Reaching for Petals: VR Edition

I really wish Steam had a star rating system instead of a simply binary yes/no recommendation. It's important to go into this eyes wide open--it's NOT a game. It's a narrated story where you for some reason have to manually navigate a path at a "you are encumbered and cannot fast travel" pace. Like if you've played Skyrim or Fallout 4 VR, that speed where you're carrying too much...that's your speed here. And there are a couple really strangely placed platforming sections that task you with some rather frustrating jumps for...reasons? And the one in the cave has terrible collision so you can quite easily fall through the floor, and have to repeat the attempt several times until you figure out exactly where false floor is. Also, the "forward" moves in the direction you're looking, so if you want to look around as you walk you need to rotate the left thumbstick to compensate so that you continue moving in the direction you want, instead of the direction you're looking. I think is the greatest shortcoming is the right thumbstick uses smooth turning and near as I could figure there's no way to turn that to snap-turning. Even though I've been using VR since the original Rift DK1 in 2014, I got a bit of motion sickness from this. But if you learn to leave the right stick alone and turn ONLY by turning your body in place, you can get over it. The graphics leave much to be desired, and visually this appears to be more on par with an alpha build than a finished product. The LOD changes as you approach objects, causing some elements of the terrain to morph and shift as you approach them, as if some invisible hand were molding them out of clay before your very eyes. And the aliasing makes everything look staticky, like bad reception on the old analog TV. But once night falls, things look a lot better, and the ending of Chapter 4 was definitely worth the wait. Even if the 3D models of Kai was...ehhh... Let's just that was a very inappropriate time to burst into laughter. The narration was very well acted, even if I did occasionally find the monologue difficult to follow at times. Maybe it would've made more sense if I could see it written, so I could read and re-read it to decipher some of it. Now I know this sounds like a negative review, and to be perfectly fair there is a LOT that needs improving on this. But on the other hand...it's 5 bucks. The narration/music are very well done, and it does tell an entertaining story. So viewed in its entirety, it's essentially a VR audio book by an indie studio that provides an hour's worth of entertainment for 5 bucks. Framed like that, yeah I would recommend this. Just barely.

I really, *really* wanted to like this experience, as it has a fairly unique ”plot” and the graphics are stunning. Unfortunately, even with an overclocked gtx 1080ti and a 5ghz i7, I couldn't get this to function well enough to keep frame times under 25-35ms in all but the most basic of graphics settings, which kind of defeated the point of having great graphics. I have never experienced this type of crappy, sub-usable performance in any other VR game or experience I have tried on my machine.

+ celkem fajn grafika - walking simulator, chuze je moc pomala - hlavne v prvnim levelu rostliny a stromy nesutale blikaly, malem mit o vypalilo oci - trochu nuda

Great experience only if you have a 1080Ti, otherwise it is a typical UE4 blurry mess...

Is this a game? can I recommend it to everyone? No to both; It is a narrative driven animated story - the only interaction is walking and listening with a few clicks to move the story along. I completed it in under 2 hours. The graphics are nice and it is slow moving but it is an emotionally deep experience. The VR version is a bit clunky and has some performance issues but it doesn't really enhance or take away from the experience. It's not just a nature walk. It has a plot twist in the end but this isn't about the graphics or slow moving action. It's 4 chapters of a short story of love and coping with loss while going through the stages of grievance. You have to be in the right mindset to get the "game" and show empathy to the story teller. The person who will understand and get this game experience the most is the one who is stuck in a broken emotional state after the loss of a loved one. If you are stuck in the middle of the grieving process this game experience will hit you the hardest. To those on the grievance path; Keep walking through your pain as you will heal as a new chapter is about to begin when you find yourself again. I can recommend it more then I can not but most will need a level of emotional maturity and life experience to understand this game experience fully.

ça aurait pu être une expérience réussie mais la réalisation VR est horrible. Les textures scintillent, les couleurs sont étranges. quand on s'approche des rochers, on voit la texture qui bouge dans tous les sens comme du caoutchouc. Certains objets flottent dans l'air comme l'arbre mort au début, puis l'assiette dans la chambre avec les pêches qui passent au travers. On ne peut aller librement dans la forêt et on doit suivre un parcours sans surprise. Dommage

Very Peaceful, Found it very relaxing and I could spend Hours in a Forest like this just exploring too. Love the Graphics. I can tell a lot of work was put in to this wonderful creation. Smiles to you all

Walking simulator with beautiful environments that you can fully appreciate in VR. Performance in VR is bad, I was not making 80Hz at 80% SS on 1080 Ti and 3700X. Some visual bugs. Performance of the narrator is great but the story is trite and occasionally feels like it devolves into word salad. Overall I found it to be an OK experience, glad that it's been ported to VR but would only recommend if you really like walking simulators and natural environments.

VR graphics are horribly optimized. Sorry, it's just really bad. Narration was really peaceful.

Didn't interest me.