Rift’s Cave Demo
Best Part:
Beautiful Environments to explore.Worst Part:
Controls need some work.Overall however we have to say that Rifts Cave is a magical place to explore and we really wish the demo was longer as we would gladly spend a lot more time just gazing at the environments which are all beautifully put together.
Rift’s Cave from developer Andrea Marinelli is an adventure exploration game that lets you wander freely around some large scale environments.
As soon as you step into Rift’s Cave you will see that the developer has been influenced quite a bit by movies such as Lord or the Rings and games like Skyrim however they have definitely stamped their own unique style on this demo which makes this an experience you’ll definitely want to try out.
Virtual Reality really puts size into perspective and Rift’s Cave is one of the most impressive demos to show the power virtual reality has when it comes to the sense of scale.
As you walk into the first area of the demo you are brought to a very large cave which feels truly massive. You explore the cave and find rickety rope ladders and stone bridges dotted around the place as you try reach the top.
This first environment is dimly lit and from time to time you will see the sun’s rays shine through the foliage near the top of the cave which really adds to the sense of being deep in the bowels of the earth.
Later on in the demo the environment opens out to a snowy landscape which leads to a gateway flanked by two statues.
Looking at this gateway on screen it’s hard to imagine how large each of the gates are but when you’re wearing an Oculus Rift the top of the gates look to be 20 stories high. This is just one of the moments in Rift’s Cave when you just stand still and look all around the epically scaled environment’s you’ve been placed in.
One thing that really lets this experience down is the control. Currently the Xbox controller has only limited control as the buttons don’t interact with the demo and you can only use the sticks for movement.
This means that you need to use the keyboard and mouse however the keys are mapped differently to most other games and it can be tricky to find what you’re looking for when wearing a VR headset. I did find myself peeping under the mask a few times to try find the interact button or light button.
Another small issue that breaks immersion happens later in the game when you are required to walk up some Stoney steps. I found I had to bunny hop up them as walking forward didn’t seem to work correctly. It’s only a small issue but I did find it frustrating and could see this effecting people in different ways if they are prone to motion sickness.
Overall however we have to say that Rifts Cave is a magical place to explore and we really wish the demo was longer as we would gladly spend a lot more time just gazing at the environments which are all beautifully put together. This demo is just a very early prototype but it does show a lot of promise from a very young developer and we are excited to see where this project brings us in the future.
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