Sure, NASA is experimenting with the Oculus rift to control robots in space, and the Navy is doing… something with it, but let’s not forget what advanced virtual reality technology’s primary function is: crazy new video games. Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes makes you defuse a bomb with directions from players who can’t see it.
Just like a real bomb squad (by “real,” I mean every bomb defusing situation I’ve ever seen on TV and probably not real at all), the support team with all of the bomb defusing information can’t actually see the bomb. They have to rely on whatever information they can get from the player wearing the headset to figure out what kind of bomb it is and how to defuse it.
The player wearing the headset has to try to give them as detailed information as they can to make sure they’re defusing the bomb properly and, well, nobody explodes. Of course, cheating in this game would be as easy as the team with the manual looking at the screen, but who would want to suck the fun out of it like that?
The game was created as part of last weekend’s Global Game Jam by a team of Canadian developers, and it’s currently just a concept that’s free to download here. Not so fast, though. If you don’t have an Oculus Rift headset along with the Razer Hydra motion controls that the game uses, you won’t be able to play, which is kind of a bummer.
You might get to play it some day, though, because the developers are currently discussing a commercial version after getting a great initial response to the game. Some of their ideas to make the concept more challenging and interesting were even put on the backburner, because its current form was hard enough for novices, so I can’t help being excited to see what a full version would look like.
Maybe someone could even lower the bar for the game’s needs by putting out a cheaper consumer virtual reality headset for their PlayStation 4 or something. Just saying, Sony.
(via Eurogamer, image via Allen Penstaluky on YouTube)
- Seriously, Sony, your headset has been rumored forever
- This cat simulator is cuter than a bomb simulator but no less fun
- NASA’s Oculus Rift plans make me wish I worked for NASA
