Instead of lines of dialogue to read and then select, you simply choose a response from a series of emojis. To that end, Cosmonious has a conversation system that’s given the expected Owlchemy spin. Specifically, the studio was interested in the idea of friends and how to communicate with them. And then we were like, ‘Eh, it’s just not going to make it.'”Īfter shipping Vacation Simulator in 2019, the team knew it wanted to revisit the idea of school and the new concepts it might introduce. “It was probably one of the most fully realized things. “We were right on the cusp of putting it in Job Simulator and ran out of time,” Eiche says. The game’s origins date back to the development of the original Job Simulator, which the pair reveal very nearly had a fifth job in the form of a teacher mode. “Cosmonious High is now more about cross-interactivity in the world and looking at building this much more open environment as well as having deeper character interactions,” Eiche says. Job Simulator introduced you to VR interactivity, Rick and Morty explored VR characters, Vacation Simulator fleshed out bigger, more varied worlds, and Cosmonious now revisits each of those core tenets, expanding upon them. And so instead of us building games that are trying to compete with other games that we have made, here’s just like a really awesome onboarding ramp to what VR has to offer.”Ĭosmonious might be seen as the culmination of all of Owlchemy’s work thus far. “And if somebody comes into VR and they just play our games in order, they’re actually going to have a great onboarding experience to VR in general. “The way we think about things is there’s stuff for everybody,” Devin Reimer, Chief Executive Owl (still not a typo) later adds. Or maybe it’s the first, but we’re really focused on that.” We still can’t forego that, like, maybe somebody playing Cosmonious High has played Beat Saber and Job Simulator and this is the third game they played. “This game is one of our most complex games I’m not saying we’re making it for absolutely the greenest players. “We’ve got to remember that today we’re getting more new players into VR than we are getting former players,” says Andrew Eiche Chief Operating Owl (not a typo, it’s a thing they do). These are trends that tend to fast-track more traditional gaming concepts like fast movement, which might cater to hardcore, long-time VR gamers, but risk leaving the wider, more casual and first-time audience nauseated. Like Job Simulator, Vacation Simulator, and Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality before it, Cosmonious is a typically light-hearted showcase of new immersive design ideas and concepts that refuses to adhere to some of the trends that have arisen in other games in the VR landscape in recent years. It’s six years into the launch of consumer VR and, in that time, the team has put out three games with its fourth, Cosmonious High, just a few weeks away. What you're left with is a sci-fi school experience that leaves you waiting for the bus ride back home.Owlchemy Labs doesn’t believe in shortcuts. There are instructions scattered around the school in the form of textbooks, but those only cover the bare basics of the controls. Adding to the frustration, most of the time, the game just sort of expects you to know what to do. Step back too far and you can't even reach the terminals. Step too close and the terminals are spaced too far to connect in one motion. Simple enough in theory, but not in practice. One puzzle, for example, requires players to connect a set of colored terminals to their respective matches. Other actions, though, are frustratingly clumsy and awkward. Some things work great, like being able to quickly swap between abilities by taping a button on the back of your glove or reaching behind you to grab your backpack and search through your collected items. In a lot of ways, Cosmonious High feels like an unpolished tech demo, meant to show off the range of activities available in VR, but in a disjointed and half-finished way. In fact, for all their bubbly enthusiasm and friendly smiles, the characters are little more than set dressing, providing the occasional distraction between solving puzzles. The characters are an odd mix of cheery and oblivious, which makes for a strong disconnect when they want to carry on happy conversations while the school hallways are literally burning down around them. The game's bright and colorful, with a quirky sort of style and personality that would feel more at home on a kids' show for preschoolers. But the first day at an intergalactic school where everything seems to be breaking down, all while going through the alien equivalent of puberty and growing into a new assortment on quirky abilities? Well, that's just another day at Cosmonious High. The first day at a new school is always stressful.
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