Behind the design of Eye of the Temple, out on Quest 2
My VR adventure Eye of the Temple, that I've been working on since 2016, has landed on the Meta Quest 2! It was released last week on April 27th.
Get Eye of the Temple for Quest 2 on the Oculus Store
Originally released for SteamVR in October 2021, so many people have asked for it to be brought to the Quest 2 as a native app, so I'm happy it's finally a reality. The Quest 2 version was co-developed with Salmi Games and it took all our combined and complimentary skills to bring the game to life at target framerate on the Quest 2 mobile hardware.
We also made this new trailer:
The game got a fantastic reception! UploadVR called it "A Triumphant Room-Scale Adventure" and has labeled it an essential VR experience, and it got great video coverage by Beardo Benjo, BMFVR and many others. It also got great user reviews and a high review score on the Oculus Store.
Behind the design
To mark the Quest 2 launch of Eye of the Temple, I've written no less than three articles - published elsewhere - about different aspects of its design.
The Origins and Inspirations of ‘Eye of the Temple’
To celebrate the launch, I spoke with Meta about the origins of Eye of the Temple and the wide variety of inspirations (from classic platformers to Ico and Indiana Jones) behind the game.
Read the article on the Meta Quest blog
Approachable and Immersive Design in ‘Eye of the Temple’
Immersion can mean many things, and VR has lifted the ceiling for immersion in games higher than ever before. In this article, I’ll detail how a design dogma of “embodied immersion” in Eye of the Temple goes hand-in-hand with making the game highly approachable—even for people who don’t normally play video games.
Read the article on the Oculus Developer blog
The Hidden Design Behind the Ingenious Room-Scale Gameplay in ‘Eye of the Temple’
Eye of the Temple is one of the rare VR games that focuses on not just on pure room-scale movement, but dynamic room-scale movement. The result is a uniquely immersive experience that required some clever design behind the scenes to make it all work. This guest article explains the approach.
Read the guest article on Road to VR
Other bits and pieces
- Here's a reddit post talking about how we had to completely change the water effect implementation on Quest 2 in order to keep the same aesthetic on the mobile hardware.
- Here's a short YouTube video where I explain how the room-scale platforming gameplay works behind the scenes. It essentially covers some of the same subject as the Road to VR guest article I mentioned above, but in less details.
- Here's an FAQ with answers to common questions we've received since the Quest 2 release.