After a long ride lasted many months, finally our mixed reality fitness game HitMotion: Reloaded has been published on Viveport M! The game has been released in Early Access and costs €4.99/$5.59/RMB39.90.
HitMotion purpose is to let people stay fit while having fun. This is in line with what other XR applications like BoxVR or Viro Move are trying to do: VR is proving to be a great tool to make people sweat at home in an entertaining way, and it is helping many people in losing weight. Some people don’t like going to the gym, and as I like to say, with VR, if you don’t go to the gym, the gym goes to you.
The peculiarity of this game wrt other competitors is:
- It has been made from the ground-up for a standalone VR headset. This means that it doesn’t feature the standard front binary of objects coming towards you, but it exploits all your room;
- It is in passthrough mixed reality. For the first time, an official game of a virtual reality headset is actually in augmented reality, thanks to the use of the front cameras. This is technically very cool, also considering that we developed this solution on our own (and we will release it open-source);
- It offers full safety. Since you are playing an AR game, you see your surroundings and so you can safely play a boxing game without the risk of punching your walls or even worse, your monitors. During our tests, we found it a very handy feature for a fitness game.
But I’ve already told you all of this many times, so let’s talk about what the game is about, that I always kept as a bit of mystery 🙂 .
The game is all about moving all around your room, punching objects and dodging attacks. You see some bots popping up in your play area, and you have to punch them to destroy them. The bots may be blue or yellow: if they are blue, you have to use your left hand, if they’re yellow, you have to use your right hand.
They will also show you some hit areas that indicate if you have to punch them using a jab, a hook or an uppercut. Hit them in the right way, using the right hand and the right punch type, and you get some points. If you’re fast enough to hit them as soon as them pop up, you get a bonus. Hit them in the wrong way, and you get no points. In the end, the rules are easy.
It is a bit less easy to play it, especially because the more you go on, the more the levels become harder, and the droids become more, and to score the bonus points you have to be always faster. Not to mention the fact that after the “easy” section, some enemies will start attacking you and you will have to dodge their attacks, otherwise they “kill” you. My favorite enemy block is a big bar that comes fast towards you and you have to be very reactive in dodging it. As you may notice this is a bit something like a boxing training disguising as a game, and this is exactly our purpose.
The campaign features 21 levels of incremental difficulty. For every level you can unlock up to 3 stars. You can use these stars to unlock the next levels to play, as in all mobile games. There are also some daily objectives that you can fulfill to gather access to special bonuses, like temporary invulnerability and gloves that destroy everything easily. Our game designer Massimiliano Ariani has thought that adding this gamification mechanics could help the players in becoming motivated in returning to the game every day to challenge themselves in winning 3 stars for each level (something that is very difficult) and fulfilling the dailies. This is made with the purpose of making people playing the game a lot, so that they could exercise a lot, and stay fit without even noticing it.
For who finishes all the levels, there is a survival mode that gets unlocked, where not only every attack but also every error costs you an HP, so you have to be very careful when punching the droids, or your gaming session will end very fast.
To help you in understanding all the rules of the game there is a 3D low poly trainer, that Max has called “Bob”. Bob will be there in the room with you, and will show you what pose you should have when boxing (the “standard stance”, if you are into boxing) and how you should punch the droids. I think it’s one of the coolest thing of the game 🙂
We of New Technology Walkers are releasing HitMotion: Reloaded in Early Access because we want to build this game with the help of the community. We know that at this stage it is a bit rough, but we want to hear the feedback of our players as soon as possible so that to know how to improve it in the right way. This feedback is what has made us improve the game so much from the free demo that we presented at the Vive Ecosystem Conference, to the actual early access game released today, and we want to continue this way.
We already made more than 150 people try our game at WCVRI in Nanchang, with very good success. From our tests, the game is fun to play, but we think we can do better, so we want to hear what you think about it! So if you buy it, please write us an e-mail to let us know what you think about it! Every suggestion is welcome.
If you want to stay fit while having fun, and want to support a crazy VR indie game studio, download HitMotion: Reloaded today from Viveport M! We kept the price low around $5 because we wanted the maximum number of people possible to have the possibility of being healthier while having fun! The game is available only for the Vive Focus Plus, but portings to other platforms may come in the next months. Currently, the Vive Focus Plus is the only one letting us do this kind of passthrough games, so we think it is and will be the best platform to enjoy it.
It has been an incredibly long ride, and we of NTW want to thank all people that have accompanied us in it, like MID Studio, that curated our graphics (and our amazing trailer), Enea Le Fons, that has helped us on the creative side especially during the demo, and HTC Vive that has supported us throughout all our journey (especially Bill, Leo and Mister President Alvin!).
Are you ready for the fitness battle? If yes, download HitMotion: Reloaded now!
For more info on the game:
Viveport page: https://www.viveport.com/mobileapps/ee8b0d20-2731-4ea9-ad6d-11b759e754fc
Official website: http://hitmotion.games/
Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/Hitmotion-Reloaded-106659094056762/
Instagram page: https://www.instagram.com/hitmotion.reloaded/