VitruviusVR, the developer that was creating MushroomBallVR has revealed a new name for the title alongside a early access release date. The title is now called Mervils: A VR Adventure and will be arriving on Steam Early Access as well as Oculus Home’s own version this Thursday 4th August.
MushroomBallVR originally began as a Kickstarter crowd-funding campaign back in November 2015, looking to raise $10,000 CAD. The funding was unsuccessful but the studio continued on with the project morphing it into Mervils: A VR Adventure.
A third-person and first-person platformer set in the picturesque Mervil Kingdom, Mervils: A VR Adventure will have four worlds to explore in the early access release, giving around three to four hours of gameplay.
The friendly Mervil people have one great enemy, “Balazar the Evil” who has not been seen in the lands for centuries. They’re protected by the Great Mervil Book but over the years its power has diminished leading to Balazar’s return. To succeed players must collect lost pages, rebind the Great Book, and defeat Balazar.
Most of the roaming around and exploring is from a third-person viewpoint, but when interacting with characters or fighting enemies the title switches to first-person mode.
As with most adventure videogames of this ilk, Mervils: A VR Adventure starts the player off with basic equipment and weaponry. As progress is made the Mervil Armory can be filled with helmets, bracers, pauldrons, axes, and swords to help defeat any enemies that stand in your way.
During development VitruviusVR has received comparisons to another well known title on Oculus Rift, Luckey’s Tale to which Blake Stone CEO and lead designer commented to VRFocus: “The environment, theme, and graphics are all very similar but Mervils has much more of a role-playing (Zelda-esk) element to the game. Instead of just pure platforming, the game is more quest-based, with mini-games and puzzles throughout.
“Another main difference is that our game is more open-world, you get to explore each level and take your own path throughout the game and due to that there’s a lot more self-discovery to be had within the game. Lastly, the controls/camera modes are different, there’s both a “Blink” and “smooth-follow”, the “Blink” is something very new to 3rd-person games (usually you’d see this in 1st person Vive titles i.e Starseed, Budget Cuts etc.) and we believe it can give a near no motion sick experience for absolutely anyone, but we also have a “smooth follow” camera similar to Luckey’s Tale as an option. Overall, the most notable difference being the Role-Playing/ Quest based nature of the game in comparison to just platforming.”
As development continues VRFocus will bring you the latest details on Mervils: A VR Adventure.
