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Build v0.1.1 is out. It fixes the crashes. I hope you enjoy it! Thanks for playing.

Thanks for reporting! A new build that fixes the crashes is coming out very shortly, likely later today.

Try the sandbox for slightly more stable play for now. You can open the in-game menu (left pinch with palm facing you, or left menu button on controller) and press the controls button to show the full controls that you missed out on in the crashy unfortunate tutorial.

Fun little escape/puzzle game! I liked the miniaturization piece. Almost missed that. 

Fun twist on rock-paper-scissors. I liked how the rules changed and made you think a bit. I'd love to see the multiplayer in action. Do you have a video of that? Kudos on making the multiplayer server too!

For the single player match, I quit after the 13th round - even with the extra gestures, rules changes, and the timer, it was really easy because the computer opponent goes first. The gesture recognition worked well for me on Quest 3 - it never gave a wrong reading or missed anything. I had my non-pumping hand in my lap though - maybe that makes a difference since there is less to process. Well done!

I enjoyed peering through the fog to try to spot the enemies. The aim on the machine gun was very accurate through the sights. the enemies didn't stand a chance.

I was able to do all the actions one-handed, and would have loved to see some particle effects for the enemies' destruction too, but it's good enough for a jam. I do wish there was a way to reset the position in the world properly in game, as the gun was too far forward and my monitor was blocking it. When I tried to reset, it changed the height (on Meta Quest 3 via Meta Quest Link) so that I couldn't see above the trench. I had to restart the game several times to get it right.

I really enjoyed the turret controls for rotating and aiming the cannon and pulling that thing to fire. Good use of the "it takes two" theme.

Fun action/defense melee/shooter game. I enjoyed the enemies with the crystal heads. Kudos on finishing this for the jam.

I think my biggest enemy was the stairs - what kind of colliders did you use for the stairs? I had the hardest time getting onto the stairs, and then when I'm on the stairs to reach the top of where the stairs go, I seem to fly off the other side and overshoot.

Hehehe. There seems to be no collider right under that hatch so when I walk over to try to grab the hatch, I immediately fall. I tried a few times and eventually got in by reaching far, and then fell down before I could get to that button. This gave me a good chuckle. One could make a good prank/troll game out of this. :) Sorry about the life stresses - I'm glad you at least had fun making the game!

I liked being able to shine the light into the kid's face. That kid is a tough one to crack. I couldn't figure out how to get him to confess with the peekaboo though. Entertaining game concept!

Any chance you can record a video of this for those of us without two PCs? Perhaps do a recording from each PC and merge them into a split screen view? I don't want to miss out on the fun.

Thank you! The funny thing is I was originally using the CurveMesh3D library to render the dogs' bodies and legs on top of invisible physics colliders/joints - it had much smoother curves, but really hurt frame rate when there were lots of dogs when running on Quest 3. In the final 2 hours of the jam, I switched it to use MultiMesh to draw the curves with a bunch of capsules overlapping - and that drastically improved frame rate. One can get away with so much using unlit shaders. I chuckle that there's not even any lights in the scene. :)

Thank you! I hope it made you laugh!

Thank you! I wonder how the frame rate was on the Quest 2. I'm too hesitant to pull out my old Quest 2. I fear how much potentially frustrating system updates it's going to make me do since I haven't used mine in such a long time. You can see the longer trailer video to see if you had the full experience. It's really more of a sandbox/toy and exploration of some alternate controls:

Sorry, I don't have a Pico and can't really test for it. It's a pity that they still don't sell Pico here in the US. I imagine it is even worse now with the tariffs.

Thanks! For microgestures, I made a simple quick and dirty microgesture script that tracks the position of the thumb compared to the middle of the index finger. Here's the gist. It's messy brute code, but it works well enough unless framerate is slow.

Thanks for playing, and for hosting the jam!

ah, I didn't think to look at the billboard again. Thanks!

Congrats on finishing your first game jam! You were wise to keep the project scope small and simple!

Straightforward zombie shooter with an axe too. It's fine to use 3rd party assets, but I'd recommend picking an aesthetic and trying to be more consistent with it across all the visual assets, so that there's not such a mismatch between the high-poly textured zombies/gun, low-poly house/trees. 

Interesting concept! I liked that clipboard in the beginning, very clever UI. I missed that red button in the beginning of the trail so my campers never showed up. I had to watch the video afterwards to see them. I could have certainly used snap turning instead of the smooth turning. Too bad about the mini-games being cut!

I think I'm stuck - I got to the trustfall alpha and am trying to catch the camper. If I grab him, then nothing happens. I can then just soft ragdoll the camper, set him down, throw him away, but nothing happens and I'm stuck. I don't see any "next" button and am not sure what to do next. If I don't catch him then I'm an unreliable catcher and it goes back to this catching. Any help?

Sorry, I tried my best, but I couldn't figure out what was going on or how to play. I couldn't figure out what those levers were for, or why there was the zombie that walking in place outside of the main tent. The hot dog people confused me - are they supposed to protect the tent? It was so dark. I was able to load the gun with a few bullets, but then the game was over. A tutorial, video, or even just more detailed text in the description page would help.

This VN game has me thinking about how a visual novel might be presented in VR. Kudos on making it and submitting it to the jam! I understand it is still early, so here are some thoughts and points to consider on the VN system you're building:

Since reading is the main activity here, consider if there is a way to make it easier to read?

Because the text was center aligned, the text moves while the letters are being added in, and trying to read moving text is tough for these old eyes. If it was left aligned, the text wouldn't move around and just fill in instead.

Also, I'm a fast reader and don't have patience for text to slowly dribble in with the effect, I'd like to just skip to the whole text being revealed, with just a simple trigger press or a setting.

To advance the dialogue, currently the game is making the player have to point to a very small little forward icon. Is that even necessary? Could we just press or hold the trigger? How could we go back to a previous dialogue? (B button would be nice)

Also, consider what ways you can really take advantage of this being in VR to make it a superior experience than what a simple flat visual novel reader would be. Right now, I'd have to admit that this experience would have been better and simpler as a simple flat visual novel. Why did this need to be VR (other than for the jam)? What value did VR really add to it and make it worth having a clunky headset on over a more comfortable flat VN experience looking at a monitor? What can you do to increase the value/experience to overcome the friction and cost of having this in VR? Maybe allow the reader to move around the space easily with some kind of locomotion? What if it allows you to see things from different angles? From different scales? Rewind/replay animations?

Have a look at an experience called "Eleven Eleven" on Oculus / SteamVR / Viveport. It's an example of a non-interactive experience really taking advantage of VR to experience things in a way that you wouldn't be able to otherwise to add a ton of value to the experience. It might spark some ideas?

I think you could really add some wow to your VN system if you dig a little deeper and think about how to really add value for the reader through VR.

That happened for me too - just black screen and stuck after that very first dialogue. I tried a few times. I was eventually able to get past it by continuing from a save slot.

Wow! What an awesome mixed reality experience and build-up to the finale. The simulator totally wrecked my walls and ceilings. I feel like I am totally ready for camping now! It simulates the "unhappy camper" theme extremely well by the end of the game. At least it didn't rain, or did I just not notice that because of the other complete chaos happening? I also appreciated how it began with that phone call from you. Well done!

Same here. Black rectangle on Quest 3. What about trying to build a post-jam Windows build? I still really like to see the game.

Thank you for playing! Yes, with the physics/grabbing mechanic kinda unfinished, it would be very hard to build a proper shelter. But very easy to make an absolute mess out of the alley. :)

Thank you! I'm glad you enjoyed it despite its very unfinished state!

Thanks for playing and for the encouragement! Yeah the pickup mechanic was kinda broken. Only had enough time to code something up but not really test building stuff. The snap-to-mouth radius is a good idea!

Thanks! The grab locomotion doesn't require grabbing the floor - it's just grab the air. But hand gesture recognition can be a bit fussy even in good lighting. In bad lighting it is a lot more of a hit & miss affair.

Now I realize that I totally forgot about the "Summer Spirit" aspect of the jam and just focused on the "Unhappy Camper" theme of it. I initially was planning on making this game happen in a summer camp area, but thought it'd be too conventional, so twisted it to be urban camping instead.

For the urban camping, I originally had a bunch of mini games planned before COVID-19 hit me. The garbage shelter building was going to be the first mini game - where you'd first place your sleeping bag, and would need to build protection from the rain from above while keeping a certain amount of empty space above the sleeping bag, while the rain and wind would progress and test your shelter. Then would have been a dumpster diving minigame where you bite the garbage bags and shake them around to open them and scatter their contents, and find food. Then the third part would have been to sneak to the other alleys to steal stuff without being seen by the humans.

I'm glad you had fun even though one of the minigames were done, and physics were wonky!

Yeah I was rooting for Dorian too!

I loved it! The humor, voice acting, and story were so funny! How did you do the lip-syncing? I can see that there were textures for the different mouth shapes, but how did you sync it up with the voice? Well done!

You can still upload a post-jam build, just label it "post jam build". It might be easier to make a Windows build, especially with Unreal. I'd still love to have a relaxing marshmallow roasting VR experience.

I can confirm the same keystore/certificate issue when trying to run Touching Grass.

I saw your post in the discord about the game showing up as just a black rectange instead of opening in VR. I can confirm that I see the game opening up as a black rectangle and hear the music. We may be able to help you in the discord - share screenshots of the XR Plugin Management section of the Project Settings in discord and we should be able to get the build working.

Thank you!

Great article! thanks!

I'm glad the Vive wand support worked well! I have a soft spot in my heart for Vive wands - they're so much more beginner friendly than the other controllers, are ambidextrous, and the touchpad is a blank canvas of usage options for developers.

As for cuteness value, I think even adding the legs might have been a mistake, but I wanted to honor the "bugs" theme and not go too "worm". I kept trying to decide between cute and creepy, but creepy became too creepy and made my skin crawl. Imagine the larva moving 4 times as fast, and being a lot more squirmy and chaotic, and with longer centipede style legs splayed out to the side - it was too triggering.

Also, I found that slower movement helped physics performance on the Meta Quest 3, which is pretty much limited to a mobile device CPU/GPU and much more limited than a desktop PC.

Wow 7000!!?! You've probably set the world record!

Thanks!