Testing out Narrative VR

For a short foray into the world of narrative VR this week I tried out Henry and Dear Angelica on The Oculus. Both are products of the Oculus Story Studio and while I liked both I definitely thought Dear Angelica the superior experience.

Henry

Henry is an enjoyable story about a cartoon hedgehog who befriends some balloon dogs on his birthday. I enjoyed the story and the characters and animations were top notch. I felt like the experience didn’t take enough advantage of or could have survived outside of VR.

I’ve seen a lot of VR experiences where the director takes advantage of having a 3D space to work in by having frenetic movement across all 360 degrees. While this was done here there still wasn’t much to see or do outside of the main point of focus or action, something which I think Dear Angelica handled much better.

Dear Angelica

From a technical standpoint, Dear Angelica, based on quill is marvelous. Each character and scene being drawn in front of you feels new and refreshing. It also made sense to me from the point of view of the narrative, remembering and telling a story to a child. I felt like I actually wanted to explore and get a look at what was on the other side of the drawing. Even though it was just an alternative angle, the way each was composed and the height of the drawings were a much better use of all the available space.