Today deckbuilding virtual reality (VR) experience Ascension VR has launched across Samsung Gear VR, HTC Vive and Oculus Rift head-mounted displays (HMDs).
Temple Gates Games has taken Stone Blade Entertainment’s tabletop card game Ascension and digitally recreated it so that gamers across the world can play against each other no matter which format they own.
Combining fully animated avatars with deckbuilding gameplay Ascension VR features 52 heroes, constructs and monsters. The studio has included a full single-player tutorial, as well as single-player AI modes for new players to acclimatise to the gameplay mechanics, battling with up to three AI opponents to build familiarity with the cards.
While Ascension VR is primarily a card battle videogame it’s also a fully social virtual experience. Featuring spatialized voice chat, avatar lip sync and avatar animation triggered by real time player movement, players can discuss strategy, gameplay tactics, hero attributes or anything else they like together in one space in VR, with up to three friends.
The studio isn’t stopping there, in a blog posting today Theresa Duringer, CEO, said: “we’re already working on our first patch! Big features are in-game recenter (hopefully with tilt for ‘lying in bed mode’) and network improvements/feedback to improve voice quality on wifi.” The patch should be live next week.
Duringer also noted: “I wanted to announce Tuesday Nights with the Devs. Of course we’ll be around for our launch, but going forward we’ll be on each Tuesday to get some in person feedback and feature requests, and to hang out and play. Please drop in and join us!”
VRFocus will continue its coverage of Ascension VR, reporting back with any further announcements.
