Brush Up VR review

I was contacted by Games That Work to review their upcoming game Brush Up VR. The game will be released on February the 1st, just in time for National Children Dental Health Month, on SteamVR. Its price will be $0.99.

Why should we care about “National Children Dental Health Month”? Because the game is about washing our teeth. It is made to make us think about how good and how much we wash our teeth each day. It has been designed with children in mind, but thinking about adults, too. As the author of the game says:

“Kids only brush what they see in the mirror, and many adults aren’t much better” says Dr. Bob Jacobson, the family dentist behind Brush Up. “They spend two minutes polishing the front teeth and scrubbing the easy side. That won’t work in Brush Up VR. You must clean the inner, outer and biting surface of every tooth.”

The game is actually just a little experience: you start being in a nice bathroom and you see a giant toothbrush behind you. You catch it with your controller and then a friendly monster appears. It is friendly but it has horrible dirty teeth, that you have to clean with your tootbrush.

Don’t know why in my bathroom I should have a giant toothbrush and a giant dirty monster… but this is a game for kids, so I won’t make too many questions  about its logic 😀 .

At this point a music begin and you have to brush the monster teeth, moving your controllers up and down to move the brush against the monster’s teeth. The more you brush, the more you clean; the more you clean, the more stars you get. While you play, the music becomes faster and faster, to make you hurry up because the time is running out… so you start brushing faster. At the end of the game, you will see how many dirt you have left on your monster’s teeth and you’ll see your stars rating in a range from zero to five.

And that’s it. At this point the game starts again from scratch.

What have I liked the most of this game?

First of all,the fact that it uses virtual reality to make the world a better place. Its purpose is to teach children to keep clean their teeth and this is a great way to use this medium. Particularly I liked the fact that at the end of the game the monster lets you see the dirt that you have left in his mouth, especially on the inner part of the mouth that is the one that we clean the least. This game has made me think myself, so it scored a point.

Then, it has a nice friendly graphic, ideal for kids. And the music that goes faster to show you the time running out is really a nice mechanic of the game, that makes you feel a little adrenaline rush. At the end you begin moving your controller up and down so fast that your arm becomes like the one of Peter Griffin when discovers online free porn… so you have fun playing with it.

What I didn’t liked of it?

The game is too simple and too short. It lasts maybe one minute, then it begins from scratch. This is really bad, since after 3-4 matches, you’re done with it. Maybe the authors should do a longer game.

Then I find strange a virtual reality game made for kids, since as for guidelines, kids under 13 years old should not use virtual reality (due to eye growth, psychological stuff and motion sickness issues).

It is worth the price?

1$? Maybe not, as the game is now. It can be worth the price if they make a longer version of the game, because the concept is interesting and I had fun while playing it.

Hope you liked this review… if it is so, please like it and share (but first, remember to wash your teeth each day!).