Fifteen days after Adventure Climb VR’s soft release has proven our first Steam game to be an innovative experience that has grown through community immersion to impact more people in more ways than we could have predicted. Adventure Climb VR (ACVR) began as a short rock climbing experience for the competitive bouldering community of the Pacific Northwest. With its initial demo at the Portland Bouldering Rally, ACVR emerged through the excitement of climbers waiting for their turn to beat their friends’ times on the course. We took the inspiration of this excitement as well as advice from real life climbers as we developed ACVR for a full Steam release.
ACVR initially made its public debut at Portland Bouldering Rally 2018
Making a VR climbing game for climbers was a great challenge for our team, but making a VR game for gamers brought forth new challenges for the team that would require some complete overhauls for both our physics and graphic engines. Collaborating alongside VR gaming communities allowed us to incorporate and build upon feedback on the fly. As players sent (climbing slang for completing a route), we watched, as they beta sprayed (also climbing slang for sharing info), we listened. We immersed ourselves in the community and added more punishing gravity, more responsive hold contact, prettier rocks, achievements and many, MANY, easter eggs.
With over eight thousand library downloads and over four million impressions in two weeks, ACVR’s soft release has already anchored itself into the Steam VR community. Content creators have released their own video content at a rate of about one per day, from diving into easter eggs (spoiler) to crafting their own comedic narrative to it. We are exploring opportunities for various public exhibitions of the game such as VR arcades throughout the globe. Physical therapists have also contacted us looking to include ACVR in their rehabilitation programs. Our community has immersed themselves in ACVR and the impact they have made has become the rocket fuel for our next adventure.
The experience we have launching ACVR will influence our approach to future projects
So stay tuned, and stay engaged with MXTreality to see what reality has in store for us all by following on:
From all of us at MXTreality, stay tuned, as we continue expanding momentum to Innovate, Immerse, and Impact our community.