Price at Time Of Review: Free
Comfort Rating: Green (No Movement)
Genre: Interactive Experience
Supported Platforms: Oculus Rift, Rift S
Supported Controllers: Gamepad, Oculus Remote, Keyboard & mouse, Touch (as gamepad)
Best Playing Position: Standing, Sitting
Multi-Player: No
Age Rating: PG
Description: This is a technical demo, proof of concept of virtual reality comic. Its purpose is to show mechanics used in the game itself and to introduce the main cast; Asa, Kalka, Silas and Ronta. These people are all getting an invite to the meeting. It’s been forever since they last met and life has carried them in different ways, but apart from each other – that we’ll see. Since They Left combines features of comics, visual novel and adventure games. Comic will emphasize on story, characters and choices. It’s about people searching themselves, adventure, relationships and supernatural. Available in English and Finnish. Complimentary Japanese translation provided by ImagineVR.
Review: Since They Left (episode 0) is a proof of concept of virtual reality comic. Each page, each comic scene can be viewed from a number of angles and you can even lean into them and look around, like some weird sci-fi movie scene. Sometimes you have to duck, others you have to lean over and in to see the whole image, but others you can just sit and look at.
With some nice hand drawn characters and pretty impressive visuals this is a game that looks great and also brings something new to the VR table. Using the Oculus Remote you navigate around, looking at the next scene or selecting an item or making a choice. I can only imagine that there would be hundreds of choices in the future, but for now, it is only one.
Here in The VR Shop we are always happy to applaud VR innovation and a round of respect does go to Cloven morsel for trying something new. But I am not sure it works. Sure, being able to lean into and look around each comic page is amazing, but to read a full comic this way wouldn’t really add anything to the enjoyment of it. Maybe if the different choices lead to almost infinite endings it would be more interesting, but then again this is only a proof of concept, nothing final. A good idea that does indeed give you a new way to experience comics, but not something I can see catching on.
