Boneworks is a great demonstration of the Valve Index Controllers, but it also has full support for the Oculus Touch controllers used on Rift and Rift S.
On Twitter today Stress Level Zero developer Brandon Laatsch showed off a first person view of Boneworks with Touch:
Boneworks is a detailed sandbox physics shooter developed by Stress Level Zero. SLZ previously developed multiplayer vehicular shooter Hover Junkers [7/10] and nostalgia filled arcade adventure Duck Season [8/10].
Boneworks takes VR object interaction and physics to the next level- every object is simulated with their physics engine. We went hands on with Boneworks at GDC and wrote that it feels like the first next generation VR game.
While the Index Controllers track each finger individually and allow the user to let go, the Touch controllers use a secondary analog trigger to track the middle finger and grip. To grab an object, users hold in that trigger. For Boneworks this seems to allow for the same interactions as Index controllers. Laatsch claims “gameplay is the same regardless of hardware.”
Last month in response to fan queries on reddit, Laatsch detailed the extent of the game’s support for the Touch controllers compared to the Valve Index Controllers:
I develop Boneworks every day using the Touch controllers since the majority of users will be using Touch or controllers with similar analog grip input. Others at our studio use Knuckles and other controllers.
Boneworks will have feature parity regardless of controller choice. Obviously, finger tracking is visually nice and a controller that you can release when throwing is immersive, but it doesn’t effect the gameplay.
While it seems that the Index will offer the best possible Boneworks experience, Laatsch’s comments seem to indicate that if you can’t stomach the price, the $399 Rift S should work well too- assuming the inside-out tracking holds up.
