It has a pleasant Eftelingy vibe to it. Its non-violent gameplay makes it suitable for younger kids as well, but don’t let that keep you away if you’ve got a few grey hairs already.
Spark of Light originated from an early demo of a similar game using an HTC Vive in combination with Manus VR gloves. With the Gear VR version now released as Spark of Light, the studio has returned finishing that initial demo into a full game which will carry the name of the studio: Pillow’s Willow. I’m curious to see if they manage to infuse it with the same enjoyable atmosphere.
Sticky Studios
Based in Utrecht a Dutch game studio is operating on a very international stage. Sticky Studios has specialised in making promotional games tied into movies and also has a few VR titles in that area, such as Suicide Squad: Special Ops VR and King Arthur VR. As is typical for such games, they tend to be a relatively basic, quick bit of fun, but often not much more than that. It would be interesting to see what they could create if they went all in on a game of their own.
House of Secrets
Another studio which has something brewing on the fire is Amsterdam-based House of Secrets, which last month started teasing an end of 2017 release of VR puzzle platformer KIN for Gear VR and Oculus Rift. Not much is known yet, but it definitely has a distinctive visual style going for it.
The VR Arcade
Although a slightly different beast, I think this one is worth being mentioned. The VR Arcade in Amsterdam offers a zombie shooter multiplayer VR game in which you have to survive wave upon wave of zombies. It shares some similarities with Arizona Sunshine’s horde mode, although it adds a few interesting enhancements made possible by this being a location based game in an arcade setting.
It pushes beyond your everyday at home VR setup in a few important ways, such as a 200 square metre motion tracked space, much bigger than your ideal 5 metre by 5 metre HTC Vive setup. Using backpack PCs allows you to roam around freely and the addition of gun accessories makes the experience a lot more immersive than using a regular Oculus Touch or HTC Vive controller. To top it off, it’s a five player game, which tends to add a lot of hilarity to the game.
Although at times still a bit rough around the edges in its execution, with occasional bugs, tracking issues, etc, it already offers a fun experience. I can only imagine what this could become if it had the polish which a team the size of Force Field could add to it and how it will evolve as VR technology improves. Also, adding a few other game modes next to the zombie shooting could spice things up a bit. Perhaps a licensed deal with the Aliens movie universe or Starship Troopers? I’m sure that would make setting up your own arcade even more tempting.
Looking at the list, I think it’s quite impressive for a country as small as The Netherlands. There are some pretty decent games in there already, with more on the horizon. I hope you enjoyed reading about them and be sure to check them out if you’re interested!
If you feel I’ve missed anything which should definitely be on the list, please let me know. I’ll probably do a follow up post around the end of the year when a few of the upcoming games mentioned here have been released.
Quick update: several people mentioned the Albert Heijn apps by &samhoud media and Little Chicken, but I’ve left those out on purpose because, although they’re quite good apps, I don’t see those as games so much as marketing campaigns.
About me: I’m freelancer based at VRBASE in Amsterdam working on VR/AR/MR projects, sometimes as a developer, sometimes as a technical project manager. If you want to get in touch, drop me an email at technology@siekerman.nl or contact me through LinkedIn.
