The Gallery - Episode 1: Call of the Starseed

I *love* what this game is so far! So I really, really don't want to give it a negative review, but I have to be honest. My co-worker owns a Vive, and I didn't recommend he buy this because it's just so short for such a high price. So if I'm telling somebody I know not to buy this, despite how good it is, I really don't feel like I should rate it any differently on Steam. The only problem is just that it's just so very, very short for such a high price. If that doesn't bother you, or if you want to support the developers and feel more like "donating" than "buying", then I encourage you to pay the price so that the developers can create more of this game. Just keep in mind that there is roughly 90 minutes of actual gameplay.

Edit: As I've seen this question repeatedly, you need a VR headset. Specifically the Vive until Oculus Touch arrives assuming dev support for the Touch controllers. At a $30 price point for the time I spent in the game I would be hesitant to recommend this right out, but I think that the quality of the game and the polish I felt while playing it I would definitely suggest giving this a shot. Don't go into this thinking it will be like the old school point and click adventures as the puzzles are generally nonexistant and you rarely interact directly with any characters. Go into this for the feeling of adventure. Pros: -Looks and sounds beautiful -Great acting -Movement system pretty intuitive and with no motion sickness -Interacting with everything feels great -Feels like I'm in a movie Cons: -Short, very short. Short enough that I am concerned about the price point. -Shooting flares was somehow the hardest thing I had to do in the game -Very subjective, but I wanted significantly more puzzles than I got.

Summary: + Very polished, beautiful graphics + Nice and fluent user interface + Quite atmospheric - Way too short - Negligable content - Generic story "When I finished this game and put off my headset, it was the first time I left VR with an undeniable feeling of disappointment." I'll start my review with the most obvious and outstanding positive aspect this game has to offer: It's visuals and atmosphere. You won't encounter the best graphics a PC game has ever offered, but perhaps the best so far incorporated into a VR experience. To stroll around in this environment is a nice pastime in itself, and I really recommend to do so if you want to squeeze some play time out of this game. This positive impression is even intensified by the relatively large number of interactive objects placed all over the area. Admittedly, most of these items do not allow much more than to grab and view them before you have to put them back or throw them away, others even can just be pushed around. However, in my opinion non-interactive decoration is especially disappointing in VR, so I really approve of this level of detail. The second big plus of this game is its fluent user interface. The backpack inventory works well and just looks great. Picking up, using and combining items mostly worked like a charm. If you want a decent example of what is currently possible in the visual department of VR, don't expect more and just have the money, don't read any further and just open your pocket. I suppose in this case your rig also contains at least a GTX 980, which I would more than recommend for this game. If it is the label "VR puzzle adventure" that caught your attention - like it was for me - then you better prepare for a disappointment that reaches from slight to huge, depending on your expectations. Either Cloudhead Games put a disproportionate strong focus on visuals right from the start, or they just ran out of time, budget or both, and didn't manage to add a decent amount of puzzles and story elements. Taking into account the large number of absolutely useless (in the sense of unused) clues littered all over the walls, I'd vote for the latter. To put this into numbers: The whole game contains not more than four puzzles that are halfways worthy to be named as such. This is even less than the number of stages or levels, and consequently there are stages without any puzzle at all. Well, if you need a map to navigate from your living room to your kitchen and perceive this endeavor as challenging, your counter might go as high as half a dozen puzzles. To put this lack of content into other words: If you watched the video and screenshots on top of this page, you didn't see a teaser but literally every single relevant scene of the game. When it comes to the story, there is not much to say, as there is not much story. It is not particularly bad or good, it is just generic. You'll encounter stereotypic video game story elements as the crazy scientist, the alien artefact, the guys that litter the environment with short audio snippets (for whatever reasons, probably because they are just carrying too many audio tapes with them), the sewers (big plus, I love sewers), and some nondescript bad guy. As the story starts to unfold, the game unfortunately ends. Conclusion: Cloudhead Games put a lot of effort and budget into the visual appearance of this game - with success. Unfortunately they forgot to divert some resources into the creation of a sufficient amount of puzzles so the game could be called a puzzler. Most browser escape games offer more and more challenging puzzles. If you decide to give this game a try, do it slowly. Take your time, enjoy the environment and then even slow down more. If you start to rush, you'll ecounter the credits in less than an hour.

The best VR game i have played. So immersive i felt as if i was Alex and i just started the most EPIC adventure. Great voice acting and story telling. The best thing i have done in gaming in along time. This is what i wanted from VR. i cant wait for ep2!!!!!! 10/10

The game is pretty, and it really showcases how VR can be used to tell good stories with new and interesting mechanics. Unfortunately it costs $30 for a single episode, and it's just not worth the cost. I support VR development, and I understand there is an "Early adopters" tax being pushed on us at the moment... But this just feels like a ripoff realistically.

+ Phenomenal story / artstyle / voice acting / music + Dark, gritty atmosphere + Perfect balance of puzzles / no leaps of logic nonsense + System Shock 2 style audio logs + Silent protagnist + ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Flare Guns + Teleport / Chaperon kept the walls at bay + Fully baked product that's worth every penny + / - Walking on inclines will move camera up / down - Turning in teleport mode is flakey - Physics based actions (e.g. putting stuff on tables) are flakey Call of the Starseed is a bold first step into a new way of telling stories. This isn't just a game. It's not just an interactive movie. This is something new, that cannot be experience outside of VR. This envoked in me emotions of awe / wonder / curiosty to an extent I can't compare to anything else. The massive scale during some sequences left my jaw wide open. The tracked controllers played a pivital role in bringing me into the experience. This should, without question, be on the top of your VR list.

So good, too short. This is the theme song of all my favorite games on the HTC Vive. This is 'episode 1' so I know that more is in the works.. which makes me super excited! The play is very well tuned, albeit short. And the end cut scene lasts forever... But I would buy it again in a heatbeat! Controls work great and voice acting is superb. I found it to be a better 'myst style' puzzle game than Oblivion out the gates but it is also quite short. It's only really a series of 3-4 puzzles.. I don't remember because I just blew through them so quick

I took a chance and purchased Call of the Starseed, even though it seemed a bit pricey for the reported length. I played it for longer than a couple of hours and spent a lot of time searching for things and completing some of the achievements. The inventory system is easily the best I've seen so far in VR, the camera repositioning/blink system is incredibly good (if slightly confusing at first and a little wiggy on inclines), and the graphics are very good at highest settings for a first-generation title. Having that said, I am a 30-year-old gamer and have been an ardent comic book, fantasy, and sci-fi geek my entire life. And what I experienced tonight in Call of the Starseed reduced me to tears when I finished the game. When the credits finished and the game closed out, I took off the headset and sat in the dark, openly weeping with happiness. I won't spoil it for any of you, but the experience was equivalent to being a child and seeing Stargate for the first time, at the moment when Jackson first sees the Stargate activate and walks through it. Or the first time you saw The Goonies and they found the bottom of the Wishing Well. Or like the first time you played Myst and were swept away by the fantasy of discovering the secrets of the ages. The elation and fear of the unknown, and the sense of impending adventure... it came crashing down on me so suddenly and overwhelmingly that I completely lost my sense of self. For people the need a TL;DR: PROS: - *Excellent* presentation - Detailed environments - Interesting puzzles - Voice acting, audio, and music are splendid - Inventory and blink movement systems are easily among the best in VR to-date - Achievements! - The beginnings of what promises to be an excellent and engaging story - No motion sickness during moving bits (Elevators, etc.) CONS: - Hand tracking will (very rarely) spaz out for a half-second - Blink movement will sometimes wig out on inclines or too close to walls, which can be disorienting - Short length, if you're rushing through it. (I recommend taking your time) - Pricey for the length, but it's VERY polished for a first generation title - Physics for loose, thrown, or falling items can sometimes be a little wonky. - Graphically intensive. Ran perfectly on 980ti at highest settings, might need to go lower with other GPUs - Accidentally forgot my in-game hands weren't real and punched myself in the face with the Vive controller while reaching for my backpack TL;DR: The first title I've played for the Vive that truly made me forget about reality and engaged me on such a deep level that it stirred profound emotions and reminded me why I love gaming. Absolutely worth your time and money, full price.

Just an an amazing, polished game. I'm 47 and got goosebumps playing this. I've been waiting 20 years for this game. This is what VR should be like. How the hell these guys set such a high benchmarks on what was really an emerging system is incredible. The story, acting, graphics, sound scape, immersion are outstanding. The in-game user interface, the backpack system all so clever and well thought out. Everything works. It's easy to get stuck on the beach but really after you solve it you see it was pretty simple. I just love everything about this game, it is short but it is so high on quality I don't really care. I hope Valve have their eyes on these guys for HL3 VR. Becuase you can easily see how they could pull that off after this work. I'm just glad I only just got it, I have a short wait for chapter 2! Thanks Couldhead for fullfilling my teenage dreams of future tech. Get it! Get it now!

When I bought my VR headset, I searched for games on steam that I could play. The Gallery looked cool, so I was excited to try it. Unfortunately, it left me quite disappointed. Mainly because after playing it, I can't even call this "a game". "Demo of a game" is more fitting. The Gallery part 1 can be completed in less than two hours of casual play. And most of this time player will spend waiting for an NPC to finish talking and open a path forward. What's worse - those dialogues have little to no substance to them. No real story will be told until Part 2. There are total of three puzzles in the whole "game", but only one of them is truely interesting and requires observing your surroundings and items in order to solve it. Other than that, the gameplay consists of wandering around, grabbing random junk and throwing it at something in order to entertain yourself, listening to audiotapes and reading pieces of paper lying around. On top of that, The Gallery has some performance issues. My PC is powerful enough to run moden AAA games at high framerates, yet this game, apparently, is too much. Fortunately, there are multisampling options in-game, to fix stuttering in the most un-optimized areas. Pros: +Nice graphics. +Good atmosphere. +Good music. Cons: -Under 2 hours of casual gameplay. -Only three puzzles in the entire game. -Performance is not great at times. I would ONLY recommend buying this on sale for 50-70% discount.