Darknet Launched Again!
I'm proud to report that Darknet has finally been launched on the Oculus Rift!
Darknet was originally designed for the Rift, and it's gotten a bunch of new features in the last few months. It's been a long road, and there's still more launches to come, but this is a big milestone. And so far, it looks like it's going pretty well! Some comments from today's launch press:
The Verge: One of "The 7 best games for the Oculus Rift": "Darknet is one of the oldest VR games around, and still one of the best. It's a cyberpunk-y hacking title that asks you to capture data nodes by solving clever procedurally-generated puzzles, then strategize to compromise an entire computer system before the authorities catch you. The new Oculus Rift version offers a smoother, more comfortable experience than its Gear VR counterpart, thanks to things like the Rift's positional tracking camera."
CNET: One of "The 12 best experiences you can have on the Oculus Rift": "Enjoy solving puzzles? Strategizing? Does the description "cyberpunk hacking in virtual reality" light up your eyes like Christmas morning? Darknet is reminiscent of Hollywood's appalling movie interpretation of "hacking" from the '90s, but it's fun and engaging. You steal data from powerful corporations by looking for the weakest links in their security. In VR, that means you're inside a sphere filled with colorful nodes that you capture with powerful programs."
Polygon: "Darknet began its life on the Gear VR, but it will likely be new to many Rift owners. It’s also completely worth your time. An interesting puzzle game where you have to hack into different computer system using an array of tools, it also winkingly makes fun of the 90s-era version of VR. If you ever wanted to pretend you were a hacker from the 1995 film Hackers, this is a pretty good place to start."
Road to VR: Included in "The First $100 You Should Spend on Oculus Rift Games": Starting back in the DK1 days of the Oculus 2013 VR Jam, Darknet went a long road until its first full appearance on the Samsung Gear VR store, released for free by indie developer E. McNeil as a way to not only be one of the first full games on the platform, but as a limited time gift to early adopters. Now $9.99 on both Gear VR and Oculus Rift, the game remains one of the most engrossing titles that has you feeling like you’re ‘hacking the Gibson’ ala the cult classic Hackers (1995). In proper cyber punk style, you hack enemy nodes in a futuristic setting—more inspiration drawn from the analogous film genres like Johnny Mnemonic (1995). You have a number of tools at your disposal to hack and infect your target, which can be anything from brute force attacks on individual nodes to viruses that circumvent the security of a node cluster, making it easier to get to the core of the computer and take it over. Darknet fits nicely in its $10 price point, as it offers plenty of tactical gameplay and engaging visuals, but doesn’t make the critical error of over-promising and under-delivering.
Giant Bomb: This was a livestream video, and it's worth watching! Choice quotes: "This is a game about hacking ICE and cracking nodes that I've been digging so far... this might be my favorite game."
