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Antichamber trips the Oculus Rift
Indie hit Antichamber is already a mind-bending monster, but now add some Oculus Rift and you've got a "trapped on the holodeck" episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. That's what computer science student Vaecon has done in this VR conversion of the game. "It's interesting seeing that someone has gone ahead and done this, and I guess I really need to go and get it up and supported officially," said Antichamber developer Alexander Bruce when we pointed out the video to him. "I have an Oculus dev kit at home, but haven't yet run the game on it myself. I tried watching that video using the good old cross-eyed method, but it was pretty much the same as seeing the game normally. The lack of textures in the game makes it really difficult to see any real sense of depth." At least Antichamber looks like a more cerebral and calm Oculus experience than some of the whiplash inducing games we've seen use the tech.
Antichamber half-off on Steam today, soundtrack now available
Antichamber is on sale for $10 on Steam for today only. If you are only interested in hearing Antichamber, the soundtrack for the game is now available on BandCamp for $6, as well as a four-track "Meditation Walk" ambient album by Antichamber Sound Designer Robin Arnott for $4. The soundtrack, provided by Siddhartha Barnhoorn, features nine tracks in total. You can purchase both albums in a special double album pack for $8 through BandCamp.
Antichamber chops half off its price, Starseed Pilgrim takes off on Steam
Antichamber is half off on Steam through April 18 at 4 p.m. PT, bringing the price of completely blowing your mind to $10. What a steal. Antichamber has already "absolutely, exponentially" made back its production costs for developer Alexander Bruce, but a Steam sale never hurt anyone.In more psychological Steam news, IGF nominee Starseed Pilgrim is out now to teach you how to tend the seeds of the universe. You little gardener, you. Starseed Pilgrim is $6, now and forever, for PC and Mac.
Antichamber preview: Psycholudology
Trying to describe the hour I spent with Alexander Bruce's PAX 10 Finalist indie game, Antichamber, is going to be one of the most difficult descriptive feats I've ever attempted. I think that the big hang-up is that it's going to mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people: For me, my time with the game was all about learning the obscure rules of a universe with no immediate context; a game about second, then third, then fourth-guessing my own actions until I found a solution I was able to walk away from with just a modicum of satisfaction. For the person who took up the demo after me, it was about moving forward as quickly he could, attempting to adhere to an entirely pointless 90-minute time limit while ignoring all the lessons the game had to teach. Here's the thing: I'm not entirely sure either of us was playing it wrong.
Indie game 'Hazard: The Journey of Life' is now Antichamber
Hazard: The Journey of Life, by Alexander Bruce, is a super-abstract first-person exploration game, whose rules seem to constantly change. For example, a door might not lead to the same place twice, and a wall might be a door depending on how you look at it. And now, even the name has shifted -- to Antichamber, in advance of its commercial release ("when it's done"). Speaking to Joystiq, Bruce explained the motivations behind the midstream re-christening, by way of explaining the evolution of the name and the game. "Hazard' was chosen back when I was first exploring the geometry system," he said, "and the game was all about killing players in an arena combat game, but eventually that idea died off, and I just kept calling anything related to the geometry system 'Hazard' because I was used to it." He began adding "philosophical" themes "about choices and metaphor" in 2009, at which point the "Journey of Life" subtitle came in. Now, he explained, the game is less about philosophy and more about "non-Euclidean space, non-physical geometry and massively toying with expectations in a meaningful way." Antichamber covers those angles better than Hazard did. "The game speaks for itself, so the name change is really just bringing it up to date with everything else that has changed."
