Good VR Podcast

Ian Hamilton

Audio from people building toward good VR. Read more about Good Virtual Reality at www.goodvirtualreality.com and support independent journalism directly. www.goodvirtualreality.com

  1. 17 h fa

    Puzzling Places Developer Daniel Sproll On Cognitive Load, 3D Scanning & Steam Frame Comfort

    One of VR’s unique and delightfully meditative experiences started as an error on the PC when a 3D scan got shuffled into pieces. Daniel Sproll joined the Good VR Podcast from Realities.io in Germany to discuss the development of Puzzling Places. The game released first on SideQuest and the creators slowly stacked up a passionate community who find a sense of quiet comfort in Puzzling Places as a kind of meditation piecing together 3D scans. They rebuilt the game in Unity for Vision Pro and, on Steam, the title now runs both in VR and on flat screens. That makes the work a holistic study of the benefits of immersion, with Realities.io working from the early days of 3D scanning scenes with photogrammetry to developing an innovative well-loved VR game and finally to porting that experience back to flat screens. “We did a classical engineering mistake,” Sproll said. “We were thinking a lot about, look, we can capture and we can bring it into VR and that has to be worth something — that’s just a cool thing to do. But it turns out a 3D capture is worth very little without a reason why people should look at it. We spent a lot of time finding what are reasons for people to look at this stuff, why would people want to have a 3D capture? What would they do with it?” Before becoming a VR developer, Sproll was a cognitive scientist and a large chunk of our discussion centers on the idea of “cognitive load” and how that relates to the various modes of play available between total focus and multitasking. With Valve’s Steam Frame due this summer to change up the market, Puzzling Places may be one of the few games playable both in VR and on flat screens with significant resources spent on interaction design for both modes. “It’s one of the most comfortable headsets I’ve ever worn,” Sproll said of Steam Frame. “I’m terribly excited that with Steam Frame I think for the first time we have a standalone headset that is only for games. It doesn’t try to do anything else. It’s only for games…. Valve makes their money selling games. It’s aligned in that sense with the developers who make the games. And with Meta over the years we had so many pushes to, maybe it’s more lifestyle, maybe it’s more media consumption, maybe it’s more productivity, maybe it can also do MR apps. It always tries to be many things at the same time. That makes it lose focus and Steam Frame is gonna be unapologetically a gaming device. And whether that works or not, we will see. But I’m really happy that someone is finally testing that hypothesis and making a device that is only that.” The original recording of our conversation was around 50 minutes using the podcasting platform Riverside. I edited it down to just under 33 minutes. My sincere thanks to Cameron Brown of Rec Room for giving me permission to use music from Rec Room for the intro and outro of my podcast. I added a track from Quest For The Golden Trophy to this week’s episode and plan to use it for the foreseeable future. Become a subscriber on Substack to support Good VR directly and receive most podcast episodes before everyone else. You can also simply donate any amount via Stripe to support my work at Good Virtual Reality. https://buy.stripe.com/7sY8wPeTAcnG3eD1vZao800 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.goodvirtualreality.com/subscribe

    Puzzling Places Developer Daniel Sproll On Cognitive Load, 3D Scanning & Steam Frame Comfort

  2. 3 gg fa

    Iron Rebellion Developers Spent A Decade Building Toward MechWarrior In VR

    Justin Spice is on a mission to make something like MechWarrior in VR. In the 1990s he set up a cardboard box around his PC’s monitor to simulate a cockpit for MechWarrior 2 running on Windows 95. Roughly 30 years later, Iron Rebellions’s very positive rating on Steam (and 4.6 on Quest) is a testament to his effort at Black Beach Studio to create a fully fledged VR mech game inspired by his experience back then. “I took a cardboard box and I taped it to the CRT monitor and glued a bunch of buttons on the inside and I had this cheap flight joystick and I would just sit in there for hours,” Spice said. “I was really piloting and the soundtrack and the music and the mood, I was just like, this is it, dude.” We spoke for around 54 minutes I cut down to just over 30 minutes using the podcasting platform Riverside, discussing Steam Frame, Apple Vision Pro and the lure of developing a flatscreen version of the game. “I genuinely believe that VR the concrete settled too soon for the possibilities of things that can be created,” Spice said. “I think in a lot of ways we got into this port mentality. Let’s port things that work on flat screen to VR, which works really well, but it’s literally an entirely new dimension. And you add spatial awareness and things like that and XR experiences where you can start geotagging and having connection to the outside world and things like that. I really think developers should take that 2016 fresh approach and start over again.” Iron Rebellion is on sale through July 30, 2026 on Steam and Meta. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.goodvirtualreality.com/subscribe

    Iron Rebellion Developers Spent A Decade Building Toward MechWarrior In VR

  3. 5 gg fa

    Stereo Displays For Surgical Settings With HMDmd's Jamie Lockwood

    Head-mounted displays come in a lot of different configurations and not all of them deliver VR. Still, the elements that make VR experiences worth having can be better understood when looking at related technologies. That’s how I ended up talking with Jamie Lockwood at HMDmd. The company makes head-mounted stereoscopic displays with high resolution microdisplays and open peripheries designed specifically for use in medical settings. The systems allow doctors to see with depth in detail inside the human body while still able to see the operating room through the periphery, and the low-weight balanced design aims to be wearable for a lengthy multi-hour procedure. I spoke with Lockwood for for around 25 minutes and edited the conversation down with Riverside to under 20 minutes with focused questions around the value of stereoscopy — the key tech shared with VR headsets — and the overall trends he’s seeing in head-mounted displays. “The trend that we’re really excited about is for years surgeons have used computer generated images for surgical navigation to put in instruments or to or to plan trajectories,” Lockwood said. “The future is the fusion…of surgical navigation guidance on top of real time 3D anatomical video….but nobody’s cracked the code on how to do this real time with zero latency on 3D video.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.goodvirtualreality.com/subscribe

  4. 4 lug

    Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Exits Early Access After 10 Years In Development

    A game like no other in virtual reality reached full release after 10 years of early access development. Work is already deep into development on the sequel, but as of July 4, 2026 version 1.0 of RUST LTD’s Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades is available for download and the game’s early access label is gone. On the Good VR Podcast Anton Hand and I discuss his favorite guns, modes of play, and the pieces of the game he spent too much time on as well as the unique relationship with his community. Each week on Friday he posts a video to his YouTube channel as a sort of character — “Devlog Anton” — conveying his energy and intent for the game. "Devlog Anton has been one of the most incredibly important…stabilizing effects on my life,” Hand said of his weekly updates about the game for the last decade. “I shudder to imagine the past 10 years of what would have just been my rocky existence would have been like without that normalizing power of no matter what’s going on in me, I need to sit in this chair once a week on a Friday and bring all of my effusive joyful energy possible.” Ahead of full release I reached out to the H3VR community on Reddit and Discord to collect their feelings about the game and incorporated their comments into its Good VR certification. I encourage you to give that post a read to understand how this game — and Hand’s connection to his community — has persisted for over a decade. For the podcast, we spoke about the journey of development for one hour and 15 minutes using Riverside and I edited it down to just under 55 minutes. Become a subscriber on Substack to support Good VR directly and receive most podcast episodes before everyone. You can also simply donate any amount via Stripe to support my work at Good Virtual Reality. https://buy.stripe.com/7sY8wPeTAcnG3eD1vZao800 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.goodvirtualreality.com/subscribe

  5. 2 lug

    Haptics 101: Motors For Touch With Ashley Huffman

    When you play a game like Eleven Table Tennis you should hold something paddle-like in one hand that vibrates believably when a simulated ball collides. An open palm with a simulated ball resting on it during a serve should also provide the subtle sensation of it leaving the surface of your skin. Today, the best table tennis game in VR is played with two controllers, one in each hand. These objects feature an array of buttons with motors inside to provide haptic feedback, but as VR advances beyond the Meta Quest it’s possible ideas like a glove, watch or wristband can provide the missing part of the experience better than a second controller. At AWE in Long Beach I tried new gloves from bHaptics that sell as a pair for $385 with 7 motors per hand — one each in the fingertips, two on the palm and one at the wrist. I spent most of my time during the demo petting a simulated cat. To better understand my experience in the weeks after my demo I joined Riverside for a conversation with the “Queen of Haptics” Ashley Huffman, who works at Titan Haptics and runs the All Things Haptics newsletter. Titan makes the wrist motor in the new bHaptics glove. bHaptics gears its gloves toward industrial or military training and they’re able to bring the price down for this kind of equipment from many prior systems because they rely on Meta’s software-based tracking of the hands by the headset’s cameras for interaction. Nearly $400 is still a big ask for a pair of gloves, but as we look to the future I wonder if we could one day go to an Apple Store with $50 or $100 and pick up a single glove that looks a lot like a Titleist golf glove. Just three motors over the palm in a triangular formation could provide that Eleven Table Tennis serving sensation, allowing you to feel the ball move around the surface of your hand, and an Apple Watch at the wrist or perhaps a motor like the ones from Titan Haptics on the back of the hand could provide a satisfying ping sensation. That’s something I’d love to take into software like Golf+, Walkabout, and Eleven Table Tennis. “As soon as you start trying to leverage a buzz or only a low rumble to mean something expressive, that’s where you’re hitting kind of issues,” Huffman says on the Good VR Podcast. “‘Cause you’re basically taking a dog whistle for humans and ‘let’s turn that into putting.’ No, that’s not the experience.” Huffman and I talked for 46 minutes and I edited the discussion down to 32 minutes. Listen now for a solid introduction to haptics in VR. Become a subscriber on Substack to support Good VR directly and receive most podcast episodes before everyone. You can also simply donate any amount via Stripe to support my work at Good Virtual Reality. https://buy.stripe.com/7sY8wPeTAcnG3eD1vZao800 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.goodvirtualreality.com/subscribe

  6. 29 giu

    Imaginations Mingle In The Freedom Of PCs With Resonite

    Tomáš Mariančík aka Frooxius is the singular mind behind Resonite — a PC-based VR service where people can create together in VR. He started up Resonite upon exit from Neos, a virtual universe that “exploded” a few years ago when one of the other people involved in the organization focused on introducing crypto concepts to the service. “It was hard,” Frooxius says on the Good VR Podcast. “One of the hardest things I ever did.” The fresh start of Resonite has done wonders for Mariančík’s mental health. “Being able to exist without a lot of the constant anxiety and fear and just kind of focus and be like, what I’m building is my own and nobody can take it from me,” Frooxius said. “It was hugely impactful on my mental health in general.” The developer identifies himself as a furry and joined the Good VR Podcast from the freedom of PC VR wearing a Vive Pro Eye with Project Babble facial tracker attached as well as Index controllers for finger tracking. The course of our conversation covers what furries are, what Resonite is, how the service sets itself apart from VRChat, and the unique power of VR as a medium. “Virtual reality is about putting people into your imagination and visiting imagination of other people,” Frooxius said. “To me VR is a medium that lets you take the imagination out of your head and make it into a world that you can share with others and where it can mingle with imagination of other people.” We spoke for about 46 minutes which I edited down to 21 minutes for video and almost 16 minutes for audio. The video version takes a trip to the Shadowed Cove world by Team VibeZ in Resonite. “The goal of Resonite is to give people as much control over the world they’re in as possible,” Frooxius said. “Let people shape the universe the virtual universe they inhabit. It’s almost like if you took VRChat and the Unity editor and smooshed them together into one thing….whatever you change you see the impact of it inside of VR instantly.” Become a subscriber on Substack to support my work directly and receive most podcast episodes before everyone. You can also simply donate any amount via Stripe to support my work at Good Virtual Reality. https://buy.stripe.com/7sY8wPeTAcnG3eD1vZao800 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.goodvirtualreality.com/subscribe

  7. 24 giu

    10 Questions For Ian Hamilton & Good Virtual Reality

    Welcome to Good Virtual Reality and I’m so glad you’re here. My name is Ian Hamilton. I’m the owner of this website, goodvirtualreality.com, and I’m a journalist. My work here is driven by my human curiosity as well as the direct connections I make to people out there who believe in what they do with their whole heart. Some weeks ago a subscriber sent me the following message using the chat features of Substack: “You’ve interviewed so many developers, builders, journalists, and people working inside XR, but I realized I have not heard your own VR story in the same full way. As someone who loves VR, XR, and the whole emerging medium, I would love to hear an episode where the community gets to interview you.” What followed from my reader Christopher were 10 extremely engaging questions I’ve had on the back-burner of my brain: * What was the first VR experience that made you realize this medium was not just another gaming peripheral, but something larger? * When you first became a VR journalist, what did you think VR was going to become — and how has reality surprised you? * What was the biggest story you covered at UploadVR that changed how you understood the industry? * What is one VR demo, headset reveal, developer interview, or convention moment that still lives in your memory because it felt like seeing the future early? * What did working on VR Download teach you about explaining VR to people who are not inside the industry? * Do you have any funny or human behind-the-scenes stories from VR Download — technical disasters, awkward live moments, accidental comedy, spilled drinks, broken headsets, anything listeners never got to hear? * What are some of your favorite positive memories of working with David Heaney or the UploadVR team during the best years of the show? * What is something people misunderstand about VR journalism from the outside? * What technology, company, headset, game, or developer did you initially underestimate — and later realize was much more important than you thought? * After everything you’ve seen, what do you now believe “good virtual reality” actually means? I’ve answered these questions, plus one bonus question, over a podcast lasting 1 hour and 10 minutes. If you enjoy this podcast and have more questions that have been sparked by my answers, send me an email to editor@goodvirtualreality.com, and I’ll address them in a future episode. Please consider becoming a subscriber on Substack to support my work directly and receive most podcast episodes before everyone else. You can also simply donate any amount via Stripe to support my work here at Good Virtual Reality. https://buy.stripe.com/7sY8wPeTAcnG3eD1vZao800 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.goodvirtualreality.com/subscribe

    10 Questions For Ian Hamilton & Good Virtual Reality

  8. 24 giu

    XREAL's Two Eyewear Types: 'Glasses With Apps Versus Glasses That Connect To Your Device That Has Apps'

    At Augmented World Expo in Long Beach I tried the XREAL Aura glasses running Android XR. The device brings into focus Google’s ambitions to power two completely different architectures for spatial computing eyewear using the same operating system. The two approaches are: * VR headsets like Samsung Galaxy XR with wide field of view optics featuring opaque displays passing AR through from the external cameras. * AR glasses like XREAL Aura with smaller field of view for directly optical see through and adjustable lenses that can darken for more immersive VR-like moments. One of the top priorities for my time at AWE was identifying how VR-like Aura actually is and what the path might look like ahead for XREAL as it continues iterating quickly. I only used Aura for a few minutes and they are still months away from release. Aura features a split architecture which puts processing in a phone-like puck you wear on your side that can also take in a display and power from other devices. XREAL is shipping a lot in the optical see-through (OST) category, including a tier of lower-cost devices not running Android XR. “We have a pretty robust roadmap that goes across a lot of things…I expect to use Android XR for future devices as well…we’re gonna keep going down the wearable display path, and we’ll also keep going down the spatial computing path,” XREAL General Manager of North America Ralph Jodice says on the Good VR Podcast. “The easier way to think of it is glasses with apps versus glasses that connect to your device that has apps.” I enjoyed darkening the opacity of the display and seeing my hands reskinned for Demeo, for example, but I also didn’t spend enough time with Aura or interact with enough content to say anything definitive here. Still, I learned a lot from the experience and the conversation with Jodice helps frame how XREAL’s strategy positions the company. “I don’t think people will stop buying TVs or stop buying laptops and start only buying AR glasses,” Jodice says. “But I do believe they will reach for their AR glasses when that other screen is not available.” This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.goodvirtualreality.com/subscribe

    XREAL's Two Eyewear Types: 'Glasses With Apps Versus Glasses That Connect To Your Device That Has Apps'
Elenco completo (39)

Descrizione

Audio from people building toward good VR. Read more about Good Virtual Reality at www.goodvirtualreality.com and support independent journalism directly. www.goodvirtualreality.com

Informazioni

  • Creatore
    Ian Hamilton
  • Anni di attività
    2026
  • Puntate
    39
  • Classificazione
    Contenuti espliciti
  • Copyright
    © Ian Hamilton
  • Sito web del podcast
    Good VR Podcast

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