Pendleton Ward, aka @buenothebear on Twitter, the creator of the hit surreal fantasy animation Adventure Time, seems to have ‘gone full VR’, what’s more – judging by the content, he looks to be a fan.

If you haven’t head of Adventure Time, leave now and check it out immediately. It’s one of the most original, surreal, scary and warmly funny series to hit TV in years. It follows best friends Finn (the human) and Jake (the dog) on their adventures in a bizarre fantasy land – which is about as effective a synopsis as I can give … just go and watch it.

Anyway, Adventure Time‘s creator Pendleton Ward has a habit of elaborate and length twitter personality switches. His latest account switch comes in the form of ‘`+! VR INFORMER ¡+`’, a faux VR news channel seemingly dedicated to posting at once outlandish and strangely practical musings on virtual reality, with a touch of lampoonery thrown in. Interestingly though, the drawings do show that either Ward is pretty keen on researching his spoofs or he actually is an informed, closet VR geek.

Seemingly the above initial illustration sparked the continuing series of images. Perhaps Ward spotted this project from a little while ago.

Here’s where Ward has either really done his homework or has patently been soaking up VR news from the last 12 months or so. The comment on and depiction of Sixense STEM is entirely topical, especially as he’s juxtaposed it with an HTC Vive controller and has himself holding the latest Oculus Touch controllers.

Whether intentional or not, the above image is a neat and amusing microcosm of comments from outside the VR enthusiast community, mainly centring around how much of a dork VR tends to make you look to those outside your virtual world.

The above is actually a fairly perceptive echo of a classic fear attached to the eventual prevalence of virtual reality – that of the temptation to entirely retreat to a virtual world of your choosing and eschewing the physical. I particularly like the continuing STEM theme with the tracked Coke bottle. Reminds me strongly of this rather famous and chilling vision of the future, ‘Reality’ by Eran Fowler:

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reality_by_eranfolio

How long Pendleton Ward will continue on his flights of VR fantasy and fancy via Twitter is unclear, but it’s encouraging to see that virtual reality is exposed to mainstream culture sufficiently now that those outside the VR community feel the technology is worthy of commenting on, even if it is to gently take the piss. Progress, truly.

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Paul James
Based in the UK, Paul has been immersed in interactive entertainment for the best part of 27 years and has followed advances in gaming with a passionate fervour. His obsession with graphical fidelity over the years has had him branded a ‘graphics whore’ (which he views as the highest compliment) more than once and he holds a particular candle for the dream of the ultimate immersive gaming experience. Having followed and been disappointed by the original VR explosion of the 90s, he then founded RiftVR.com to follow the new and exciting prospect of the rebirth of VR in products like the Oculus Rift. Paul joined forces with Ben to help build the new Road to VR in preparation for what he sees as VR’s coming of age over the next few years.
  • Mageoftheyear

    That last paragraph.
    Lol.

    • FloridaOJ

      I know, right? Lol