Cloudhead Games' 'Call Of The Starseed' Launching With HTC Vive, Check Out The Launch Trailer

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By Kevin Carbotte
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Coudhead Games, a small VR game studio based out of Vancouver Island, Canada, will be launching its first game, The Gallery: Episode 1 – Call of The Starseed on April 5 as a launch title for HTC’s Vive VR system.

Cloudhead Games has been working on the development of The Gallery for some time, and the company has been pioneering new VR development techniques throughout the process. Cloudhead Games invented the Blink system that allows players to move around in a larger environment without causing motion discomfort. Blink is part of the movement system in The Gallery. You point to where you want to go with one controllers and “blink” to that spot. The screen fades out and then back, as if your eyes just blinked slowly, and when it comes back you’re in a new area.

Cloudhead Games was also, to its knowledge, the first game studio to have a voice actor play out his scene while in VR. The company grabbed his performance using a motion capture system and by recording his voice while the actor was wearing the Vive and living the role he was acting out in a VR environment.

“So many of the things we’ve done in The Gallery are completely new. There were no pre-baked solutions, no standards when we started this adventure in 2013,” said Cloudhead Games CEO Denny Unger. “What we’re striving for is to give consumers a great introduction to VR and to build their excitement for the future of the medium as a whole. VR done right can make you feel like a kid again and it can give you all the excuses you need to lose yourself in the moment — to simply play!”

The Gallary: Episode 1 – Call of the Starseed is a first person VR adventure game that will have you solving puzzles and exploring detailed environments. The game is designed for roomscale VR and requires hand-tracked controllers. (You’ll use your body and hands in this game.) Cloudhead Games said that Call of the Starseed is the first entry in a planned franchise of titles for VR.

From what we can see in the trailer, The Gallery appears to have more depth than many other VR titles. We had a taste of the game at the SteamVR Developer Showcase in January, and what we saw left us longing for more.

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Kevin Carbotte

 Kevin Carbotte is a contributing writer for Tom's Hardware who primarily covers VR and AR hardware. He has been writing for us for more than four years. 

3 Comments Comment from the forums
  • turkey3_scratch
    The Vive is interesting, but there's just no way I can mount those laser sensors on my walls (for a couple reasons), I just can't so that's not an option for me; Oculus, however, is. I wish they weren't backed up so far.
    Reply
  • kcarbotte
    17739554 said:
    The Vive is interesting, but there's just no way I can mount those laser sensors on my walls (for a couple reasons), I just can't so that's not an option for me; Oculus, however, is. I wish they weren't backed up so far.

    You don't need to mount the vive base stations to a wall.
    Every demo I have ever been shown, the base stations were on tripods. You can also clamp them to book shelves with aftermarket mounts. Wall mounting is just the most likely to be sturdy, so it's the default recomendation. We had our Vive Pre unit setup on tripods without any trouble. They just have to be sturdy.
    Reply
  • turkey3_scratch
    17740449 said:
    17739554 said:
    The Vive is interesting, but there's just no way I can mount those laser sensors on my walls (for a couple reasons), I just can't so that's not an option for me; Oculus, however, is. I wish they weren't backed up so far.

    You don't need to mount the vive base stations to a wall.
    Every demo I have ever been shown, the base stations were on tripods. You can also clamp them to book shelves with aftermarket mounts. Wall mounting is just the most likely to be sturdy, so it's the default recomendation. We had our Vive Pre unit setup on tripods without any trouble. They just have to be sturdy.

    Oh, well that's cool.
    Reply