Forget position-tracked input, Modbox wants to let you use your voice to control VR in its latest update.
Developer Alientrap has this week revealed a new update arriving soon that will introduce voice commands to the VR world building game that will hopefully make it a much more intuitive experience than it already is. Using a simple set of prompts you can summon different tools, navigate through menus, toggle between modes and spawn items to use in the world. That might sound like a fairly limited supply of actions at first, but the trailer below shows how they can be used to quickly and effectively streamline the game’s user-interface.
Though the initial menu options seem unnecessary, the voice commands really come into their own when the player sets into the game’s environment to start building a scene. He quickly spawns items by mentioning them by name, removing the need to dive back in lengthy menus to find specific props. It’s then possible to seamlessly jump between playing with your scenes and editing them and the combination of menu navigation by pointing with the Vive controllers certainly gives you a hint of Minority Report.
In fact, the game quickly starts to resemble something like a next-generation Scribblenauts in which you call out words and have the item appear in front of you. We can’t help but think what other types of VR experiences might benefit from voice commands right now; perhaps it’s something Google could consider for future additions to Tilt Brush?
Elsewhere, the new update will add six more material mods and and give an overhaul to the workshop browse screen. Alientrap hasn’t given a date for the impressive update but you can expect it to hit soon.
Modbox is still only available for the HTC Vive but, with the launch of the Oculus Touch controllers in Q4 2016 drawing ever closer, hopefully a Rift release isn’t too far off. The game is still in Early Access right now, so expect plenty more updates on the road to the full version.
