Disembodied is a unique platformer coming to Quest that answers the question: how do you build a ‘traditional’ game entirely around hand-tracking?
Retroactively adding hand-tracking to existing games is a bit of a mixed bag. Sometimes it works just fine, like in the case of Cubism or Job Simulator, although adapting many games originally built for motion controllers isn’t so straightforward—one of the major reasons (beyond price) why Vision Pro isn’t chock full of immersive games right now.
That’s where Disembodied comes in, featuring a unique style of platforming gameplay that puts it squarely in the camp of ‘hand-tracking native’.
“Just hold your hands in front of you, and every movement will be mirrored to a pair of disembodied hands, which you must manoeuvre through small levels featuring various mechanics and challenges,” developer Middle Man Games explains.
It’s admittedly a little more than that. Built for mixed reality, you can twiddle your fingers for fine movement, or ‘paddle’ them back and forth to vault up platforms and ride across moving cranes—all in search of green orbs which allow you to activate the exit.
We’re curious to go ‘hands-on’ with this hand-tracking native, which for now looks to still be fairly early in development. Disembodied is however slated to launch “soon(ish)” on Quest, which will likely arrive on the main store in an early access since Meta is dissolving App Lab on August 5th.
In the meantime, you can wishlist Disembodied on Quest and see some early demo gameplay below, courtesy Erik Hartley.
This isn’t the first project from Middle Man Games. The Essex, UK-based indie also developed non-VR 2D platformer Ziode Shadow (2021) and falling block puzzle game for Quest and PC VR headsets Twistex (2024), which is a bit like a 3D version of Tetris.