VR Experience List

person in a virtual reality headset with an artsy backdrop

Are you new to VR and don’t know where to start or just looking for some new experiences to try? Studio X has you covered! Check out our reviews of some popular VR experiences.

To pique your interest, here’s a list of our top 5 favorites! The experiences listed below are a mix of different genres of VR, so there’s sure to be something for everyone.

First Person Shooter/Action: SUPERHOT

SUPERHOT VR on Oculus Quest | Terminals

If you’re looking for an action game that runs at your own pace, SUPERHOT can give you the experience you’re looking for! The best way to describe this game would be “strategy but make it chaotic.” Time moves when you move, no health bar, no ammunition drops. You get the resources you get, and one hit against you puts you back to the beginning of the level. Each stage puts you in a new situation in which you must eliminate the bad guys (red, glassy, people-like figures). The materials around you could range from nothing but your fists to bottles to guns that you’ve stolen off the enemy. The biggest component of SUPERHOT that makes it unique to other action games is that time only moves when you move. Whether it’s a simple flick of your wrist or you dodging a bullet, you control how your enemies and the environment around you moves. This may seem like an advantage at first, but it forces you to calculate your every move, making it an amazing strategy game.

Horror: Five Nights at Freddy’s: Help Wanted

Fnaf Vr Help Wanted Nightmare Foxy - Novocom.top

You don’t need to be a fan of the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise to enjoy this spooky game filled with all kinds of creepy scenery and jump scares!  This game can serve as the perfect introduction to the FNaF lore, as it not only contains all of the original games newly formatted for VR but also contains a series of original minigames created just for this experience. For those unfamiliar with the world of FNaF, the games have you play as a night guard at a Freddy’s pizzeria. Your shift runs from midnight to 6am, but there are killer animatronics coming after you! The scary part of this game is that you have a stationary position and cannot run. The only way for you to defend yourself is through looking at the security cameras to track the locations of the animatronics, your flashlight that’s attached to the cameras in each room, and the heavy-duty security doors that close off your office. But it’s not as simple as that, as you have limited battery power, and if you run out too early, its game over! This game is perfect for people who love horror, who love getting jump scared, or love the FNaF games.

Narrative: Traveling While Black

Traveling While Black: Official Teaser Trailer - YouTube

Traveling While Black is a 20 minute, immersive, cinematic VR experience that requires no action from the viewer. It immerses the viewer in the history of restriction of movement for Black Americans and the creation of safe spaces in our community. VR has often been described as an “empathy machine,” and this documentary is an eye-opening example of this terminology. This experience isn’t pleasant nor is it meant to be, but it is incredibly informative and thought-provoking. This experience is perfect for those interested in learning a little bit of history or for those who don’t want an interactive VR experience.

Rhythm: Beat Saber

Beat Saber' OST 4 Music Pack Releases for Free Today, Track List Here –  Road to VR

If you are looking for a game to help improve your hand-eye coordination or just love to dance to funky songs, beat saber is the perfect game for you! This game has a large focus on rhythm and allows an immersive experience that will leave you feeling like a music slicing ninja. The goal in each level is to slash the beats (represented by colored cubes depending on the level) as they rush towards you with the correct colored saber (either in your left or right hand). Your goal is to slice all the beats to the rhythm of the music while avoiding obstacles such as walls and bombs. The more accurate you are, the more points you will get! You can play a single player mode or can connect with friends who have the same oculus device. If you don’t have any friends to play with, you can connect with anonymous beat saber players for a fun multiplayer challenge!

Simulation: Job Simulator

Job Simulator Oculus Quest Review - Rapid Reviews UK

Can’t get enough of work and want to do more in a quirky VR world? Then Job Simulator is the game for you! Set in a world in which humans no longer do jobs for themselves, you get to learn what it was like to “have a job.” When immersing yourself into this game, you will get to simulate a variety of different jobs including but not limited to: gourmet chef, office worker, and convenience store clerk. According to the Oculus Store, some key jobbing features include: Throwing a stapler at your boss! Learning to ‘job’ in four not-so historically accurate representations of work-life before society was automated by robots! Using your hands to stack, manipulate, throw, and smash physics objects in an inexplicably satisfying way! Aggressively chugging coffee and eating questionable food from the trash! Gaining valuable life experience by firing new employees, serving slushy treats, brewing English tea, and ripping apart car engines! Working the never-ending night shift with Infinite Overtime mode! This game serves as a fun introduction to the VR gaming world for those who want a light-hearted, fun experience.

Conclusion

These games represent some of the many different categories of VR games that exist. If you didn’t see anything you like in this list or want to find some more cool experiences to try, go check out our VR Experiences Catalogue! This list will be ever-expanding as we try out many more new experiences, and as more are created. Some of these experiences will be available for you to try at Studio X, whether you want to check out a headset for a couple of days or want to come into the space for a couple of hours.

Ayiana Crabtree
Ayiana Crabtree

Karp Library Fellow, XR Research

Resurrect3D

screenshot of a 3D modeled mbira on Resurrect3D

Resurrect3D is a browser-based 3D viewer currently in development by the Digital Scholarship Lab and the Lazarus Project. It is designed specifically as an open source alternative to services such as Sketchfab, with a suite of tools designed to facilitate scholarship and research of 3D objects. Contact digitalscholarshiplab [at] library.rochester.edu for more information.

Examples
Tuatara Skull (ward project)
mbira (Sekuru’s stories)
Hunt-Lenox globe (NYPL)
Instructions and Features
How to upload 3D files into Resurrect 3D and upload them to WordPress sites
A quick overview of Resurrect3D’s advanced features

Social & Collaborative Virtual Reality

screenshot of a mozilla hubs world that is very colorful

Studio X staff have experimented with the following platforms:

  • AltspaceVR – free, popular with XR community
  • Engage VR – powerful platform for meetings, presentations, classes, and events (no Mac, $$$)
  • Frame VR – platform for presentations and meetings (still in beta but free for now)
  • Breakroom by Sinespace – powerful platform for meetings, presentations, classes, and events ($$$)
  • Spatial – free platform for meetings but does not support full functionality for web
  • VirBELA – powerful platform for meetings, presentations, classes, and events ($$$)

Questions? We’re happy to provide more information on these platforms.

Platform Comparison Resources