The Gallery: Oculus Rift Adventure Game KICKSTARTER LIVE!

[RoTaToR]

I´m in with 100/115$

[lossofmercy]

http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/494598 ... -elements/

Looks close, but I am getting hopeful again. There is a spike in the last few days to look forward to, although I am not quite sure if you can rely on that for a project like this..

[brantlew]

@Bishop: The update looks great. Glad to see a bit of your other environments.

Once you get your Rift Dev Kits, you should consider doing a short Rift-warped screen cap video (or at least some screen shots) so Rift users can get a sneak peak at what the environment "feels" like.

[Mystify]

Just saw the latest kickstarter updates. Looking good. I can't wait to see how the rift will pull everything together.

[adoral84]

This is looking really great, I've been unable to resist bumping my support with each update. Being the first heavily VR focused development effort from the ground up, the value here is way beyond "how much would I pay to play this game" IMO. This has the potential to be a great catalyst for other developers, I know just watching the demo videos (and tuscany hydra demos) has given me several ideas for my mod that I hadn't considered.

[TheHolyChicken]

Just saw the latest update - looking superb. When do you guys expect to get your Rift? I think a video of you guys using your Rift + Hydra combination will be a good driver for the kickstarter. Beg/borrow/steal!

One thing that I noticed in the recent video is that there is a "camera smear" effect, in the sewers, as though you're looking through a wet/dirty camera lens. This looks great on a monitor, but when using the Rift I imagine this would feel unnatural (you are looking through your eyes, not a camera lens!). Have you thought about how this might translate to the Rift?

-------------------------
And some suggestions! I have some ideas and concepts I think would work very well on the Rift, and the game 'Metro 2033' is going to helpfully provide examples! The first:

A gas mask. Sometimes in Metro 2033, the player is forced to wear a gas mask; the player will gasp, cough and choke without one and cannot survive for long. Unfortunately, as the gas mask filter gets "used up", the mask is filled with more and more condensation, making it increasingly difficult to see. The condensation begins at the periphery, but soon spreads across the mask and becomes more and more potent until it's really problematic, necessitating you change your filter. You can see an example here (look at top right of image):

condensation.jpg

Furthermore, as you take damage the glass will crack! The player must find a new mask to restore his vision. This pic shows what it looks like when you have a badly broken mask AND the mask is suffering from condensation (click for a nice big picture):

broken_visor.jpg

These visual effects bestow an oppressive sense of claustrophobia. I played this using Nvidia 3D vision and it really felt like peering through a murky gas mask, it's incredible. Sometimes the feeling was so strong I would take the mask off for a few moments - despite choking to death - just to get a reprieve from the horrible closeness of the mask. The relief when you find a fresh mask/filter - or get to safety and can take the mask off - is almost palpable.

The second concept, also demonstrated nicely by Metro, is the idea of what would normally be "UI elements" being presented on the character instead. To see how much air they have the player is not shown a graphic on the UI - they must instead look at their character's watch to see how long they have left! I know you're already doing this kind of thing already, but I thought I'd show this particular example (the watch) as I think it would be fantastic with a Hydra:

watch_ui_element.jpg

And a little short video giving a taste of both the gas mask and the watch can be seen here
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDPO3v97oFs[/youtube]

[brantlew]

One thing that I noticed in the recent video is that there is a "camera smear" effect, in the sewers, as though you're looking through a wet/dirty camera lens. This looks great on a monitor, but when using the Rift I imagine this would feel unnatural (you are looking through your eyes, not a camera lens!). Have you thought about how this might translate to the Rift?

I thought the same thing. However, the Tuscany demo has a nice little lens-flare as you look at the sun which is also a bit unrealistic but looks cool anyway.

Edit: on second thought...maybe people do experience sun lens flares but nobody can actually stand to keep their eyes open to see it ?

[cmfockler]

I had the same thoughts with the smear/smudge effects. I don't have my rift yet, but I imagine that these effects will not be needed or wanted in VR.

I'm also very curious to hear your thoughts about sound effects and background music. The need for great surround sound effects seems obvious, but music is another question for me. I LOVE a great music soundtrack while passively watching a movie. But will music seem out of place in a VR setting? Maybe our gallery explorer can have an ipod attached to his belt next to the spray paint...?

[Mystify]

I had the same thoughts with the smear/smudge effects. I don't have my rift yet, but I imagine that these effects will not be needed or wanted in VR.

I'm also very curious to hear your thoughts about sound effects and background music. The need for great surround sound effects seems obvious, but music is another question for me. I LOVE a great music soundtrack while passively watching a movie. But will music seem out of place in a VR setting? Maybe our gallery explorer can have an ipod attached to his belt next to the spray paint...?

People walk around while listening to music all the time, I don't think it would be out of place.

[brantlew]

People walk around while listening to music all the time, I don't think it would be out of place.

I've done a lot of immersive VR in SkyRim and the music doesn't feel weird. Everything just feels cinematically heightened - like living inside a movie.

[colocolo]

Nice achievement. Its incredible how fast the development of new VR interfaces is. Razer Hydra, Virtuix Omni, i hope we'll see some day Garrys Kinect Mod. I bet we will.

[nateight]

Ah, finally! I couldn't stand being a hypocrite any longer - I've been holding up Cloudhead as the one team that clearly understands the unique challenges and rewards of VR, but through it all I hadn't scraped together a pledge! I'm a Steam Sale shopper who doesn't have a lot of time for gaming and even less money; I think the last game I spent more than $30 on was Guild Wars 2 (and I barely played it), and the one before that may have been the Orange Box. I'm currently in the process of spending an uncomfortable amount of money on possibly creating some new VR peripherals, however, and since you can't break what's already broke, here I am! "Scout" nateight, (finally) reporting for duty!

Now, it's time for a shameful confession: I barely even want to play this game. I look down the list of features and it's exactly everything I've never been interested in - urban exploration (I prefer the mental sort), puzzle-based challenges (I get plenty of those coding and have more than a savefile to show for it), physical challenges (I can't even be bothered to get real exercise), spray painting (damn kids!), no combat (where's the fun in not shooting everything that moves?) and fantastical worlds that will only distract me from the more realistic environments I should be building for my own games. TF2 is more my style - hyperkinectic, bombs and shotguns, a clear goal and every path to it paved with virtual blood and real determination. There are at least a dozen (allegedly) great games sitting in my Steam account, pleading to be installed but neglected for lack of time, and a dozen others I'd load up this very minute if I could afford to buy them. And yet, here I am, pledging time and money to a game built of individual parts that don't appeal to me.

Why? It's a testament to Denny and the Cloudhead team, really. You guys don't just believe in the power of VR, you know it, feel it, and you've nobly decided to educate the world with this powerful demonstration called The Gallery. Every comment you guys utter, every video you showcase, every tidbit of news vibrates with the power of your enthusiasm. It's infectious, exhilarating, and as a prospective video game developer I can tell I'd be robbing myself of a special kind of new and vital knowledge by not experiencing this thing you're creating. None of the individual components may be to my taste, but I can see the bigger picture here, I can recognize how this is going to be a monumentally important early entry in VR history on top of being the perfect way to introduce countless people to the basic concepts. I'll worry about making the bombs and shotguns game myself, I guess - even if I wildly exceed my own expectations and it turns into a major success, The Gallery will be the game infinitely more deserving of recognition and support, the game most responsible for showing the unenlightened masses the real potential of this new medium.

Consider me a believer, Cloudhead. Would that I had a giant pile of money to shove in your direction, but as I don't, I offer this instead: The Gallery Word-Of-Mouth-A-Thon. The MTBS community is fully behind you, gentlemen, but I'm not convinced we've told everyone we know who will only be buying a commercial Rift that they really need to be funding awesome from-the-ground-up VR games now. The idea of that thread is to reach out to those people, and return to post with any new backers we've located. Reaching that $65,000 goal won't be effortless, but with the full weight of the MTBS community behind you, I think we can get over the top. VR deserves visionaries like you, Cloudhead, and you deserve fans willing to go beyond the call of duty and evangelize for you. I'm already late to the party here, but luckily for me the party's just getting started. Let's get to work, people!

[Bishop51]

Ah, finally! I couldn't stand being a hypocrite any longer - I've been holding up Cloudhead as the one team that clearly understands the unique challenges and rewards of VR, but through it all I hadn't scraped together a pledge! I'm a Steam Sale shopper who doesn't have a lot of time for gaming and even less money; I think the last game I spent more than $30 on was Guild Wars 2 (and I barely played it), and the one before that may have been the Orange Box. I'm currently in the process of spending an uncomfortable amount of money on possibly creating some new VR peripherals, however, and since you can't break what's already broke, here I am! "Scout" nateight, (finally) reporting for duty!

Now, it's time for a shameful confession: I barely even want to play this game. I look down the list of features and it's exactly everything I've never been interested in - urban exploration (I prefer the mental sort), puzzle-based challenges (I get plenty of those coding and have more than a savefile to show for it), physical challenges (I can't even be bothered to get real exercise), spray painting (damn kids!), no combat (where's the fun in not shooting everything that moves?) and fantastical worlds that will only distract me from the more realistic environments I should be building for my own games. TF2 is more my style - hyperkinectic, bombs and shotguns, a clear goal and every path to it paved with virtual blood and real determination. There are at least a dozen (allegedly) great games sitting in my Steam account, pleading to be installed but neglected for lack of time, and a dozen others I'd load up this very minute if I could afford to buy them. And yet, here I am, pledging time and money to a game built of individual parts that don't appeal to me.

Why? It's a testament to Denny and the Cloudhead team, really. You guys don't just believe in the power of VR, you know it, feel it, and you've nobly decided to educate the world with this powerful demonstration called The Gallery. Every comment you guys utter, every video you showcase, every tidbit of news vibrates with the power of your enthusiasm. It's infectious, exhilarating, and as a prospective video game developer I can tell I'd be robbing myself of a special kind of new and vital knowledge by not experiencing this thing you're creating. None of the individual components may be to my taste, but I can see the bigger picture here, I can recognize how this is going to be a monumentally important early entry in VR history on top of being the perfect way to introduce countless people to the basic concepts. I'll worry about making the bombs and shotguns game myself, I guess - even if I wildly exceed my own expectations and it turns into a major success, The Gallery will be the game infinitely more deserving of recognition and support, the game most responsible for showing the unenlightened masses the real potential of this new medium.

Consider me a believer, Cloudhead. Would that I had a giant pile of money to shove in your direction, but as I don't, I offer this instead: The Gallery Word-Of-Mouth-A-Thon. The MTBS community is fully behind you, gentlemen, but I'm not convinced we've told everyone we know who will only be buying a commercial Rift that they really need to be funding awesome from-the-ground-up VR games now. The idea of that thread is to reach out to those people, and return to post with any new backers we've located. Reaching that $65,000 goal won't be effortless, but with the full weight of the MTBS community behind you, I think we can get over the top. VR deserves visionaries like you, Cloudhead, and you deserve fans willing to go beyond the call of duty and evangelize for you. I'm already late to the party here, but luckily for me the party's just getting started. Let's get to work, people!

I'm not sure what to say. One thing you don't expect or appreciate going into a Kickstarter is the enthusiasm and generosity of the people who support you. I suppose that's because those who are most willing to support you are also the ones who appreciate and understand where you want to take them. Virtual Reality is going to take the world by storm. I was convinced of it before but now that I have seen it in person, I know how quickly its going to come. Having the opportunity to build an experience early on, before the playing field is muddied, to explore what's possible in the format is an absolute dream come true. You don't get these opportunities very often in life, if at all.

We can't tell you what the outpouring of support means to us. Not just because we want to make a game that plays to the strengths of VR but because it has a ripple effect that touches the lives of our families and our future in this industry.

Thanks MTBS'rs. Can't thank you enough.

~ Denny

[brantlew]

I'm exactly the opposite. This is basically the only game that I am looking forward to on the Rift. I had access to TF2 weeks before it was announced and was never interested in the least to play it until recently when I had to for technical reasons. And Hawken - never once looked at it. But the Gallery fits right into what I want to see in VR and I desperately hope you guys get your funding. Just looked and you are 70% of the way there, so I am becoming optimistic once again and if you are close at the end will personally double my pledge and hope that other MTBS'ers will do the same to push you through.

[2EyeGuy]

if you are close at the end will personally double my pledge and hope that other MTBS'ers will do the same to push you through.

OK, done.
I doubled my pledge (and added an extra 15%, I want my stretch goal*). I'm now either a "Traveller" or a "Pioneer", or perhaps both, since this is an extra special tier - the only tier whose forum icon doesn't match their pledge.

* also it might cost $15 to ship my digital pdf files and forum icons outside the USA. Either that or because the rewards from this tier are worth $50, I can't count that money towards the shipping of my game disc.

[jeremyc9]

I've contacted the site owner at http://dailygamedeals.com/ and he has agreed to do a small writeup on The Gallery for his site. I'm not sure how much it will help but even one extra backer will make me happy, and I hope we can return the favor by visiting his site. I've been checking his site daily for over a year and it has saved me quite a bit of money on games.

[geekmaster]

What's up with all the broken images in the signatures (including mine)? They point to thegallerygame.com, which only shows this web page:

This account has been suspended.

If you are the account holder, you will be able to find out why this has happened and by logging into our client portal. If you have any questions, please log a ticket in our helpdesk and we will work to address them and get your site back online as quickly as possible.

Log into MyKualo Portal Visit Kualo Web Site

Bummer! Apparently Denny needs to look into that...

At least our tiny "broken image" icons are still clickable...

In the mean time, does anybody have a saved copy of the original image, that we can change our signatures to point to?

EDIT: Okay, I found a useful replacement image on the Kickstarter page. But it suggests visiting the suspended website, so I will continue to link the image to the kickstarter page instead. Here is the replacement image we can use in our sigs:

We can use the original image again if that website gets reactivated.

[Trabbi]

Shut up and take my 100$!

I have been following the whole oculus thing since a few months now and I feel like I have to support you.
I will wait until the consumer version comes out to play this, im sure it will be a great experience.

thank you for making this happen.

[nateight]

This account has been suspended.

Eek! A WHOIS tells me the URL is registered until early 2014, and Kualo's business-class webhosting claims to offer unlimited data transfer (this is sometimes an odious lie), so I'm not sure what's going on here. Also, while I don't doubt those banners were down for you, I've yet to see a broken image link:

?? (Looks ok to me!)

Very strange. The good news is The Gallery got its second $5000 Architect only moments ago. Time to hire a webmaster with all the Kickstarter booty?

[Mystify]

?? (Looks ok to me!)

Its broken for me

Very strange. The good news is The Gallery got its second $5000 Architect only moments ago. Time to hire a webmaster with all the Kickstarter booty?

I thought it jumped up 5k overnight. that should be very helpful.

[nateight]

Its broken for me

Wow, really??? I'm in Ohio on a crappy Armstrong residential cable line, and I can see it just fine, always have. What the hell is going on here? Use this ImageShack link or transfer it to a host of your choosing, then:

[rhinosix]

Looks like the it's starting to pick up some steam now!

It's kind of mind-blowing seeing how naturally you can pass that plank hand over hand - and then touch the rope of the bridge. It's nice to see some outdoor environments too.

[geekmaster]

Its broken for me

Wow, really??? I'm in Ohio on a crappy Armstrong residential cable line, and I can see it just fine, always have. What the hell is going on here? Use this ImageShack link or transfer it to a host of your choosing, then:

Cable companies often run a local caching server to keep a lot of traffic on their own network. The images in their cache may not have expired yet. For those of use who see the real (non-cached) image, it embeds as a broken icon, or redirects to a "suspended" web page when viewed directly.

I just changed my sig to use the imageshack copy.

[TheMisanthrope]

Yeah, just found out our website was down and put in a support ticket. Got it sorted out quickly, it was an automated thing that kicked in 'cause of a minor issue with the billing details for our hosting plan. Software, gotta love it.

[nateight]

it was an automated thing that kicked in 'cause of a minor issue with the billing details for our hosting plan.

I figured as much. Good to see everything is back up and running.

Only some $15,000 to go now. Keep spreading the word, everyone!

[cybereality]

Wow, they are doing a lot better now. I think they can make it.

I already gave $100, but I can up to $250 if it gets close at the end.

[Alemimi]

The projection cone looks a lot better now thanks to the two Architects

Glad to be a backer and I really hope this game gets funded.

[rwurdig]

Just improve my pledge from 50$ to 150$, sadly is as far as i can go right now, but hope it helps.
I really want to see this backed.

[2EyeGuy]

All those architects really helped the projection. It is now projected (and trending) that it can't possibly fail.
I don't quite believe that, since we can't expect a lot of new architects, and we can't keep doubling our pledges. But it's looking a lot more healthy and positive.
If we believe the projection, we might even get a female avatar.
Thank you to the Architects and the Ascendant. I'll make sure I pay homage at your shrines.

[norgoth]

I will double my 100$ if it is need at the end

[JanVR]

Just upped my pledge to $250 and posted a Tweet on the Omni channel. VR needs games like this!

[virror]

I really think they should add a $75 tier with the pdf book or something, there is a way to big step between $50 and $100.

[2EyeGuy]

You can pledge whatever amount you want. You don't have to pledge those exact amounts.

BTW, there's an interview with Denny here:
http://www.roadtovr.com/2013/04/09/the- ... games-4649

[TheHolyChicken]

So we know you guys have your Rifts - when is the next update due to be?
Also, any thoughts on my post up the page? (regarding gas mask etc)

[Mystify]

great interview, very interesting.

[brantlew]

Just doubled my commitment. I think they are going to make it anyway, but I'm just realizing how low the actual goal is. This is truly a shoe-string game budget. I mean 65K is an average salary for a single developer, but split three ways - that's really tight and gives no room at all for scheduling delays. This is truly a community driven project and I urge everyone here that supports this game to contribute what you can so these guys can eat and make this game properly. I would hate for it to get rushed at the end because of a small funding issue, so cmon - give them a little breathing room and push this thing well over the 70K mark.

[Alemimi]

Guys, Cloudhead added the $75 tier everyone asked for, let's throw some more moneys at them

[MrGreen]

Upgraded again. I'm now a SOJOURNER!

About 10k to go.

BELIEVE!

[crespo80]

It's a really close call!
http://www.kicktraq.com/projects/494598 ... hart-daily
If we calculate the average pledges per day, excluding the first two days and the two architect's days, we have (55,509-8,353-3,242-7,105-6,711)/20=1,505 $ average pledges per day!
If we multiply this by the 6 remaining days, we have 9,030$ so we are short of just 500$ we need at least one more 1,000$ "ascendent" backer after the two generous 5,000$ architects

[brantlew]

For all you Rift owners out there, check it out...