Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades (or H3VR) is a well-designed sandbox virtual reality title built for the HTC Vive that’s ultimately a collection of various VR experiments with a patriotic sheen. RUST LTD, the developers behind the game, have meticulously modeled historical, modern, and futuristic weapons that require realistic physical actions with both Vive controllers to operate correctly. The game has various mini-games centered around these weapons, time challenges and leaderboards, and even a grilling simulation. For the fall season, H3VR is getting a Halloween update and we spoke with RUST LTD CTO Anton Hand about the new update and reception for the game thus far.
“Since releasing H3 in April, I’ve been looking forward to the fall season specifically because it meant being able to do a Halloween update,” said Hand. “Halloween is such a great holiday to riff off of because it (and horror in general) pairs well with the action and it pairs well with room scale VR due to the player’s body being so central.”
Hand started plotting out the update roughly a month ago and decided to do something much more involved than throwing a festive theme over existing content. This needed to be something that fit snug with the game’s high level of simulation and precision. He decided on a horror survival narrated update called MeatGrinder.
“It’s in many ways the most ‘structured’ mode available in the game now, and the largest experiment we’ve done in seeing how H3‘s physical object systems and interactions work in a more complex and refined game context,” explained Hand.
Released back in April of this year, H3VR currently holds a “Very Positive” recent and overall rating on Steam. Hand was blown away by community reception since release and throughout 25 content updates (MeatGrinder, this Friday, October 28th, will make 26), recognizing the constant weekly cadence of the updates has been a boon.
“Moreover, it’s just been tremendously fulfilling engaging in really open development, letting folks peek behind the curtains of the project, see features and ideas as they develop, and engage in this huge messy dialogue from which interesting ideas arise about content, functionality, UX, balance, etc. that would have never occurred had I just worked away privately. It’s what gets me up every morning, and I imagine will continue to do so for some time!”
Grab Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades on Steam for $19.99 in Early Access and look for the MeatGrinder Halloween update, for free, this Friday, October 28th.
