Trying to make 2026 awesome: Dune, BG3, and Quest 3S

Hey all, welcome to 2026! I've had a really hard time writing on my blog lately. I don't know what it is . . . I guess after Dune and all my cancer nonsense of last year, I just fizzled out a bit. If you don't mind (I'm sure you don't), Imma just journal a bit here and catch up to the present. M'kay? M'kay!

1- Real Life -- Couple things to note here. Mom died. It's ok. She lived a good, long life. I officiated the funeral for the family, and my company granted me a week of bereavement leave. I wrote up her obituary and went with my sister to decide on the casket, flowers, and etc. It was painful, but necessary and important family work.

My kids were very respectful pallbearers

At the same time, I got hit with the Flu that's been going around. It's like 2025 was trying to give me a final punch in the gut.  Can 2026 just be a bit more awesome please?  Luckily Tamiflu knocked it out of me in time for the funeral.

As for cancer, well, I'm still doing immunotherapy infusions every three weeks.  It's my new normal.  Hopefully, my upcoming CT Scan shows continued improvement.

2- Dune -- yeah, I haven't really logged on to do anything on Dune more than just refilling my base's (and Dylan's bases') power supplies. It's dry gameplay that just isn't that fun.

Oh, you know, just spending an hour collecting fuel cells to power the bases . . .

On the upside, everybody on our server's sietch is jumping ship to a different sietch and changing over to a new guild, so that might actually get me logged on to do the same.  I don't know. When a game becomes nothing more than chores you have to do, it feels a bit . . . dead.  The third DLC is supposed to be dropping sometime early this year though, so if that happens, I'll for sure be joining in to play through more of the story.

3- Baldur's Gate 3 -- I should probably dedicate an entire blog post to my recent playthrough of BG3, and actually, yeah, I think I'll do that at some point. The short story of this playthrough is that my son started DM'ing a game that takes place in the Feywild, and I'm playing a clown-based Mischief cleric named Dandy Goofus.  I was so excited about this character that I made him over in Baldur's Gate 3 to see how he plays.

Clown makeup secured!

The original goal was simply to get him to Act 3 so I could get him the clown makeup from the circus, but I ended up really going crazy on Act 3 and doing everything I just kind of skipped through in the past.  That means I actually helped Shadowheart with her Mother Superior problem. That means I helped Asterion become a Vampire lord. That even means I saved Minsc, fought Raphael, destroyed the steel watcher factory, and got Orpheus's hammer.

BG's newest vampire lord in the house!

Really, all that's left in this play through is to get the last Dribbles the Clown body part (this is just some clown-to-clown good deed stuff I need to do), finish up the Orin fight, and take the final fight to the brain. I'm near the end, and I kind of don't want it to end. :(

4- Quest 3S -- I got TWO Quest 3S's for Christmas: one for me and one for my youngest. They were on sale for $200 at Costco during the holidays, and I couldn't resist.

I've told a few people who read this blog already, but I'll repeat myself here: I don't think I realized how devastated I really was when I had to return my Quest 3 engineering model to Meta when WIMO folded. It felt like a larger metaphor in my life for some reason (as weird as that may seem). I put that thing on after opening up my Christmas present and played Smash Drums until the battery ran out. It felt really good. It felt really cathartic.

Smash those drums!

I've played a few other games on my Quest 3S since Christmas, and that means, if I can get to it, I've got more fuel for the blog post dumpster fire in me!

~~

Anyway, that should catch you up on the holidays and the start of 2026. Thanks for reading, and let me know your thoughts. I love hearing from readers and old friends. I appreciate it and hope your holidays went well and that your 2026 is starting off right.

Happy Dueling!

VR Platforming on a Pogo Stick -- Welcome to Stilt

 A few weeks ago, someone noted you could pick up a normally $20 game for $2 called Stilt. I'm a fan of picking up VR games for $2 . . . especially when they turn out to be pretty good games!

I've talked a fair amount about VR platforming games here on TFN. Astrobot during the COVID era was what initially made me fall in love with VR. Back in November 2023, I boldly declared that No More Rainbows was the evolution of VR platforming because it lived in the era post-Gorilla Tag and used arm movement to get around.

Stilt firmly resides in that same category as No More Rainbows. In this game, your arms are basically pogo sticks, and you use them to bounce around classic platforming puzzles to collect stamps and gift boxes. 

Feels straight outta Mario

I say classic platforming puzzles intentionally because that's part of what differentiates this game from No More Rainbows. The platforms, obstacles, and enemies feel more like something out of an old-school NES Super Mario game more than anything, and it's every bit as difficult in many ways.  

Stamps!  GOTTA GET THOSE STAMPS!

Stamps are pretty much like your standard classic Mario coin or Sonic ring. Much like Sonic, your stamps are also your key to staying alive.  If you lose three hearts during a level, you can start over from a checkpoint for the cost of 10 stamps. Gift Boxes are what you're trying to earn throughout the levels. Each level can cough up to 5 gift boxes: 3 for completing objectives in the levels, 1 for surviving to the end of a level with a lot of stamps, and 1 for racing to the finish quickly.

I do like how you climb into these mailboxes to start a level

As you progress through the levels, you'll find pogo leg power-ups that convert your regular pogo legs into awesome pogo legs. They feel a bit like gadgets that Inspector Gadget might have used (Could you imagine if this was an Inspector Gadget platformer instead of what it is?):

- Fireball pogo leg -- you can shoot three shots at enemies in rapid succession before entering a cooldown for the gun.

- Slow pogo leg -- you can slow down time to help you dodge better or freeze puzzles for a few seconds for a better view.

- Magnet pogo leg -- you can suck stamps toward you for collection.  

- Swing pogo leg -- you can shoot out a vine and swing from it, giving you extra height or distance.

- Glider pogo leg -- you can use it like a helicopter blade for a short time to carry you far across the map or toward a goal quickly.

- Rocket pogo leg -- you can blast in any direction quickly for an extra boost

- etc. (I don't know if I've found all the legs yet)

As you progress from world to world, you eventually hit walls where you have to deposit gift boxes into a mailbox to open the wall and let you through. The first levels use Green boxes, which can only be inserted into the green mailbox. The next set of levels uses Purple boxes, etc.

My current wall I can't pogo past

So far, I'm through the first two walls of gameplay as I'm making my way up to what appears to be some kind of tentacular type of monster, which certainly is the end boss.

Pointing my pogos in the general direction of the big bad boss!

I've heard some mixed reviews on this game, and I get it.  The "classic" platforming vibe feels a bit dated, and your pogo-sticking self doesn't really have a lot of charm.  If there is a complaint from me, it's that . . . compare this game to No More Rainbows, and you're missing charm, and THAT is what I wish I had more of.  Max Mustard had charm. Astrobot had charm. Lucky's Tale was oozing in charm. In comparison, Stilt is, well, stilted in its lack of charm. Then again, I haven't played multiplayer yet, which is where I imagine I'd maybe find a bit more of what I'm looking for.

THAT SAID. YAY VR PLATFORMING FUN! I don't want you to think that I'm not having fun with this game. I am, and for the crazy price of $2, I'm getting more fun than I bargained for.

Don't fall into the quicksand!

I'll be reporting more on this game, and hopefully, when I soon beat the end boss. Until then . . .

Happy Dueling!

Rolling the Credits on Asgard's Wrath

Ok, I've finished Asgard's Wrath. whew. That was a workout, a crazy grind fest, and also pretty amazing. What a fun game!

It's so much fun to see all the main cast dancing at the very end of the game.

So when last we left our hero, I was taking on the second half of Stikkan's story. It took a bunch of work, but eventually I leveled up Stikkan's gear enough that he could survive till the end fight, which was pretty epic.  Hel sucks you up into a vortex and then starts flying around you and trying to chuck giant iceballs at you. It's all about shooting her with your God bow at the right times.

A couple of Superstars about to go WWE in Aegir's Hall!

When you do defeat her, you get the Greed Stone and give it to Loki, and Hel busts into the tavern. After a heated exchange, she's banished. End of problem. All that was left after that was to travel to Jotunheim and take on the final arc of Risi's story. 

Risi, as it turns out, while technically is a half-giant, he's an absolute dwarf compared to the actual giants. Once you free the giant chieftains from Thor, they grant you a big club and tell you that you have to be the one to take down Thor. It's chill though, because you have a God helping you out.

The chiefens are HUGE when they are finally freed and get to stand up.

After a bunch of complex battles, you topple Thor's tower with SCIENCE!  Risi's artificial arm turns out to be a fantastic lightning conduit that ends up dropping Thor's tower on his own head. The end.

Thor is about to get a headache!

Back at the tavern, Thor threatens you a bunch, and after Loki gets his final stone, he goes insane with power and turns on you. The final fight with Loki isn't even the hardest part of this experience though. No, that tower defense game you play with Thor's army is wayyyy harder. I failed on that a number of times.

How you like that beat down, Loki?! Come at me, bro!

While you do get to beat Loki up pretty good, his ultimate trick is to trap you in Asgard as he makes his escape, leaving you with a pretty cool hint at what's coming next -- an ankh, which basically fortold Asgard's Wrath 2.

I can't remember, there wasn't a hint like this in Asgard's Wrath 2 was there?

So even though I've finished the main quest and rolled the credits, I still haven't seen everything in the game. Basically there's about seven areas or so that I still haven't seen, and if you really wanted to, you could level all your heroes and companions up to legendary status.  There's a lot more to do.

I love my little frog companion so much! He deserves to be leveled up to Legendary.

Even as I'm typing this, I'm feeling pulled back into the game, like I may actually want to 100 percent this one. I actually felt the same way back when I finished Asgard's Wrath 2.  Both of these were such great games. If you're looking for the best the Oculus has to offer, you can't go wrong with these two games, especially if you love action RPGs.

I can't recommend them enough.

Happy Dueling!

Asgard's Wrath -- Rivers of Blood and Ripped out Eyeballs

I got a bit caught up in releasing UNSVR lately, but that doesn't mean I haven't been playing a lot of the OG Asgard's Wrath! It's been a lot of fun to be honest. I could only play it in short bursts lately because I haven't had the time and stamina to do otherwise, but I've made a lot of progress doing just that.

So, first off, I finished Part 1 of Stikkan's journey, and it ended with solving a God Puzzle where you filled up the channels of a canal his boat was stuck in. It was a river full of blood mind you . . . I guess it was kind of like the Nephilim version of working the locks of the Panama Canal. Kind of weird, but I'm rolling with it.

Filling the river with blood!

The main challenge in this puzzle came from a couple of fights with a bloated, poison spitting garbage-heap of a woman. I was kind of reminded of an uglier version of Grummus from Everquest. That may be too esoteric of a reference for the kids. Anyway, at the end of the fight, you rip out her stomach. Don't ask me why, but that seemed to be the only way to kill a bloated, poison-spitting garbage-heap of a woman.

The Draugar Queen, otherwise known as a bloated, poison-spitting garbage heap of a woman.

After this, you royally piss off the Norse royalty, and Odin throws you in Asgard's jail.  It's ok though, because you can possess a half-giant whose missing an arm and restore him to his former glory and free yourself from Odin's bondage. (You can't make this stuff up . . . unless you're Sanzaru, then, ok, nice imagination Sanzaru! I like it!)

Half giant / Half machine!

The half-giant's name is Risi, and he's your fourth hero you can play as.  While escaping Asgard's Jail (it's name is escaping my brain right now), you find Risi's mechanical arm and unlock a super cool raven character named Runa that helps you sneak past these evil statues that one-shot you with a death ray.

By the end, you free yourself from the prison and have an epic fight with the Warden. So, reader, if you rip out the heart of the first boss and you rip out the stomach of the second boss, just guess what you rip out of the Warden? I SAID GUESS!! Well, I gave it away in this post's title, but if you guessed eyes, you guessed right! You just grab on to those suckers and rip 'em right out of his skull. Fatality!

They're glowy eyes too!

After all this, the game did something really unexpected, and I say this as a game designer. Check it out . . . the game splits into three paths and unhooks you from the main quest line!  It feels really risky to me to do this, but I can respect the decision. 

Your paths are as follows:

1- You can play as a champion running around in Asgard's Bar, the Aegir Hall. This is incredibly fun, btw. You get to see the bar from a totally different perspective and arm yourself with sewing needles and acorn shell shields.

2- You can play part 2 of Stikkan's journey.

or 3- You can play part 2 of Risi's journey.

For me, I finished up option 1 as much as I could (some fun battles there) and then started on option 2, Stikkan's journey. I'm not sure what my decision did or did not do for me since surely I'll be playing Risi's journey as well, but they gave me an interesting choice.

The "safe" designer in me wonders why you would ever detach someone from the main quest line, even for a moment.  The "creative" designer in me loves the "surprise and delight" moment of even being offered a choice.  You definitely don't see this same type of choice being offered in AW2 (as far as I remember correctly).  Part of me wonders if the metrics showed them that people stopped playing at this area when they did that?  It's something I'd love to know just to answer my own curiosity.

So far in Stikkan's follow-on quest, I've unlocked a new wolf companion.  He's a brutal dual wielder that can howl at magical ice crystals and break them so you can proceed. In this quest, I'm finding myself swapping back and forth between companions a lot to solve puzzles and break through blocking mechanics. This feels really good in late game. I like re-using companions in this way.

All in all, I'm having a great time playing Asgard's Wrath. I feel like I'm getting close to beating it and I'm even wondering if I'll have it done over the weekend here.

I'll be sure to let you know.

Happy Dueling!

Unnatural Selection VR -- Now Available on itch.io!

Hello friends, come download my game!

I've uploaded a VR game to itch.io that a few ex-WIMO employees and I made for an internal game jam back in 2023: Unnatural Selection VR. Please click that link to check it out! 

UNSVR can best be described as a lighthearted, quest-based, underwater fish breeding and decoration game. You'll be taking on the role of an underwater field technician whose job is to breed new, hybrid fish for headquarters, decorate the freshwater lakebed with decorations, spruce up the underwater environment, and explore the world below the surface. 

Just put any two fish in a spawning cloud and BOOM, instant quirky hybrid fun!

In UNSVR you’ll unlock decorations, make hybrid fish mashups, and slowly uncover hidden decorations in the lake. The game features:

🐠 -- 10 hidden decorations scattered throughout the environment

🌈 -- Special clouds that give fish new skins

📻 -- A grab-and-go underwater radio in the entrance cave that plays music as you explore

🧠 -- A light quest system with a few secrets to uncover

🪸 -- The ability to decorate and personalize your lakebed with unlocked items

Ultimately, it’s a chill, underwater VR experience with a sense of humor and a lot of heart.

That's how the magic happens!

A little backstory on this release: After WIMO closed its doors, I received permission from the old CEO to use the game and the assets from the game for personal projects. At first, I was going to recreate the game, polish it a bit, and release a modified and simplified version of UNSVR, but that proved incredibly difficult. 

1- I didn't have the original Unreal files, only the game itself. 

2- While I could use programs like Fmodel and Blender to crack it open to try and recreate it, I'm being real: I'm more of a designer, audio engineer, and a team lead than a solo all-in-one design/art/code wizard. (I'm working on it!😅)

3- We used Unreal instead of Unity, and my Unreal experience is still growing.

Our team worked incredibly hard on it over a period of a week and used a lot of existing assets (even improving existing assets) from a mobile game project that never saw mass release. (You can read about the original incarnation of Unnatural Selection in my game portfolio.)

Collect decorations and make your environment your own!

Notes about playing UNSVR:

• The game is free and was built for Oculus Quest using a Link Cable to a PC.
• It might work with other headsets like Vive or Index, but no guarantees—if you try it, I’d love to hear how it goes!
• The game saves automatically any time you complete a quest or breed fish. So hopefully you won't have to worry about crashes or lost progress.
• Playtime is roughly 30–60 minutes, depending on how much exploring and decorating you do. Once you complete your environment, you could probably spend an hour or so just swimming around with the radio and looking at all your crazy fish collection.
• SHOW ME YOUR CRAZY FISH!  I'd love to see what kind of strange mutant fish you can create.  Feel free to tag me on social media if you make something special.

Just a few fun secrets to unlock within!

Why release it now? Well, because it’s fun, quirky, and a fantastic snapshot of what our team could do in just a week with some wild fish ideas and a shared love for underwater experimentation.

And mostly, because I think this little project deserves to be played. Let me know if you give it a shot—and if you feel you qualify to be the Employee of the Quarter at UNS. 

👉 Download Unnatural Selection VR here

Special thanks to the team: Ryan Chapman, Tom Purdue, Paul Constantine, Cory Haltinner, Kyle Marcum, and Sean Macintosh.

Happy Dueling!

Stikkan it to 'em in Asgard's Wrath

Our third hero we unlock in Asgard's Wrath is a dark elf named Stikkan, who's no stranger to traveling in Niflheim. Yup, we've made our way out of Midgard and into a world of cold ice and magical bears known as Niflheim. Stikkan is a smuggler who knows a thing or two about being stabby stabby with bad guys.

He's got quite the hairstyle.

Upon entering Niflheim you get to see Sikkan fighting off an angry horde on his merchant ship. Unlike the other heroes you save, Stikkan can see you in your godly form. After possessing him, you now have access to his kit, which includes a crossbow and a spear that, much like our old buddy Darth Maul's dual lightsaber, can be split into two short swords connected by a strand of energy. These short swords, or rather short spears, can be thrown to activate simple puzzles where energy passes between magic orbs and powers up unpowered spheres, unlocking doors and raising obstacles.

Raising the Hraenathra to power open a doorway

The first companion Stikkan unlocks is an angry bear mama known as Bjornhild. Bjornhild has a metric ton of hitpoints, but it hasn't stopped me from constantly using revival mead on her. Ahh well. Bjornhild lifts giant logs that can be dropped down on pressure plates that also open doors and raise obstacles . . . and she just looks cool holding a giant log.

"Where you want me to put this log, boss? Or should I just carry it around looking cool?"

I've enjoyed playing in Niflheim so far, and I wonder how long I will spend there. Will the adventure be kind of shorter like it was with Frodi, or will it be a bit longer?  I'm not sure, but so far the battles have been relentless and unforgiving as we make our way through Hel's armies. Hopefully, there will be even more surprises along the way.

Happy Dueling!

Death to Hel's Bane in Asgard's Wrath!

 As predicted yesterday, I finished up the fight with Hel's Bane this evening. I did spend a bunch of time this morning upgrading Frodi's gear, which helped pad my health with 100 extra life or so, which really helped my survivability. 

Yesterday I was theorizing that I would shoot this guy in his heart when it was exposed, but what the game had in mind was much much cooler than that.  Once I had him down on his knees with his heart exposed, you run up with your controllers and rip his heart right out of his chest. 

Such a cool way to end a fight, and it was super visceral . . . me likey.

After this an elevator took me down to a lower level where an army was invading into the tower. I was then asked to play a little bit of tower defense with some cannons and blow up the army that was marching toward me.  I wasn't expecting that, but it was a really nice touch.

Manning the control panel that throws cannon fire down on to the invading troops.

In the end, Frodi redeemed himself and defeated the ice giant that was trying to break into Midgard while I pulled out of his body and watched from a distance.  He thanked me and gave me his stone.

I shall chop off your hand foul giant!

As for my thoughts, to be honest, it felt like maybe the Frodi story wasn't as long as I thought it would be once I figured out how to end the boss.

He sucks

I liked it, but it felt like there should have been a bit more. I would have enjoyed running up the ice giant's arms and zapping him in the head, but I'll take slamming a door shut on the ice giant's arm and chopping it off. It's still pretty satisfying.

I'm excited to see what character I get to play with next. 2 down and probably 2 more to go? I love this game so much. I just wish it didn't wear me out haha.

Happy Dueling!

Small Victories, Big Losses -- Back to Asgard's Wrath!

 As I'm typing this to you, my face is covered in sweat.  Sec . . . need to go take care of this facial drench. 

. . . and back. Whew. That's better.  So today has been a crazy day. I woke up in the morning and just decided to go for it. I don't know why I was so blocked on starting back up on Asgard's Wrath, but I was. For the past few months, it's kind of like every time I'd turn on the computer, I'd look over at my Quest 2 headset and think, "Asgard's Wrath, maybe? Naaaaaah!" NOT TODAY!

At first it was definitely weird. My controllers wanted to continually walk in reverse like I had some kind of horrible controller drift. After fighting it for five minutes or so, the drift just kind of went away and I was back in the game.

I'm coming for you Loki . . . gimme some time

The last I played, I had just unlocked Frodi and solved his first god puzzle. I had to learn how to use his staff weapon all over again, but eventually, I got it. I'm not sure I like it yet. It's kind of weird and I'm not quite sure how to use it correctly against enemies. Since parrying is such a huge part of combat, I just haven't figured out how to use it in that way. Instead, I've been opting to use Frodi's short sword.

Today's adventure took me deep inside The Great Column of Midgard. Frodi kept talking about how impressed he was that we had come this far, so I believe him.

That's a nice tower.

Inside the tower, there was another God Puzzle that involved shooting a Bow at some swinging legs of a Bull and making my way through a complex puzzle around the edges of the tower.

Gotta hit the horsey legs with the magic bow!

Also, I unlocked a new companion. She's an owl lady with a crossbow.  I like her.

And whoooo are youuuu? (She's Sigrid)

If you point her at an owl totem, she will reveal hidden secret messages that tell you the order to press runes to open secret doors.

Anyway, when you take 5 months off like me, you forget how taxing the game can be. You're going to work up a sweat and probably die a few times to bosses while you figure it all out. I'm currently stuck on this dude in the Rotund of the tower.

He sucks. 

Basically, you have to get up in his face and dodge his attacks until his eyes light up red, and then you have to parry his sword swing from above.  It's not a perfect science for me yet, and I'm not exactly sure what to do now that I've got him low with his icy heart exposed.

Logic seems to dictate that I would shoot his heart with an arrow or perhaps use my handy dandy soul staff to strike him in the heart. It's just a sweaty arm-swinging fest to get him to that point, and then I usually forget what the heck I'm doing and die.

I'm thinking tomorrow I'll have him dead.  If not, I'll be raging all the way to YouTube to see if there's a strat video to help me.

Happy Dueling!

Chilling Out and Bouncing Around in Slime Rancher VR

So, the other day I was talking with my Discord VR buddy (/waves at NV) about a VR game I want to make. While I was discussing it with him, he noted that in some way what I was describing sounded a lot like the game Slime Rancher. 

Slime Rancher is one of those games that I had always heard mention of, but never really looked at. This is a six- or seven-year-old game at this point, and honestly, I can't believe I never checked it out to be honest. So, because my buddy mentioned it, I absolutely had to go check this game out.

Caging up the Big ol Pink Rock Slimes

My kids were equally shocked I had never played Slime Rancher when I talked to them about it. In their words, it's just a chill tycoon game that's easy to play. 

Although chilling with Slime Rancher sounded pretty good, I was more excited to try the VR playground version of the game that you get for free when you purchase the base game . . . despite the warnings from Goldtail the Steam reviewer.

If you launch with Steam VR, you'll get a smoother graphical presentation, but from the get-go you're greeted with a control scheme using Vive controllers.

Those controls translated over to Quest controllers, however, took a lot of getting used to. I'm not sure why the joystick wasn't used to just move you around . . . instead you needed to point yourself in a direction and use the squeeze trigger on the left controller to move you forward. To rotate your head you have to downclick to the side with the joystick to tilt 15 degrees. Once I figured that out though, it was really no problem navigating the environments.

(Important to note, you can launch the game with Oculus VR from Steam, but I got a lot of graphical stuttering when I did . . . controls weren't much better tbh.)

Rubber Ducks and tons of toys in the base for you to play with

The playground comes with a home base and three world environments: a glowing mushroom swamp, the standard desert mountains, and zelda-esque ancient ruins.

pink slimes and meow slimes playing together in VR

You can use your suction gun much like you do in the base game of slime rancher to suck up slimes, goodies, and plorts. On the quest controllers you'll need to click down on the right joystick to shoot those objects out.

All in all, there's really no game here to play aside from feeding slimes food and putting them in cages to make them combine. Really, this is just to see the world of Slime Rancher all around you in VR fashion, which is pretty fun. Getting in a cage full of bouncing slimes is kind of fun. You'll get knocked around and feel surrounded by happy little slimes.

Magical Green Goobers of fun!

I take that back, there is "one" game-like element that I found. In the desert mountains environment, you can find a basketball hoop that once you shoot a slime into it, queues some new music and floats up and down while you try to make baskets into the hoop with your captured slimes. (side note: it's not that easy to do -- those slimes are slippery!)

Shooting baskets with slimy bois

If you're looking for a fun environment to run around in and own a copy of Slime Rancher, jump on in and check it out. Once in a while you can find Slime Rancher on super discount. I actually bought it for an astounding $2 in November during the autumn sale, but typically when it goes on sale, it's $5, which still ain't bad.

Happy Dueling!

Bouncing up the Leaderboards in Bounce Arcade

I was browsing Facebook the other day when an old KingsIsle friend of mine (Erik McKinney) announced that the new company he was working for had just released a new VR game called Bounce Arcade. Erik was the environment artist for the game, so I jumped on the opportunity to purchase it and give it a spin.

Easy there cowpoke, it's time for some Gunpowerder Gulch!

Honestly, my loyalties to Erik aside, it's a pretty fun game, and I love the concept behind it. Basically, you as the player are the paddles sitting in the pinball machine hole, and you need to block the ball from going through. Just keep smacking that ball and don't let it get past you.

That's the basics, but like most pinball machines, there's more to the game loop than just that. Just like in regular pinball, certain targets and objectives are scattered throughout the field in front of you. They'll be highlighted in yellow to give you an indication that you need to target it. After hitting them, a secondary objective lights up, leading to a big event.  In regular pinball, that's usually a multiball situation.

Cannons are lit and it's time to go for a minigame star!

To simulate "tilting" the table, you can bend a ball in the direction of targets and even activate a power-up to suck a ball into your paddles and redirect it at a target. Unlike regular pinball, however, what tends to open up in Bounce Arcade is a minigame! 

Bending a ball toward the town bell

For example, in the Gunslinger game after, hitting the targets to charge up the town hall's meter, all the cannons will point toward the bell above the town hall and the doors to the town hall will open to reveal an icon. Hit all the cannons and the game will pause as you play whatever mini-game is associated with the icon on the town hall doors.  In a couple of those instances, your paddles will turn into guns and you'll participate in a shoot out ala the game police trainer (shooting the bad guys, avoiding the town citizens) or hit the dynamite barrels before they touch the ground . . . stuff like that.

Shooting barrels out of the sky

Once you win a mini-game, you'll earn a star for the level.  What happens when you fill all the stars?!?! Man, I don't know yet!!!  I'm getting close though.  I managed to get 3 of 4 stars on the gunslinger level and set a pretty decent score though. I'm definitely getting better at the game with each play.

The only complaint I've heard from around the Discord channels is that there isn't enough content, which to be honest is really hard to reach when making a $20 game, from personal experience. On the other hand, I love the potential they've created for this game, and I hope it does well enough that it will become a lovable DLC beast similar to Walkabout Minigolf.

. . . And to me, that's what you need to look at for VR games at that price point. Walkabout is such a good model for games like this, in fact, if I were a Designer for Velan I'd push to mirror more of the good things in that game that make it feel like there's more bang for the buck.  Let's take a look at that.

1- Each level of Walkabout Minigolf has an easy and a hard mode. Bounce should do this as well.  One time while playing Bounce, my controllers bugged out and my paddles no longer extended out in front of me in space, instead they were stuck nearer to my hands. It made me jump around and stand up really exercising to hit the ball. Although it was a bug, it's a rather easy way to make a hard mode for the game. 

2- Account rewards from hidden minigames make Walkabout pretty genius. In the easy mode, you collect balls that you can use while you play.  I really think you could do the same thing with the pinball in Bounce. You play the game with an ordinary-looking ball that ignites with an effect once in a while.  Just change the look of this ball as a reward for doing a hidden objective on the easy mode.  For hard mode in Walkabout, you have a fox hunt minigame.  When you complete the fox hunt, you earn a new golf club.  Again, I'm using paddles that look the same in every level . . . what if I could earn special "gunslinger" paddles (perhaps the edge looks like a rope lasso?) by hitting a certain point threshold in a hard mode of the Gunslinger map. It'd be great!

I will say that if you are prone to seasickness or don't have your VR legs yet, this is a really good starter game. You can play it just by looking in one direction. It's basically a 180 game instead of 360. 

I may highlight individual boards here on the blog in the future, but I've played enough of Bounce Arcade that it felt like I needed to give it a shout-out. It's a great game with a lot of potential. (Also, Erik is amazing and you should check out his cool environmental artwork)

Happy Dueling!

AW: Off the Grid with Ingrid and To and Fro with Frodi

Ok, Team. It's time for another update on Asgard’s Wrath because, DANG, some super cool stuff happened. Basically I’ve finished the first hero’s story (Ingrid) and moved on to the second (Frodi). Obviously, I'm still in love with the game so far, and it's just getting better and better.

The big bad of Ingrid's story

Wrapping up Ingrid’s journey led to a pretty epic boss fight -- one that I honestly wasn't expecting to be so cool. I love it when you get surprised by something awesome like this. Tyr basically taunts the heck out of Ingrid and starts destroying her hometown. Eventually, you make your way up to a giant arena and there you are in a mythic showdown between Tyr and, not Ingrid, but you in God form. He came out with fireballs, flailing maces of death, all armored up with serious grudges. My job? Counter his fireballs by shooting them out of the sky, knocking off his armor pieces, and then hitting him with an arrow to the heart so I could pull him close on a light rope. Once in range, you punch him out boxer style. After you do that sequence three times (three is always the magic number), he's left knocked down long enough for Ingrid to get in there and stab out his left eye. Truly an epic moment you can't get in any other VR game than Asgard's Wrath!

Time to gain an eye patch, Tyr!

With Ingrid’s adventure wrapped up, I’ve now started with the second hero, Mr. Frodi, the blind priest. He’s a caster-type character wielding a staff, which adds a whole new dynamic to combat. Frodi’s staff can cast energy bolts, which you can direct in looping paths. He also has this spirit orb, which you can use to refill with extra charges since his staff has limited power. 

Unlocking Frodi also meant unlocking my next animal companion: a minotaur! Now, just to be sure you understand, these animal companions in Asgard's Wrath aren’t exactly powerhouses—they’re more like sidekicks for fun and to help with puzzles rather than front-line fighters. That said, if you toss them a rage potion, they’ll go beast mode for a bit. By the way, it's super satisfying to throw stuff like that to your companion: potions, food, and whatnot. It’s great watching them catch and use it or throw it back. Anyway, the whole deal with the minotaur is that it can push large blocks out of the way to open up those blocked areas.

No need to bow, my dude . . . let's go wreck stuff!

All in all, Asgard's Wrath is doing a great job of keeping things awesome, and I’m excited to see where Frodi’s journey goes next. More updates to come!

Happy Dueling!