Undercurrent - Deep Sea Exploration Indie Game

[Chard]

Hi everyone,

This Underwater Exploration demo for the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality Headset will give you a taste for the kind of experience we're crafting within the Unreal Development Kit with Native Headtracking.

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FREE Working Download Links: GOOGLE DRIVE OR DROPBOX

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Your goal is to explore the level by moving between canisters of air to refuel your submersible. Your oxygen bar is projected onto the glass floor of the cockpit, it will drain slowly unless you are next to a canister. To complete each level, follow the lights through the environment to reach the exit located in the hull of the ship. There are two levels for this demo experience, complete the first to load the second.

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INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS:

- Plug in your Oculus Rift

- Set desktop resolution to 1280x720 or 1920x1080 and Duplicate Screens

- Download ‘UnderCurrent α0.3 - Demo Download'

- Install ‘UnderCurrent α0.3 - Demo Download’

- Launch Game upon completion from shortcut or ‘/Binaries/Win32’ & launch ‘UDK.exe’

- Hit F11 a couple times until the game is full screen with stereo vision and black circles around the edges which denote the image warp

- Use a USB Windows Xbox Controller or WASD + Arrowkeys or Mouse to move.

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Please Enjoy! Any feedback, bugs or questions please send to: undercurrentgame@gmail.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DyunWH8iNE8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7FYG20sWNY

Thanks for looking!
Richard.

[TheHolyChicken]

Looks great. This is exactly the type of thing that is great to show to non-gamers to give them an idea, a hint, or VR's potential. Can't wait to get my Rift so I can start trying these demos out!

[Jose]

I am unable to play this. The game shows a black screen with only a small part of the right side of the screen showing the actual game.

I was going to take a screenshot to show you, but the game won't let me alt-tab out of it. Escape does nothing. Alt-F4 does nothing. I had to quit the game by going into the console (by pressing tilde) and typing quit.

Windows 7, Zotac GeForce 640, latest drivers installed.

[Chard]

I am unable to play this. The game shows a black screen with only a small part of the right side of the screen showing the actual game.

I was going to take a screenshot to show you, but the game won't let me alt-tab out of it. Escape does nothing. Alt-F4 does nothing. I had to quit the game by going into the console (by pressing tilde) and typing quit.

Windows 7, Zotac GeForce 640, latest drivers installed.

Hi, what version of the demo are you running 0.3 or 0.4? And try restarting your machine and running the .exec again. we encountered that bug twice at Rezzed with the latest build and that was the quickest solution until we can look at the code again.

[LordJuanlo]

The oxygen bar is easier to read in 0.4, good job. However the main issue I reported still remains: headtracking left and right should NOT turn the vehicle, it should just turn our head inside the vehicle. The vehicle should turn with mouse/gamepad only. By the way, it doesn't work with my wireless Xbox 360 controller and I think it worked with 0.3... but I'm not sure.

[TheHolyChicken]

However the main issue I reported still remains: headtracking left and right should NOT turn the vehicle, it should just turn our head inside the vehicle. The vehicle should turn with mouse/gamepad only.

Why?

'Blue Marble', a very popular, well-received demo, also has a vehicle that is rotated with your headtracking. It's not realistic, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily bad.

[Chard]

We have fixed that issue and added it into the patch notes also inside the game on the tutorial hologram it reads too.

"Press R3 to toggle free look on / off. press L3 to snap to view."
http://undercurrentgame.com/demo/

I personally like to toggle between these all the time, depending on the situation I'm in.
We haven't added a PC button alternative yet, perhaps mouse wheel press?
Next update will make these options more clear & accessible, add a choice to swap between different vehicle types and much more.

The oxygen bar is easier to read in 0.4, good job. However the main issue I reported still remains: headtracking left and right should NOT turn the vehicle, it should just turn our head inside the vehicle. The vehicle should turn with mouse/gamepad only. By the way, it doesn't work with my wireless Xbox 360 controller and I think it worked with 0.3... but I'm not sure.

We don't have any wireless controllers to test with, can you make sure you don't also have a razer hydra plugged in or something similar?

Thanks,
Richard.

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UNDERCURRENT A.04 Patch Notes:

- Full Keyboard & Mouse Support

- Detects Oculus Rift and and enables 3D stereo view automatically

- Ascend / Descend replaces jump functionality – bound to ‘Left Bumper’ & ‘Space’

- Optional FREELOOK control toggle via ‘Right Thumstick Press’ (R3)

- Rebound Quit to ‘Esc’ & Xbox ‘Start’

- Rebound Restart Level to Xbox ‘Back’

- Improved OXYGEN User Interface Design

- Implemented Robotic body counterpart into cockpit

- New Tutorial Area

- New Splash & Loading Screen

- New Environmental Audio Cues

- New Floating Speed Boost Orbs

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[LordJuanlo]

However the main issue I reported still remains: headtracking left and right should NOT turn the vehicle, it should just turn our head inside the vehicle. The vehicle should turn with mouse/gamepad only.

Why?

'Blue Marble', a very popular, well-received demo, also has a vehicle that is rotated with your headtracking. It's not realistic, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily bad.

It's not the same. In Blue Marble you are not inside a vehicle, you are an astronaut so when you turn your head, your astronaut helmet also turns. It's not realistic but, as you said, it doesn't feel bad at all. But in Deep Sea you're inside the cockpit of a small vehicle, so you should see the cockpit when turning.

We have fixed that issue and added it into the patch notes also inside the game on the tutorial hologram it reads too.

"Press R3 to toggle free look on / off. press L3 to snap to view."
http://undercurrentgame.com/demo/

I personally like to toggle between these all the time, depending on the situation I'm in.
We haven't added a PC button alternative yet, perhaps mouse wheel press?
Next update will make these options more clear & accessible, add a choice to swap between different vehicle types and much more.

Thank you very much! I'll check it out as soon as I get home

We don't have any wireless controllers to test with, can you make sure you don't also have a razer hydra plugged in or something similar?

Oh yes, I have a Razer Hydra, and I think I had to unplug it with 0.3 for my wireless controller to work. I'll check it out. Thanks!

[LordJuanlo]

Ok, just tried it again and freelook works perfectly (stupid me for not reading it before), and unplugging my Razer Hydra allows the wireless Xbox 360 controller to work.

[Chard]

Ok, just tried it again and freelook works perfectly (stupid me for not reading it before), and unplugging my Razer Hydra allows the wireless Xbox 360 controller to work.

You're welcome

[IGameArt]

The frame rate in the latest version seems to be drastically lower than the previous, where i could beat the demo without the sub spazzing on me once, and in the latest its running so slow that the ship cant match my head turns and starts shaking violently, and there is a considerable delay in screen refreshing from when i turn my head.

[Chard]

What graphics card and system specs are you running? Check that you're not also running anything else in the background which might slow the machine down.

[IGameArt]

I'm running a geforce gt 650m with 2gb of vram, 8 core 64bit cpu, and 8gb ram. It's a laptop, not the best gaming rig in the world but it was good enough to play the first demo without too much slow down.

[Chard]

Sorry to hear it's not working for you, I'll pass this along to our artist who might be able to find the time for optimizing the artwork in the levels.
The demo currently suits our needs at the moment so it doesn't warrant making any significant changes. But we'll be demoing on a laptop in a fortnight so I'll let you know if the situation changes.