Certain events will occur depending upon the direction you’re facing, so you’ll never be stuck searching for the next piece of the puzzle.

For instance, the “hunter” character is rendered at just 12 frames per second, while the rest of the film is in 60, contributing to its unique atmosphere.Īudio and visual cues direct the player’s gaze, and certain objects “wait” to activate until you look at them, which provides a natural sense of pace. Top-notch sound design and wonderful, Samurai Jack-esque animation are the driving forces behind Colosse, a short-story VR experience that responds to the rooted player’s gaze, moving the narrative forward seamlessly. Described by developer Fire Panda as a “real-time virtual reality storytelling experience,” Colosse revels in its sense of scale, with clever details throughout. If you enjoyed Allumette and you have access to an Oculus Rift, Henry is also worth checking out.

Allumette lies somewhere in the murky realm between filmic narrative and video games, but somehow it rises above genre as a simply divine experience. The 20-minute runtime is an eternity in comparison to most narrative-based VR experiences - few even reach the 10-minute mark - but Penrose CEO and founder Eugene Chung considers virtual and augmented reality to be the future of storytelling, and pushing boundaries is the only way to break paradigms. Few VR experiences create the same sense of weight and presence for the viewer, and in Allumette, you’ll truly feel like you’ve been transported into a storybook world. The story itself - based loosely upon a poem by Hans Christian Andersen– is both charming and heartrending, though we won’t spoil too much here. Though none of the characters in Allumette actually speak, per se, the forms of communication they do use (emotive, Sims-like noises, mostly) do an effective job of conveying emotion and intent.

Make no mistake: This is a narrative, not a game. In Allumette, you act as the camera, exploring the gorgeously drawn world however you please - even ignoring the main storyline, if you so desire. Penrose Studios’ free-to-play, stop-motion VR film experience chronicling the story of a young girl in a cloud-borne village is absolutely breathtaking.

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