Ever since Fantastic Contraption [Review: 8/10] released alongside the HTC Vive earlier this year, it’s been a staple of any Vive gamer’s library.
The simple premise of getting the thing to the goal is infectious, especially when combined with the tactile nature of building and tweaking contraptions across the game’s various levels. It’s one of the best examples of “easy to learn, difficult to master” we’ve seen in VR yet.
This week, Northway Games announced a new “Kaiju Update” that includes so many things, it’s arguable enough features to constitute its own game, except this time with a focus on enabling fun even for those that don’t have the space to fully take advantage of the roomscale capabilities.
“We’re devotees of roomscale, but we recognize that not all Vive owners have space for it,” writes Sarah Northway in an email to UploadVR. “Fantastic Contraption is a lot of fun when played at your desk or even sitting on the floor, the way you’d play with Lego or Tinker Toys, which inspired our game in the first place.”
The main feature of this update, as the name suggests, is that you can resize the levels so that you become an enormous giant in the world, similar to a Kaiju from classic monster movies such as Godzilla.
Reach down and manipulate the contraptions like they’re toys on a table or Legos on the carpet instead of large mechanical devices you’re crawling under to tweak and tinker.
It’s still very much the same game, but the switch of perspective dramatically changes the experience. It’s a great testament to how pivotal simply adjusting your view can be for a VR application.
“Another thing that makes this update ‘Kaiju’ is how huge it is,” writes Northway. “We’ve improved nearly everything and added new features like Steam Workshop support. You can also mark saved contraptions as favorites by giving them a kiss, or add a hat to your avatar and take an in-game selfie using a selfie stick made out of contraption parts. These are features we’ve wanted in the game since launch, and there are more still to come.”
The next major update is planned to be the level editor, a feature that’s been requested ever since the game launched. “The level editor’s nearly finished but we decided to wait until after the Oculus Touch launch to release it,” writes Northway. “Probably by the end of December.”
For more details on what else this Kaiju update adds, you can read the blog post here.
