Legendary game designer Jonathan Blow is working on a VR game
Game designer Jonathan Blow (Braid, The Witness) wants to create a roomscale VR game and is hiring a team to develop it.
Blow created one of the first big indie hits with the puzzle platformer Braid (2008). He repeated that success eight years later with The Witness (2016). He is known as an unconventional and ingenious mind who takes his time to realize his ideas. A Braid Anniversary Edition is scheduled for release in April 2024.
RoadtoVR now reports that Blow is building a VR game designed for roomscale VR.
The publication refers to a tweet in which Blow is looking for developers, including a VR Lead Programmer. The job posting is for a “new VR game”.
“This game has a boundary-pushing design and is made for untethered, roomscale play, with none of those game-ruining concessions for seated or stationary play,” the posting reads.
VR hardware is ready for Blow
The game should be built “on a relatively rapid timescale” and experience in shipping VR games, Android and Vulkan rendering is a big plus, according to Blow.
Since Blow talks about “untethered” play and mentions “Android”, it will most likely be a VR game for Meta Quest. However, nothing has been officially announced yet.
VR Game Lead Programmer
Lead development of a new VR game, starting the game from scratch, using our in-house engine. This game has a boundary-pushing design and is made for untethered, roomscale play, with none of those game-ruining concessions for seated or stationary play....
- Jonathan Blow (@Jonathan_Blow) December 1, 2023
When asked by Road to VR, Blow revealed more about his relationship with virtual reality. “I have been interested in VR for a long time. We had The Witness running on Valve’s pre-production hardware [prior to HTC Vive]. But the time was never right for me to do a game,” he said. What changed his mind?
“It is just more about hardware having reached a certain threshold that is pretty good now, so it will only get better from here.”
Development is due to start in 2024. So it will probably be a while before the VR game is announced.
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