KospY Blade & Sorcery Dev 23 points 24 points 25 points 7 months ago Dev here, just wanted to add that the lag is in fact not artificial like some other games, weapons are physically attached to the hand and 'lag' are only there because your avatar got limited force to move objects.
Folks, I think 'new' reddit layout causes issues seeing gifs. If you dont see gif hyperlinks check out this thread on old reddit until I can figure it out - https://old.reddit.com/r/oculus/comments/92o0d0/blade_sorcery_is_literally_the_best_vr_melee_game/
30 min video demonstartion is now live, folks - https://youtu.be/k06w_b0Hqiw
If you have ever seen my review channel, you will know my schtick (besides being a puppet, ahem) is being non-sensationalist and anti-hyperbole. And yet you are probably reading this because of the insanely clickbaity title, right? Well here’s the thing - I really believe this. And that’s why, I just wanna make it clear with this disclaimer -
I met the developer of this game a few months back through a post he made on reddit, very modestly asking for some testers for his new VR game. I didn’t know him or anything of his game, but was blown away when I realized he was working on the exact fucking melee system we all want. Even in the early stages it was awesome, so obviously I was DYING to talk about it, but the dev wanted to keep a low profile until he felt it was in shape to discuss openly, so I had to keep quiet and bite my tongue every time I read a “Why is there no good VR melee games” post on Reddit. But finally, praise jeebus, I’ve gotten the clear to talk about it. Over the months I’ve given the developer lots of feedback and we’ve chatted through discord, but I’m not in any way associated with the game other than I‘m a super fan. So, I'm gonna break my usual rules and allow myself to go full fanboy just this one time. Final note, some of the included gifs are made by me and some are the dev’s.
So, what makes this the best VR combat system?
We all know and despise the usual issues in VR melee: weapons feel weightless, little to no feedback when striking an enemy, wiggle sword tactics, loose hitboxes, etc... and this is why B&S rocks. Just one guy, one fucking guy, is somehow getting around these issues using a combination of things.
First of all, weapons use full physics so that they have presence. For example if you saw a weapon on the ground, you could push it along the ground with your own weapon. And similarly, because the weapons are “real” in the worldspace, it means all weapons can be thrown to cause damage. But the best thing of all is the hitboxes that are insane. Since your axe has a real “hook” to it, you could use your axe to pull an enemies shield down and go for a stab, or catch a blade with your hilt for a parry. Enemies similarly have precise hitboxes, so if you were mashed up close and locking shields with an enemy, as long as you yourself can physically reach around his shield you could plunge a dagger into his arm or head. Oh and you have a full body too btw, legs included!
Related to the weapon presence physics, this also means you can hold a weapon from any point to change your fight style. You have no idea how much you wanted this until you’ve tried it. Hold your daggers pointside up or down, use your spear two-handed like a Celt, or overhand with a shield like a Greek… all on the fly. Where you grab is where you grab, there are no dumb menus or artificial stances - you decide how to fight.
To tackle the wiggle effect, weapons need to be swung with force and have ‘weight’. Heavier weapons have some trail to create a sense of weight and trajectory in the swing. If you have ever played Tales of Glory you will get an idea, but B&S weapons are not as laggy in the swings as ToG, so there is still a good sense of connect between where your weapon is in game vs where your real hands are.
Blade And Sorcery Vr Spells
In enemy feedback - this is glorious. Have you played melee game after game where you swing a sword and the enemy generically jerks back to signify a hit? Well in B&S, because your weapons have presence they can literally be stuck into an enemy. This feels amazing in combat! Enemies use a combo of ragdoll and animation on death, so sticking a knife into a guy’s gut could have a cool death animation, but mashing his head with an axe could send him flying. Did I mention you can kick too? And tying into the feedback, blood decals are included. If you slash an enemy, you see a slice. Stab him, you see blood. Fucking awesome.
Finally, the dev is making a realistic combat game that does not pander to the usual casual crowd, so there are no HP bars or the likes. Obviously X amount of slash damage will take an enemy down, but you can tell how hurt an enemy is by physically seeing how messed up he is with wounds. If you get a sweet strike and run your blade through the enemy’s chest, good for you, he’s dead. So how do enemies survive if they can be one-shotted? They parry using a “predictive parry”. That’s it, that’s the secret. No artificial difficulty necessary in order to extend the fight. I love it.
Okay, so the combat is cool but what is the actual game?
Honestly, I’m not 100% positive. Right now (in the Alpha) the game is essentially an arena sandbox where you spawn generic enemies to fight. There are a variety of weapons to choose (swords, shields, spears, daggers, falcions, greatswords, axes) This is where the dev can weigh in himself, but chatting with him the plan seems to be a Sairento style campaign where you move through levels of enemies. There was talk of adding more fantasy elements to the game and including monsters and creatures who would have attack animations and physics like the normal enemies (so you could stick weapons in them, parry claws, etc) and this would be mind blowing if he could pull it off. Initially, this was an area of critique for me because it sounded like the game was gonna be too ambitious for one dev to pull off. I was concerned it would be too much workload for one person, so rather than have an infinite development time I actually suggested he package what he has and release a super polished but much smaller scope gladiator game. But this dev has a vision and he is going for it. :) There is also the plan to add magic spells before final release. When I heard about magic as an addition, again I was skeptical because of scope creep… I urged him to leave the magic out and stick to a realistic combat game, but then he added telekinesis and now I’m a believer. It works seamlessly and given how well he has tackled everything else, I believe he could pull the magic incorporation off and do “impactful” magic right in VR.
So is there any problems?
Yes of course - Sometimes the physics will go wonky and enemies will ragdoll weird, especially on death. Sometimes weapons glitch. There are exploits for easy combat. But it’s an alpha, so… Also, the dev has been awesome at fixing things so far.
Blade And Sorcery Vr Free Download
Who is the developer?
Blade And Sorcery Vr Ps4
Just a really humble French dude who has been here among us the whole time. The dev is u/KospY. Super talented but he never toots his own horn and I had to plead with him to allow me to make this post; this is why I really wanted to go all out and give him some hype. He cited his influence for the game to be in the spirit of Dark Messiah (which I loved myself) and the influence is sometimes noticeable :)
Release dates? Roadmap?
Right now the game is only in Alpha, so there are no dates, clear roadmap anything like that. When it looks closer to a finished game I’m sure there will be a big announcement. KospY has graciously given me permission to release bi-weekly videos with each update he does, so I will be posting them to my YouTube VR channel in the coming weeks.
Blade And Sorcery Oculus
So that's about it! Thank you for reading through the wall of text. This was cathartic for me to finally talk about this secret game after months.