BONEWORKS Update 1.6

Watch on YouTube

OVERVIEW

Greetings Bone Junkers, been a while, today we bring you a hover ship and a desert sandbox level to fly it in. As we work towards expanding our mechanics for future games, an important aspect to hone is the relationship between the player and vehicles, and what better way to start than to circle back to the first vehicle we ever built for VR; The Hover Junker's Wasp!

• SANDBOX: Junk Desert Chamber
• VEHICLE: Hover Junker ship
• GUN: Stapler handgun
• PHYSICS TOOL: Gravity Welder
• New Achievements

SANDBOX: JUNK DESERT

• The Junk Desert is a big open sandbox map made specifically for flying the Junk Ship in. This map was built with original assets from our first VR game Hover Junkers! Large scale open map designed for vehicle flight testing of the Junk ship and some exploration.
• Originally roughed out as a level for the main Boneworks campaign, as we refined the narrative it was no longer part of the story. Rather than cut it we shelved it for this update since it still had a mechanical purpose outside of it's narrative purpose.
• This update comes as a sort of design exercise for us. We wanted to adapt an aesthetic that wasn't envisioned to be fully interactable in the way that Boneworks is to identify potential pain points in recommending Boneworks level of interaction to VR more broadly.

hint: Find and unlock the Hover Junker module in our offices in Streets!

NEW ITEMS

• Wasp ship - The original Hover Junkers wasp ship is now an unlockable / spawnable item in the game. There was already one in the Tower level although flight times were questionable. You can now bring this flying machine into any level you want.
• Gravity Welder - This classic multi-tool design was our original concept for interacting with virtual environments. Long before we were confident in our plan for full physics interaction we determined that a "do everything" multi-tool would be the most convenient way for players to interact with virtual environments. The Welder has been updated to function similarly to the DevManipulator however it functions more like a weapon in that you can quickly grab and fire items without treating it similar to a slingshot.
• Stapler handgun - While we work on updating our core interaction, we decided to try bringing over a weapon designed for an older generation of VR. This process helps inform the future of updating weapons from older to newer versions of VR mechanics for us!

JUNK SHIP: WASP

• Flying - Full physics operation of the ship allows the vehicle to fly similarly to a low power plane, this may be challenging to fly at first but very rewarding once you take flight! You can try bringing the ship into different scenes and sandboxes, go nuts.
• Original Design - The overall design for the game Hover Junkers came from our thought process of room scale VR pre-2016 VR mainstream release! During this time our solution for locomotion in VR was to locomote the player's room space rather than the players bodies, this lead to our concept of the hover ships (turn the player's room into a ship!). The Wasp ship seen here is the very first, original hover ship that we created to test our idea out. Now in 2020 we're able to bring that original concept into the fully interactable world of Boneworks!
• VR Vehicles - The Wasp features standing operation. This is a good first step for vehicles because it allows us to test the core tech at higher speeds, ironing out bugs that only become apparent at speed. Also it forces us to support moving platforms more fully. It was important to first take this step before venturing into the world of seated cockpits and rotating the player with the vehicle. More on that in '21...

Patch Notes - Update 1.6

• NEW - Flying Junk Ship
• NEW - Gravity Welder
• NEW - Stapler handgun
• UPDATED - Achievements
• UPDATED - Various scene collider fixes
• UPDATED - Various scene performance
• UPDATED - Main Menu boards
• UPDATED - Preparations for future updates

We feel like it's more important now than ever to give you all things to look forward to in VR. For months our internal goal has been to reveal what we have planned for Boneworks as well as new upcoming titles that we've been hard at work on throughout 2020. We still need more time, but assure you it will be worth the wait, thank you for being supportive of Stress Level Zero and the exuberance that you all exhibit! We can't wait to share the latest info, until then enjoy 1.6!
- Stress Level Zero