At the end of a change log for the latest build of Tea for God, developer Void Room stated that they are working on implementing the Oculus Quest’s controller-free hand tracking into the game in a future update.
The Oculus Quest received the experimental controller-free hand tracking feature in the latest V12 update. It is currently not on by default, and is only available to use officially in Oculus Home, Browser and TV. Once the update is no longer deemed experimental, developers will be able to submit updates to their Oculus Store apps to support hand tracking. In the meantime, however, many developers have created demonstration or proof-of-concept apps that use the controller-free hand tracking in various ways, and made the apps available for sideloading on the Quest.
As sideloaded apps are not available in the Oculus Store and not officially approved, they are not required to comply with Facebook’s content curation policies. This allows sideloaded apps and games, such as Tea for God, to implement the hand tracking SDK immediately, and potentially long before any official Oculus Store apps support the feature.
If Tea for God does receive hand tracking support, this would make it the first full game to implement hand tracking beyond just a basic proof-of-concept or demonstration-level implementation. Importantly, hand tracking won’t always be a viable input method for games – The Thrill of the Fight developer Ian Fitz recently stated the Quest’s hand tracking wouldn’t be ‘capable enough’ for boxing.
There is currently no indication on how long the implementation of the SDK might take, so we could be waiting a while. The developers also noted that additional tutorials might be required for hand tracking, as the player would need to learn specific gestures to perform in-game actions.
Tea for God also received an update a few days ago that adds the “persistence layer” to the game, allowing you to manage gear and unlock new items with “data blocks” that you collect throughout the game. You can read more about the update that here.
Tea for God is not available on the Oculus Store, but it is one the best apps available to sideload on the Oculus Quest. If you’re unfamiliar with sideloading, you can check out our how-to guide here.
