STRAYLIGHT

This game is amazing! Grappling myself through outer space has given me happy lucky feeling. I am prone to motion sickness so I'm always concerned trying out new VR games, but this game didn't give me any issues. I am excited to see what the devs do from here! Note: I played this game at a conference before the early access release.

While I find myself taking a chance on fewer and fewer titles lately, this game is a good example of why it can pay off to take some risks. This game is unashamedly evil.. Some part of me wants to catch the developers in a dark alley and smite them, twisted and evil they are. If you can't handle a good bit of negative reinforcement and a punishingly challenging game, then this game is not for you. Graphically the style is very simplistic, low polygon content, but extremely well animated and fx driven. The physics aspects are quite strong, slinging yourself around some of the obsticals at neck breaking speed actually managed to make me feel a little shaky on my balance and I am a hardened VR player. I found the mildly passive aggressive "host" to be quite entertaining. No wait, there is no passive and no mildly. Seething undertones with a desire to see you suffer to a an otherwise polite and meek sounding entity is what you get. If you like physics based games, and you like fast frantic game play with a good deal of skill based difficulty, then this is worth the steep price tag in my opinion. If you are overly sensitive, prone to motion sickness, or want "participation awards" for showing up, you need not apply.

I actually did a first look with the devs blessing you can check out here: https://youtu.be/t40sMaElgk4 The game is a fun combination of VR physics and platforming, you feel like space Spiderman!

Despite ugly looking UI (and Steam store page for that matter), Straylight is a great grappling hook VR game, up there with Windlands series and Jet Island, and even better than Yupitergrad. Although technically you are not using a grappling hook: Straylight has different more arcadey physics that allows extremely high movement speed and mobility. And levels are designed for that: they are huge and full of obstacles, yet still can be beaten in a minute or two by an experienced player moving at full speed. This is what sets the game above Yupitergrad for me: the difficulty of courses here still allows constant fast movement without a need to stop and wait for the opening in deadly traps. The campaign seems to have only 11 levels on Normal and Zen difficulty, but after you beat 11th level you will be thrown and the biggest and toughest 12th level and the whole Hard mode with another 11 levels will open. And unlike Zen difficulty, that uses the same layouts as Normal, Hard provides completely unique courses through the same levels. Also mastering Normal levels to get into the leader board is quite fun: there are a lot of shortcuts and not obvious movement paths through every course. Works on Reverb G2

Edit: After some more playtime and updates I'm changing my opinion on some things and mentioning things that were changed. TL;DR: Going from a somewhat positive review to a very positive review. The game ran very smooth and I didn't notice any bugs at all in my short time of playing. Which is very nice to see for an early access VR title. Some things I would like to see changed: [strike] The physics in this game aren't very intuitive. While you're grappled on a star, There is no gravity whatsoever. But when you're not grappled to anything, the gravity suddenly comes back on full force and you very quickly lose most of your forward/upward momentum. This threw me off a number of times and I feel like there should be some universal gravity in the game rather than zero g when grappled and super strong gravity while falling. [/strike] ----Okay so I'm not sure if the physics were tweaked or I just had some weird expectations but the physics feel great and intuitive to me. Maybe it just takes some getting used to. [strike] Another thing I've noticed is the hit boxes are somewhat inconsistent. Sometimes I'll just barely noclip through an object but most times I "crash" into it from 3 feet away. Personally, I think the player's hit box should be reduced to the size of an average person. [/strike] ----The hit box was changed in an update and it feels great, so no complaints there and big thanks to the dev for listening and responding! [strike] Something I would like to see added: The background of the most/all of the stages is a low res sky above the "horizon" and solid black below it. It doesn't seem to match the colorful geometric shapes in my opinion and kinda threw me out of the game. It would be nice to see a detailed space scene all the way around and lose the "horizon" since the game takes place in space. (Unless there's something I'm missing and it's supposed to be on or near a planet or something.) [/strike] ---- Okay another thing that I guess I had weird expectations for because it honestly looks fine. [strike] Some constructive criticism:[/strike] So I had something here about the narrator and how I didn't like it, but I think I was waaaay too harsh and I apologize for that. There's a slider for the voice volume in game so you can have it on or off depending on what you want. Overall I like this game and I think it has great potential for growth. It's a fun VR platforming/parkour-ish game that won't give you motion sickness. Definitely worth buying, even if you don't get HOURS of playtime out of it.

A complete gem of a game. Addictive, challenging gameplay. Very few other games utliize the VR capabilities the way this game does.

The heart of this game is its locomotion. It is intuitive in the beginning, yet has some intricacies you can learn to use later in the game. I am somewhat sensitive to other types of VR movement, but this one did not affect me at all. Would be a good introductory game to folks new to VR. I quite enjoy the aesthetic of the game. You do feel quite alone and you can lose yourself in the visuals and music while casually hopping around the orbs. The level design is nice in that you can either slowly navigate while enjoying the sites, or try to rocket through it as fast as possible, if that's your thing. Overall, I'd recommend this, and given that it's in early access, should get better as well.

While some levels can be rather challenging, overall, the game proves to be an enjoyable mix between serenely coasting through the air or the exhilarating rush of trying to whip through the level to beat your best time.

I'm fairly new to VR and I had no trouble getting the hang of the very few controls you need to learn. The game does a good job at easing you into the experience with each level getting more and more challenging. Somehow falling to your doom is fun, and it makes you want to try again! I enjoyed the music, it definitely fits the look-and-feel of the game. This is a nice, casual VR experience - would recommend!

You want to go fast? You want to swing through space in a crazy-smooth way and hold your breath to see if you can make it through a glowing hoop? You want to listen to a super-chill, synthy, analog-powered soundtrack? If these things are appealing, then STRAYLIGHT might be your thing. STRAYLIGHT is probably best described as a platformer where you're swinging off of glowing nodes to try to swing yourself through hoops. You activate the hoops in pretty much linear order and then you toss yourself through the final portal and you're done. There are a few really exhilarating things about this game: THE MOVEMENT is exhilarating. The movement in this game just feels nuts, and you feel like you can throw yourself into crazy stunts. It feels REALLY good. There must've been a lot of time spent on making this motion smooth, because it's so good. This is something that is really difficult to describe, and it's a great demonstration of doing something in VR that you could NEVER do in real life. THE SOUNDTRACK is really, really great. I am a little biased, since I know the composer and he's a really cool guy, but it doesn't change the fact that the soundtrack moves from smooth, light EP sounds to rocking analog drums to smooth synthwave melodies. The soundtrack is generally fast-paced to match the pace of the game but there's a lot of variation. It's just an enjoyable set of songs that would go really good alongside your workout, or in your car, or at any time you want to feel like you need to go fast, but in a casual, relaxed way. THE ATMOSPHERE is good. They're mostly simple, low-polygon graphics, but they are abstract in an almost Rez-like way. They give a very nice ambiance to the game (that's accentuated by the soundtrack). I do have a few notes of warning if you do plan to pick up the game. The controls do take some time to get used to. I found the tutorial actually rather difficult because after every objective, I basically died (since they don't spawn new nodes for you to swing off of), and the first level took me a while just to get used to controls. Something important to note is that even though you "connect" to nodes with your straylight, you're not actually physically attached and if you're moving too fast you will "break" off of the node. The game is pretty motion-heavy, especially from a turning point of view (makes me wish my headset was wireless), but the level spaces are large and as a result didn't trigger any motion sickness issues. The platforming is challenging. This isn't an easy game. Nothing so far has felt impossible, but there's definitely levels where I am doing the same move over and over to try to get it right. Fortunately, there is a "reset" button and plenty of checkpoints so it doesn't feel tedious. The story's doesn't appear to be a thing - the game is narrated by a snarky entity (whose identity I have yet to learn since I'm not done the game) who gives off GLADOS vibes. Maybe a narrative will develop, but so far it's not really a story-driven game. The game appears to be rather short. I don't remember exactly how many levels there are, but I think there are around 12 or 13. In an hour I did 5 levels, so I imagine I can probably get through the game in under 10 hours. There are a few modes that I haven't tried yet ("X" level, Meditation level) so I can update after trying them out, but I'm a little afraid that the game will be a pretty short experience. Summary: The game's motion is AMAZING, I haven't really played anything like it. The soundtrack is really good. Platforming is cool. They did really well on these fronts. I haven't finished the game yet so I can't say if it's "good, definitely buy!" or "good, but it's kind of expensive" but remind me later.