'That Dragon, Cancer' team makes a VR mystery game for Daydream
In the first episode of the Daydream VR game Untethered, you hang out at a small town radio station and interact with callers using your actual voice.
It's a mystery game. As you take calls, run the radio show (featuring music from Future Folk and Jill Sobule), and interact with your producer, clues surface that help you to understand what's going on in this coastal Oregon community.
That's the first episode, at least. Subsequent releases will return to the same town at the same time, but you'll see it all from the perspective of a new character in a different place.
Voice commands are the noteworthy twist here. As a Daydream-exclusive game, Untethered only supports a small-but-growing handful of new, high-end smartphones. How exactly the game takes advantage -- and how weird it is to talk out loud from inside a VR headset -- remains to be seen, but it's a nifty idea.
Untethered is the second release from Numinous Games, the studio behind That Dragon, Cancer. Also released in 2016, the earlier game is a stylized autobiographical account of Numinous founders Amy and Ryan Green's five-year journey as their son was diagnosed with and ultimately succumbed to cancer.
When That Dragon, Cancer won in the Game for Impact category at The Game Awards 2016, Ryan Green talked during his acceptance speech about the stories that are written onto us versus the ones that we write for ourselves. It's exciting to see Numinous now getting to tackle the latter.
Disclosure notice: The author of this report was a Kickstarter backer for That Dragon, Cancer.
Topics Gaming Virtual Reality
Adam Rosenberg is a Senior Games Reporter for Mashable, where he plays all the games. Every single one. From AAA blockbusters to indie darlings to mobile favorites and browser-based oddities, he consumes as much as he can, whenever he can.Adam brings more than a decade of experience working in the space to the Mashable Games team. He previously headed up all games coverage at Digital Trends, and prior to that was a long-time, full-time freelancer, writing for a diverse lineup of outlets that includes Rolling Stone, MTV, G4, Joystiq, IGN, Official Xbox Magazine, EGM, 1UP, UGO and others.Born and raised in the beautiful suburbs of New York, Adam has spent his life in and around the city. He's a New York University graduate with a double major in Journalism and Cinema Studios. He's also a certified audio engineer. Currently, Adam resides in Crown Heights with his dog and his partner's two cats. He's a lover of fine food, adorable animals, video games, all things geeky and shiny gadgets.
