Escape Room VR – Why they are important for VR Locations
Escape Rooms have absolutely exploded in popularity since they were first introduced nearly a decade ago. And who can blame people for loving these highly-engaging and fun-filled experiences that bring people together to complete a series of puzzles and challenges as they fight against the clock! Not us, that’s for sure. With the advancements in Virtual Reality, the possibilities of Escape Rooms have, once again, blossomed! No longer are players constrained by the limitations of space and, beyond that, reality itself! Instead, these new-generation Escape Rooms offer players a gateway into gaming that has never before existed. And for Operators? Well, with an extensive catalog of experiences to add to your library you open the door to incentives and engage with a demographic of location-based entertainment seekers that want to be challenged and want a variety of experiences. After all, traditional Escape Rooms have one fundamental issue: once someone has played and beaten a scenario — that’s it! The only solution for them is a costly revision of their experience, including new game designs and new physical construction, along with the downtime that any changes may require and the training that goes along with it. VR Escape Rooms are fantastic because they simply don’t exist within these limits. Instead, it’s just a matter of putting on the headset and choosing a new experience and… playing. Add to all the above the range of opportunities for team-building events, friendly challenges with friends and family, and the dynamic nature that these simple-yet-complex experiences offer and we can be sure that VR Escape Rooms are only going to continue to grow in popularity. Let’s quickly review some of the most popular experiences: LOCKDOWN VR: “KIDNAPPED” and “CIRCUS OF THE DEAD” are the first two parts in a series of murder-mystery escape rooms where you and your friends are forced to challenge your minds and think your way out before you are trapped forever. In “CIRCUS OF THE DEAD” you and your friends play as backup performers craving fame. As backup performers, you are assigned to an abandoned dressing room where paranormal activities begin occurring. With your performance starting in an hour, you will race against time to break out before losing your mind like the others before you. Not a fan of murder mysteries? No problem! In INCARNA: CHAPTER 1 and 2, you and three of your friends are teleported to a visually stunning world of magic not so different from our own. As you are recruited into an interdimensional team of magic users, abnormalities begin occurring throughout the multiverse. It is up to you and your team to find the source of chaos before all hell breaks loose across dimensions. Unlike LOCKDOWN and INCARNA, ECLIPSE is a science fiction escape room where you and three other explorers are put to the test investigating cockpits, oxygen gardens, hangars & spacewalks. To survive and make it home alive, all crew members must work synchronously to stage a perfect escape. In addition to the gameplay, ECLIPSE features 3 methods of play including “SynthesisVR Game Provisioning”, “In-game lobby”, and “SynthesisVR Game Provisioning with a dedicated game server”. With such a wide variety of playability options, sci-fi escape room fans will have no trouble getting their hands on this game. Like the foundation of many communities, it is up to existing members to nurture and cultivate prospective players in order to create a large community. How can you help grow the VR community? Players can grow the VR community by introducing escape room experiences to more mature demographics. With a larger community and wider adoption of VR technologies, only adds to the innovation to come in the near future. The term “the more the merrier” has never rung so true. SynthesisVR is a premium management and content licensing platform for location-based entertainment centers around the world. For questions related to the game or Synthesis VR please email info@synthesisvr.com
Commercially License Line Of Fire
WW1 Line Of Fire 1916, Verdun, Wood of the Caures, you play a French soldier during the Great War of 14-18. For 3 days, you will have to defend your trench with 3 of your brothers-in-arms against the incessant attacks of the German infantry, artillery, air force, and tanks. Main Features Survive 3 days, 3 different visual atmospheres, and face the progressive rise of pressure exerted by the opposing army Defend your trench with your rifle and change weapons to surprise the opposing trench Discover hidden objects to improve your defense and trigger air strikes on enemy lines. Make tactical choices with your allies to improve the offensive or defense of your trench. Communicate and help each other in the face of the offensive. More Awesome Features Free Roam or Room Scale Mode Multiple playspace options to accommodate small to large venues Available in English and French languages Subtitles available Select Different duration Player Names Two-handed weapons mode for advanced gamers One week of Free testing Benjamin MASNIERES, Chief Executive of ICONIK, had this to say: “It is with great pleasure that we join the Synthesis VR catalog with our game WW1 Line of Fire, an immersive experience in the trenches of the battle of Verdun!” SynthesisVR is pleased to be expanding our free-roam library with this and other exciting titles while supporting companies like ICONIK and bringing their experiences to a wider audience. Free Roam Arena & Increasing ROI Technological innovation has brought virtual reality technology a long way in a short time. Fortunately, the opportunities for today’s VR enthusiasts have evolved to offer versatile, lightweight, and comfortable headsets along with a lot of exciting content. Free-Roam, as a particular segment of VR experiences, offers players more personal agency and rewards them for taking advantage of walking in physical space to move around the VR zone with ease thus creating a heightened sense of immersive reality. This contributes to more dynamic gameplay, acknowledging the impressively wide range of player decisions and actions. Of particular interest, it increases the replayability of experiences as well as the challenge within, encouraging players to improve themselves and also leverages achievements, leaderboards, and the opportunity for internal tournaments and other social events for VR. SynthesisVR is a premium management and content licensing platform for location-based entertainment centers around the world. For questions related to the game or Synthesis VR please email info@synthesisvr.com
Live & Die by DATA
Commercially License ROBOT ONSLAUGHT We’re excited to announce the addition of the acclaimed free-roam experience: Robot Onslaught, to our catalog of games. As you might expect, the game centers around players taking on the roles of high-tech security personnel and protecting their resources from enemies. Scoring points along the way, this incredible VR title offers significant free-roaming for players that want to really immerse themselves in an experience with abundant space to explore and utilize strategically against incoming threats. “In the 22nd Century, globe-spanning megacorporations live and die by their data. A rival megacorp has launched an invasion of your corporate HQ, sending in waves of attack bots to steal your Datagem and all of the crucial information it contains.” Objective: On the rooftop, protect the Datagem from the onslaught as you await emergency extraction. Grab power-ups and place force shields around the roof to gain an edge against the robots. See how many waves your team can get through, and compete to get the highest score!” Impressive Features Some impressive elements regarding Robot Onslaught include being able to set the play area for 12ft x 12ft, which supports 3 players. Increasing the play area to 20ft x 20ft allows for up to 6 players to play and works seamlessly with or without a dedicated game server. Additionally, Robot Onslaught includes offline multiplayer functionality and SynthesisVR One-Click Multiplayer options that enable multiple players to join seamlessly at the click of a button. To add to the impressive list of features, Robot Onslaught is supported by SynthesisVR’s leaderboard. The SynthesisVR leaderboard is a cornerstone of VR due to its ability to facilitate tournaments, and encourage community growth through event days. Robot Onslaught also comes with a week of free testing, so hosts and players alike can take advantage of the pre-public launch by testing and familiarizing themselves with the experience! In order to maintain immersion and provide a zero-interference game, Robot Onslaught has an integrated Spectator Mode that allows any PC running a Synthesis Access Point to use. This includes when the PC is not part of the free-roam session and has the “Robot Onslaught Spectator Module” available. Craig Albert, CEO & Founder of Dreamgate VR who developed Robot Onslaught, had this to say: “Our first priority is to make our games fun whether played in small (12ft by 12ft) or large (20ft by 20ft) free-roam VR spaces. What we’ve found is that the size of your VR space isn’t really important. What’s important to customers is sharing their VR space with friends and family. And in some locations space comes at a very high premium. So we’re looking forward to seeing more VR arcades getting in on the free-roam action using the 12ft by 12ft arena configuration. We’re really excited to partner with Synthesis VR. Their VR platform has opened up new possibilities for our games and we think it will do the same for VR arcades around the world”. SynthesisVR is pleased to be expanding our free-roam library with this and other exciting titles while supporting companies like Dreamgate VR and bringing their experiences to a wider audience. Free Roam Arena & Increasing ROI Technological innovation has brought virtual reality technology a long way in a short time. Fortunately, the opportunities for today’s VR enthusiasts have evolved to offer versatile, lightweight, and comfortable headsets along with a lot of exciting content. Free-Roam, as a particular segment of VR experiences, offers players more personal agency and rewards them for taking advantage of walking in physical space to move around the VR zone with ease thus creating a heightened sense of immersive reality. This contributes to more dynamic gameplay, acknowledging the impressively wide range of player decisions and actions. Of particular interest, it increases the replayability of experiences as well as the challenge within, encouraging players to improve themselves and also leverages achievements, leaderboards, and the opportunity for internal tournaments and other social events for VR. SynthesisVR is a premium management and content licensing platform for location-based entertainment centers around the world. For questions related to the game or Synthesis VR please email info@synthesisvr.com
SynthesisVR New Logo and Design
After 6 great years, we have finally decided to update our brand design! Our new logo and design will feature a cleaner, more modernized take. Though we will be updating the overall aesthetic, we will keep our fan-favorite font to maintain a sense of familiarity. Along with website design changes, we will also be updating our other applications starting with the newsletter. We hope you enjoy these updates and look forward to our continued partnerships! If you have any questions regarding this post or how to take advantage of this new solution please email info@synthesisvr.com.
How SynthesisVR streaming elevates your FREE ROAM EXPERIENCE
Virtual Reality (VR), which was once seen as an intimidating and expensive technology among the common consumer, has taken a dramatic shift over recent years with the proliferation of affordable VR headsets like the Oculus (Meta) Quest. VR entertainment centers have played a major role in making this technology accessible to players all over the world. Looking ahead, if VR is to continue on its path to widespread accessibility, it is vital for entertainment centers to provide amazing and enjoyable social experiences that cannot be duplicated at home. Instead of trying to offer the most amount of games or sell their technology, locations that are successful in the current market are the ones that continue to provide an amazing customer experience. Speaking of experience, Free Roam, also known as VR Arena, is one of the experiences that cannot be duplicated at home primarily because of the amazing social experience in addition to the overall heightened sense of reality. Although VR centers are aware of this, providing an amazing Free Roam experience has never been easy. There are two main obstacles that locations face: Space Constraints in Technology Space Though space will always be an issue due to high rent, providing a Free-Roam experience increases the ROI dramatically since 4 or more players can occupy the space that would normally take only 2 players for a room-scale or standalone experience. Locations will be served better in finding the right balance in providing room-scale and Free Roam experiences. An arena-based experience that cannot be played at home and that can be sold at a premium price. Game developers have also realized this and are starting to make content that can support 3 or more players in smaller spaces. There will always be a balance when it comes to space and the number of players supported, since cramming too many players in a small space will lead to an uncomfortable experience. Constraints in Technology This is where the most advancements have been made over the past two to three years. In the beginning, locations had to buy very expensive tracking technology (Optitrack anyone) and use backpack PCs. Many locations simply could not afford this and stayed away from providing a Free Roam experience and the ROI did not make any sense given the high initial investment. Down the line with the HTC vive 2.0 base stations, tracking was made affordable for larger spaces and locations were able to provide a Free Roam experience to their consumers. Though the tracking improved, backpack PCs were not the ideal solution. With the advent of the Vive wireless adapter this improved but due to the lack of frequency, only three players could play in the space. Locations got creative by using a backpack pc for the fourth player but still, this was not the ideal solution as backpack PCs were very high maintenance and costly. Wireless adapters were reliable, however, they came with their own set of issues. With the advent of android-based headsets like Meta Quest, Pico, and more recently Focus 3, things have begun to shift in a more positive direction. Streaming software like Airlink, virtual desktop streamer, Vive Business Streaming, and the combination of WiFi 6e have positively impacted locations, improving the ability to provide a Free Roam experience without many constraints. At SynthesisVR, our goal has been simple, we strive for standards and functionalities done in a way beneficial for everyone. Given the reliance of the listed applications on specific brands and hardware, we realize we actually need an Ultimate Streaming Solution that can elevate the Free Roam experience and make it easier to provide players with a unique social experience without any constraints, one that would work across all current and future VR headsets. This gives us the pleasure to introduce QuarkXR – a company that we have known for more than 6 years. The SynthesisVR <-> QuarkXR collaboration was founded to provide the PERFECT streaming solution for all VR arcades worldwide. Benefits A tiny Windows streaming app is all that is needed, supporting all the standalone VR headsets, and requires no external accounts or extra applications Simple PCVR<->HMD pairing process No visual interactions by the player/customer HMD hot-swap/replacing the connected HMD without closing the game Variable bitrate settings for maximum control over the stream’s performance/quality Unified Kiosk Mode across multiple HMD brands Persistent VR Streaming mode Easy switch between VR streaming and individual on-device VR sessions No overhaul for the arcades – the QuarkXR streaming is completely free for SynthesisVR customers! Click here for all our Free Roam experiences! If you have any questions regarding this post or how to take advantage of this new solution please email info@synthesisvr.com.