There are many VR games and apps, but I’m pretty biased towards indie developers which I think are really and truly the future of this industry—amazingly creative and talented people! I’m excited to introduce you to one of my favorite VR games, “ProjectM: Daydream”. ProjectM: Daydream is a multiplayer VR game which combines the nostalgic experience of playing classic Mario games online with the satisfaction of achieving great scores. You can play with friends across the globe or solo against AI bots. It’s a game that I’ve been playing since its release and I consider it a true gem in the VR genre.
PC gamers have been using a variety of methods to get the most out of their games, including modifying their operating systems and installing a variety of programs and softwares. The former method is the best and most reliable for the most hardcore gamers who want to improve their gaming experience, but is it the only way to get the most out of your games?
EVR Studio’s ProjectM: Daydream is a virtual reality dating experience. While it’s only a few minutes long and only has subtitles in a few major languages to go with the Korean audio, the experience of sitting across from a very lifelike person as she laughs and smiles while you jump into immersive interludes makes me wonder what the future of VR dating sims will look like. They’re going to be a whole different ballgame, based on what I’ve gathered from Daydream.
Note to reader (09/11/17): This is a non-Early Access experience that must be paid for. It is a completed, purchaseable product from the consumer’s viewpoint. ProjectM: Daydream is just “a glimpse of one of the digital characters that will feature in [their] main VR adventure game, which is scheduled for a debut next year,” according to the creators. We don’t evaluate incomplete projects, but since none of the stated data is made available to customers, we feel obliged to treat this experience as if it were a purchased, completed product.
You play Dong-Woo, a school-aged Korean boy who has just returned from summer vacation, and you go to Seung-home, Ah’s your buddy and apparent love interest. She invites you into her house and makes a little lunch before telling you about her summer trip in Europe. A skydiving vacation to Switzerland and a day at the beach in Spain are two of her most unforgettable experiences. With the exception of a short bikini scene, this is a work-friendly encounter.
Before I go any further, let me state the obvious:
- I’m a happily married man who isn’t interested in virtual reality dating simulators for anything other than their technological ability to create some kind of artificial emotional connection, as flawed and sexist they may be.
- Because I don’t speak Korean, my perceptions are distorted by the cultural divide.
Aside from that, ProjectM: Daydream has some very nice character animations that make you feel that the lady in front of you is just a few degrees away from being genuine. Her posture, facial expressions, body language, voice acting, and her following stare are all believable enough to make the portion of my brain say, “Please don’t fart, for Pete’s sake.”
You soon drift off into an imagined vacation with Seung-Ah, skydiving over Interlaken, Switzerland, and gazing out over a perfect sunset on the beach in Nerja, Spain while she continues to tell you about her adventures in Europe. Of course, none of this occurred in the game, so you’re sent back to her home, ostensibly with stars in your eyes for the wonderful time you might have spent together on vacation as a real couple.
On a technical level, the experience offers well-rendered rooms that seem real. The house is a welcoming, pleasant place that seems genuine enough to keep you on your toes. Outdoor shots, on the other hand, don’t wow me as much since the textures are too plain and uncared for, obviously lacking the gloss of Seung-Korean Ah’s suburban house.
Within scenes, locomotion is either static room-scale forward motion, which warps you around various sections of the narrative or room on cue, or ‘on-rails’ forward motion.
There are two major issues with dialogue. The game’s conversation tree is a clumsy and boring method to communicate with another person in virtual reality, but it seems to be a necessary evil in the absence of some future version of AI-driven speech recognition that should be near-perfect in order to sustain the illusion. Because the discussion was so excruciatingly dull, I frequently found my attention straying (not in the way you think) to the rest of the room. We spoke about things like “Where did you go on vacation?” and “Why […]” and “With whom […]”—all fascinating topics but didn’t hold my interest. Of course, if you say the “wrong thing,” she loses interest in you and is less receptive to your jokes and other advances—we’re not sure why. She thanked you for a dress you purchased her at the conclusion of the encounter.
ProjectM: Daydream is much too short (at 25 minutes) to be considered a purchase for anybody seeking for a VR dating sim (it merely claims to be a preview, for reasons we describe above). Looking beyond the game’s short duration, Daydream offers a serious glimpse into the future of the virtual reality dating sim genre and what it might become. The freedom to travel anywhere and do anything may be beneficial in generating “bonding moments,” which users may value as they become more involved in keeping their virtual partners pleased.
The way the experience handles artificial locomotion makes a few mistakes in terms of comfort. The forced yaw-turn, which rotates you to make you seem more cinematic, made skydiving stomach-turning. It attempts to do this at a reasonable pace, but it’s still distracting.
When you look beyond the game’s programmed answers, you’ll see another person staring at you and chatting sweetly and lovingly to you; sitting on your lap and whispering in your ear. That last part bothered me, but I’m clearly not the target audience here. “At the end of the day,” the developers add, their most essential objective is “to eventually give a feeling of comfort to the user.” Because it isn’t within the scope of this review to debate whether it is correct or incorrect for whatever reason, we’ll simply leave it at that.
Check out the ProjectM: Dream demo on Steam for a basic peek at the studio’s character modeling abilities.
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