Vision Pro Gaming Weekly #8 - SAVE ALL HUMANS!

🔘Press Start + Game of the Week

Eternal Starlight (App Store)

Let’s kick off this week with Eternal Starlight! I had heard that this was one the best games on Vision Pro. Thanks to the developers at White Noise Games I finally got to try it!

The game is a real time strategy space battler. I must say it’s quite fun. The story has epic overtones, though a bit short on the production values. The game really could have used some voice over.

You grab attack ships, draw flight paths, set their targets, and in general blow a bunch of stuff up. The game moves quite fast. it pretty much pauses when you are giving commands to a ship but the action is quite frenetic.

The game comes with 28 missions that are randomized each time you play, and has a skirmish mode that lets you set up fights using your collection of ships. Overall if you get into this game, which I think you will, you’ll be busy upgrading your ships and progressing in the campaign for a while! Definitely worth the price.

The only complaints I had was that I had a bit of trouble with the controls. Like Demeo’s middle finger gesture, you clench both fists and then use them to manipulate the scale and rotation and to move the world around. The problem was that game kept triggering clenched fists for me even when my hand was just in a basic relaxed position. This would cause the world to move around unexpectedly which was quite annoying. They have a custom feature where you can set up your own gesture instead of using the clenched fist, but I haven’t found a good pose I like that works well yet. The controls are generally intuitive but I did quite often felt like I was struggling with the controls. Things like not being able to draw the exact ship path I wanted to. Having trouble getting to the exact view I wanted. I’d say the controls are borderline bad and almost ruin the fun. A bit more work by the developer and this can be a really good RTS that people enjoy for a while. Especially if they add an online PVP mode!

Despite the controls I did still have fun. I had that “one more mission” feeling, and I could feel the epicness of the story. If this is a genre you are into I recommend you give this game a try, it’s one of the higher quality games on Apple Vision Pro now!

Eternal Starlight is available NOW for $14.99 on the App Store now, and is one the better and more complete games on Apple Vision Pro.

Table of Contents

• 🔘Press Start + Game of the Week

  • Eternal Starlight (App Store)

• 🆕 New Games!

  • Rewild (App Store)

  • Visutate (App Store)

  • Beat Slash (App Store) (App Store - MR Version)

  • Acaquarium (App Store)

  • Puzzle Sculpt (App Store)

  • Vision Hoops - Update (App Store)

• 🗞️News

  • Tencent Video (App Store)

  • VirtualFriend - Virtual Boy Emulator (App Store)

• 🛠️Hardware Zone

  • Cheaper Displays? (9to5)

  • Cheaper Vision Pro on track! (9to5)

• 🧑‍💻Developer Corner

  • Crittatrium - AR Card game (Reddit) (Waitlist)

  • Neat spatial digital instrument (Reddit)

  • God like app (Reddit)

  • Amazing work from Luckyballa again (x.com)

🆕 New Games!

Rewild (App Store)

This FREE experience lets you turn your living room into a thriving ecosystem. Not a game per-se, but a good solid experience that helps us imagine where games might be going on this platform!

Visutate (App Store)

Another nature immersive experience app. This game is pretty well done and worth the FREE download. The transition from Spatial to VR is neat and there are some nice moments of interaction with all the animals.

The developer is now working on more content and soliciting ideas for scenes and mini games! Hit them up here: Reddit

Beat Slash (App Store) (App Store - MR Version)

Another beat saber inspired rhythm game. This one finally gives us what we’ve been waiting for and that’s light sabers! I’ll have to say this game doesn’t reach the quality of Beat Punch or Dap Tap, but hey it’s FREE so definitely try it out. II definitely think they should move to a more direct interaction model with hand box hitting gameplay.

Acaquarium (App Store)

A lot of nature experience apps this week! This is a small developer and I like they are going an educational direction. This app will need a lot more interaction and higher quality 3d models and AI for the creatures before it’s really worth everyone’ s time. For now it’s FREE so try it out.

Puzzle Sculpt (App Store)

This Apple Arcade game will be coming Sept 5th. I’m not sure what to make of this from the trailer, but the developer, Schell Games, is one of the best in the XR industry having made some really cool MR games like I Expect you to Die - Cog In The Machine. I definitely will be trying this out once it’s out.

Vision Hoops - Update (App Store)

This FREE app provided a nice update to include room reconstruction for physics so your basketball now bounces around your room too. My hopes would be for a game that would use controls that more mimic real life basketball interaction as this uses a grasp and ungrasp mechanic. It’ll be interesting to see how this plays better once it’s able to use VisionOS2’s predictive hand tracking too.

🗞️News

Tencent Video (App Store)

This app has been out for a while but I just discovered it! It’s got some really quality 3d movie content in it but there’s 2 stand out features.

1 - they include some really high quality environments for you to use

2 - It’s got an amazing feature to with e-Sports matches of Honor of Kings 王者荣耀 with a Spatial Computing enhanced interface! This interface includes a 3d view of the map and you can watch the movement of all the players synched to the video! This is the type of experience that only Spatial computing can provide for you! And it’s all very simple but you can imagine a future version where more of the game elements are animated and updated!

VirtualFriend - Virtual Boy Emulator (App Store)

Tried this on a friend’s Vision Pro and it’s just so cool!! A chance to play some Nintendo quality games on Vision Pro with full stereoscopy was instantly fun. I mostly played warrioland and the Nintendo fun just shines through immediately even if the game is nearly 30 years old now!

🛠️Hardware Zone

Cheaper Displays? (9to5)

The cost of Apple Vision Pro’s micro-OLED displays is high, but prices are expected to decrease by 33% by 2026. Apple is also rumored to launch a more affordable “Apple Vision” with lower-quality displays. This will help Apple reduce the cost of Vision Pro or future Vision devices that use the same quality displays. Great news as we all know Vision Pro needs get under the $2000 price point to start to see more mainstream market success!

Cheaper Vision Pro on track! (9to5)

Apple is developing a cheaper Apple Vision headset and a second-generation Apple Vision Pro, while also experimenting with Smart Glasses without displays. Despite the high price of the Apple Vision Pro, the company remains committed to the product category.

The cheaper version of Vision Pro (I call it Vision Air for now) is going to be pivotal for the growth of gaming on this platform. Here’s my current prediction for the Vision Products Roadmap at Apple

🧑‍💻Developer Corner

Crittatrium - AR Card game (Reddit) (Waitlist)

Some developers are making a Pokemon like Spatial Computing card game. Looks cool and I’d love to see a game like this! Go support the if you like the idea too! They’ve got a waitlist going that they are using to gauge potential interest and if they should move forward.

Neat spatial digital instrument (Reddit)

This Redditor is working on a Vision Pro Spatiall instrument. Pretty cool concept! He’s looking for more feedback so go hit him up!

God like app (Reddit)

This Redditor who’s been making a lot of really cool demo’s a great hand tracking demo where you can be god like and fire fireworks all around the room form your hands! Join the thread to encourage this developer to release it 😊

Amazing work from Luckyballa again (x.com)

LuckyBalla has really been releasing some of the coolest tech demo’s on Vision Pro. His combo of amazing physics engine and demo’ing it with VP’s Scene Reconstruction has been a massive hit online! He even puts his code up on GitHub so go learn away!

That’s it for this week! More Vision Pro Gaming news next week! Game on!

Contact us at [email protected] for anything you may need, or to just to say hi!

If you’re a developer that needs feedback or distribution feel free to contact us and drop us a link or promo code 🙂 Promise to try your game and give feedback!