Oculus Touch will release in less than a month. Upon its launch it will be jam-packed with several new and fascinating titles, but it will also be allowing significant new updates to be made to already existing properties. The Climb (Review 8/10) is an example of a game that is already available on the Oculus Rift, but will be getting a significant upgrade once Touch arrives. A new blog post and correspondence with the company shines more light on exactly what those updates are going to be.
The first, and perhaps most significant, change is that the Oculus Touch version of The Climb will “come with a new level.”
The Climb currently features three different levels, or “mountains,” for players to tackle. Adding a new level could also entice more new players to buy the game. Exact details for this new mountain aren’t available yet.
Today’s post also reveals that the Oculus Touch and Gamepad versions of The Climb will have seperate leaderboards. According to Niels Stoelinga, Gameplay Programmer for The Climb, this decision was made because:
While we aimed to give players a very similar experience with both inputs, we had to consider how this affects competition. After all, The Climb is a sports game, so you need a level playing field.
One of the first decisions we made was to split the leaderboards for gamepad and Touch. Both ways of playing are different, and that inevitably leads to a difference in times. This gave us the freedom to make the Touch input as fun as possible, without being bound by making it balanced with the gamepad.
For instance, when you play with Touch, your reach differs depending on the length of your arms. We could have integrated Touch with the same jumping, reach length, and automatic repositions as the gamepad, but ultimately, mapping player movements into the game was just much more fun and engaging.”
The Climb‘s Oculus Touch update will be available when the platform launches on Dec. 6.
