If you like your social VR spaces to be a little more surreal, check out Half + Half.
This serene new VR game is set to launch on Oculus Quest and Rift tomorrow. It’s developed by Normal VR, who you might remember for its VR typing experiment, Cutie Keys.
Half + Half is a very different kind of experiment. It includes five different spaces in which players can meet up and take part in activities together. Minigames include gliding, human Tetris and hide and seek among others. Players embody the adorable, bizarre avatars first seen in Cutie Keys. They have string-like arms and wholesome smiles.
The game’s trailer, seen on the store page, envisions a peaceful take on VR multiplayer. It’s not in first-person, so we won’t know what gameplay really looks like until we try it for ourselves.
It’s a different strand of social VR to, say, the likes of BigScreen and AltspaceVR. Those apps are centered around conversation and content sharing. Half + Half looks closer to something like Rec Room, which also gives players events to take part in.
From what we can tell, this is Normal’s first premium VR release. Alongside Cutie Keys, the developer also offers a multiplayer SDK with full VR and AR support. This even lets you make AR apps to peer into VR spaces. It’s not entirely clear if its new game will support this feature. In October last year, the developer branded Quest as ‘the only VR headset you should care about’.
Half + Half will cost $9.99 at launch. We haven’t yet confirmed if cross-play and cross-buy will be included. We also don’t know if it’s coming to any other platforms, though the trailer only mentions Quest and Rift for now.
