Developers Alientrap have revealed details and a new trailer for their riotously fun looking physics playground title, Modbox, coming to SteamVR and HTC Vive next year.
There’s something unusually compelling about games which utilise realistic physics upon which to build their gameplay. Objects that behave as they would in the real world, transferred to the virtual, opening up playful possibilities, potentially without bounds. Physics games are great, and in VR they’re going to be amazing.
Alientrap clearly feel the same way, as they’ve taken a bundle of virtual toys tools and gizmos, modelled them in virtual reality and let them loose in SteamVR with their new title Modbox. It’s the epitome of a sandbox title, but the developers have imbued it with an infectiously fun looking art style that’s incredibly inviting.
The idea behind Modbox is to give you, the creator, the tools and a library of objects to build your on play-box from a clean, blank 3D canvas. Throw all of this into VR, with the ability to reach into the world with SteamVR controllers, and you’ve got what looks like a supremely playful Gary’s mod, but built for VR input and without those ancient Source engine assets.
Anyone who’s tried Google’s Tilt Brush on the HTC Vive will recognise the interface, with objects and ‘brushes’ on a 3D revolving UI in one hand, selectable with the right. Modbox allows you to drop pre-built assets like basketballs, revolvers and chainsaws into the world. But it also lets you sculpt new objects from primitive shapes. In editor mode, you can merge shapes, before switching to play mode and watching them form a newly merged rigid object. There are switches, gates, pipes, crossbows, targets, dynamite and a raft of other things, some with interactive actions (you start the chainsaw by pulling the cord). The materials available should behave as they would in reality, glass smashes as expected and metal objects require brute force to damage.
The icing on the cake however, and in some ways the central ethos behind Modbox, is that you can join friends in a blank universe, build the world together and play together in it. Health and safety concerns aside, drunken world building and frantic physics face-offs could be something quite special. Not that we’d condone such things.
See Also: 6 Game Industry Artists Let Loose in HTC Vive ‘Tilt Brush’ Competition
Alientrap believe that players can and will find their own fun, given the tools to do so. “When I am playing with friends I don’t think I need some structured game with points and systems—all we need is toys and the environment to have fun,” Lee Vermeulen of Alientrap told Killscreen, “If we wanna play basketball all we need is a ball and a net, and we can keep the score.”
Want to share your amazing Modbox creations with the world? No problem, the title supports Steam Workshop – so you can export and share with other users for them to mod themselves.
It all looks supremely tantalising, and we may not have to wait too long to get our hands on it either. Alientrap are citing an ‘early 2016’ release date, which lines up neatly with the recently announced HTC Vive delays we learned of recently. We’re looking forward getting the Road to VR team in this, 100% sober of course.
Keep tabs on Modbox by visiting their Facebook and Twitter pages. We’ll bring you news of the title as we receive it.