Blind – PAX East 2016 Hand-On Preview

<p>The VR experience is all about immersion&period; It’s about strapping a screen to your eyeballs so you can look around and feel like you’re really within the game world&comma; which makes what I am about to say sound paradoxically odd&period; The best VR game I have played so far makes you play as a girl suddenly and mysteriously stricken with blindness&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><em>Blind<&sol;em>&comma; created by <a href&equals;"http&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;tinybullstudios&period;com&sol;">Tiny Bull Studios<&sol;a>&comma; is a VR-only game with a young girl protagonist who wakes up in a strange mansion&period; Players must use echolocation to escape the mansion and avoid the frightening &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;warden” while exploring and solving a serious of puzzles using motion controllers as &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;hands&period;”<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>While <em>Blind<&sol;em> will be available on all current and upcoming VR platforms&comma; including PlayStation VR&comma; I played it on the current&comma; commercially available version of Oculus&period; By clicking one of the buttons on the left motion controller&comma; you &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;tap” your cane&comma; creating a ghostly&comma; temporary vision of the world around you&period; The vision then slowly fades back into darkness&period; Tapping too quickly causes the imagery to become blurry&comma; forcing you to carefully and continuously time the taps to see the world around you&period; Movement forward and backward is done by way of the stick on the left hand&period; While you can&comma; of course&comma; look in all directions and physically turn left or right&comma; clicking buttons on the left or right controller&comma; abruptly turn you 30 degrees in either direction&period; While this method of movement did feel rudimentary and reminiscent of old PC games like <em>Myst<&sol;em> and <em>The Journeyman Project<&sol;em>&comma; but it did work and successfully solved the problem confronting most VR games&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;105381" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-105381" style&equals;"width&colon; 1024px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-105381 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;04&sol;03184444&sol;Screenshot-1-1024x640&period;png" width&equals;"1024" height&equals;"640" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-105381" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Blind<&sol;em>&comma; Tiny Bull Studios&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>As someone very sensitive to motion sickness&comma; I was weary when trying out <em>Blind&period;<&sol;em> I’m happy to report however that I never felt a moment of queasiness&period; But&comma; moving forward with the push of the stick while physically remaining standing still was initially quite disorienting&comma; making me feel as though the rug was being slightly tugged forward&comma; out from under me&period; After a few moments&comma; the disorientation did subside and I was able to focus on solving the <em>Resident Evil-<&sol;em>style puzzles you assume you’d find in a creepy&comma; video game mansion&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Despite continually keeping you on the edge of total darkness&comma; <em>Blind<&sol;em> is not a horror game&comma; Tiny Bull Studios’ CEO Matteo Lana&comma; assured me&period; &OpenCurlyDoubleQuote;Its more of a narrative-focused&comma; slow-paced exploration game with puzzles&comma; with maybe a few scary moments here and there&period;” he said&period; During my demo&comma; despite the constant feeling of unease and vulnerability in the darkness&comma; I only encountered one slight&comma; unexpected moment that was more of a shock than a scare&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;105379" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-105379" style&equals;"width&colon; 1024px" class&equals;"wp-caption aligncenter"><img class&equals;"wp-image-105379 size-large" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2016&sol;04&sol;03184602&sol;Screenshot-4-1-1024x640&period;png" width&equals;"1024" height&equals;"640" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-105379" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;<em>Blind<&sol;em>&comma; Tiny Bull Studios&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>As mentioned earlier&comma; <em>Blind<&sol;em> will be coming to all VR platforms this summer as it’s approximately 80&percnt; complete&period; <em>Blind<&sol;em> will probably not be a launch title for PlayStation VR which is upsetting as it was far and away better than any of the PlayStation VR titles playable at PAX East&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><iframe src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;embed&sol;Wgu8iGEcrjU" width&equals;"560" height&equals;"315" frameborder&equals;"0" allowfullscreen&equals;"allowfullscreen"><&sol;iframe><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Many consumers incorrectly think that VR is the future of their favorite franchises&period; What VR has to offer isn&&num;8217&semi;t the ability to play as Master Chief&comma; but to experience something altogether new and <em>Blind<&sol;em> is a much-needed creative step in that direction&period; If you’re interested in VR&comma; keep your eyes open for <em>Blind<&sol;em>&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;