Yesterday I played a bit with Street Champ VR, a simple street-crossing VR game available for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive made by Romanian company Zynk software Srl.
The goal of the game is pretty simple: cross the streets and try not to die :). You are in this cartoon city and you have to cross this endless set of streets that are full of cars. To cross the streets you have to simply press the key on your remote or gamepad: this will make you perform a single step forward.
If you keep the button pressed, you will start running… but don’t try to run too much, or you will get exhausted and you will start moving slowly, being less reactive to incoming cars. If a car runs on you while you’re crossing the road, you die and the game ends.
As in all other endless games, your goal is to score the highest number of points. For each step you make without dying, you get one point. In the end, you will die anyway 🙂
This is enough for the cold game description, now let’s start with some more personal considerations!
I was quite skeptical about the game concept (crossing roads? Really?), but I have to admit that the game is really nice instead. Being the mechanics very simple, it also results quite relaxing (like Lantern) and nice to be played after a day of work. But it’s not only relaxing, it’s also annoying and addictive, like all endless games… a bit like Flappy Birds. Everytime you die, you say: “oh, damn, I was about beating my record and then I lost for an unfortunate case… I have to try just one more time!” and then you find yourself playing for two hours!
It’s also very nice to be brave sometimes… just keep pressing the “forward key” and running for some seconds hoping no one will kill you! I managed to score a solid 31 points score in this way!! It’s like running on a landmine like crazy!
Graphics is cartoon like… essential but very nice, exactly like the sound.
Zynk guys have been very good in trying to make the game intriguing because it’s very variegated: sometimes cars are faster, other times slower; sometimes there is more traffic, other times less; some roads are wider, others have just one line, so they’re far easier to cross; fog level changes in different games; sometimes there is a bush that will block your visual and you’ll have to lean; sometimes emergency vehicles will run as hell and will most likely kill you (weren’t they supposed to help you? Getting killed by an ambulance has been quite ironic for me…). And then the more you go further, the more the game adds difficulties. This way the game doesn’t feel boring and you have fun playing it for a reasonable amount of time.
The game price is honest: 0.99€, which is a reasonable price for a good and very simple VR game.
My final verdict is that this game is good to have some moments of fun in VR and it’s surely worth a try! If you’re interested in trying it (and supporting the devs) download it now on Oculus Store or on SteamVR and try to beat me!