New World Notes

Play Among Us in VRChat: New Fan-Made Version Adds Visual Tasks & VR-Based Body Language Gameplay to the Original

Attention AOC and other Among Us fans: There's a new community-fan, playable version of the hit deception and backstabbing game in VRChat: Click here to play. (No, not the horror-themed fan version of Among Us I mentioned the other week, that's another project still in development.)

While this VRChat version of Among Us is faithful to official original game, longtime reader Adeon Writer tells me, adds some new and interesting gameplay features only possible in a 3D, VR-enabled world:

"We had a group play it for about 3.5 hours straight." (Highlights in the video above.) "If you're one of the impostors in this one, you actually have to fake doing your tasks and stuff since everyone can see what you're doing with your hands and such, which is unexpected if you're used to the original, but kind of great. If you've got good players it opens up a whole new aspect of trying to deduct who's faking everything."

Here's how:

As Virtual World Grows, Real Cash Marketplace for VRChat Content Emerges

VRChat content creator "Markcreator" (last seen on New World Notes showing off this impressive VRChat-based tribute to Minecraft he built) is now selling buttons for VRChat for USD $12.50. This might not seem like news in itself -- unless you're specifically in the market for VRChat-based buttons -- except that it's another indicator of a larger trend: As VRChat continues to grow in usage and content, a marketplace of VRChat content selling for real world money is starting to emerge.

"The VRChat avatar market is already pretty large on websites like Gumroad," as Mark tells me. This is because VRChat the platform itself does not (yet) have an in-game marketplace of its own -- while the user community does have a pent up demand for quality content for VRChat.

Indeed, a quick search on Gumroad (a site for selling 3D content) turns up over 300 VRChat-tagged items for sale, with some items selling for as high as $80.

"I know multiple people personally that are supplementing or completely sustaining themselves on avatar sales," Mark tells me. "There is much demand from people that wish to express themselves through their avatar, I see a lot of parallels to Second Life in that regard. It will be interesting to see if there is also a sufficiently large market of world creators looking for the next thing to improve their personal projects."

Which brings us back to Mark's buttons:

Dev Makes Minecraft-Style Real-Time Group Building... in VRChat!

Yes, what you're looking at above is Minecraft-style group building in VRChat. The insanely cool brainchild of "Markcreator" (his VRChat account name), it's now available to play for yourself: Click on his Twitter here for more details and the VRChat teleport link.

It's actually dubbed "Udon Minecraft", with "Udon" being VRChat's scripting language, and to judge by the demo video, it captures all the prim-based group building fun that made Minecraft so massive, transplanted to a new platform.

"The goal was and is to make a playable version of Minecraft in VRChat," Mark tells me, "that supported Minecraft building mechanics in real-time with friends and other players.

If you're a developer, you'll want to read Mark's behind the scenes notes, because he came up with some clever workarounds to make this possible in VRChat. Read on:

Launching Today in VRChat: "The Devouring", a Horror Survival Game Made From Scratch (Including Music!) By a 4 Person Team

VRChat's creative community continues to impress. This is the trailer to a new survival horror game in VRChat that was co-developed by Lakuza, who also created a VRChat game with bullet-time effects earlier this year.

“It’s a 5-6 hour horror game essentially and we've modelled everything from scratch, including the music,” he tells me.

While the game is technically launching tomorrow, the lobby area is open now. They're even going to have a Hollywood-style launch party at 8pm PT today. If you already have VRChat installed, click the link here to join the fun. 

"The Devouring" was created over the course of nearly a year by a four member team, who collaborated together in VRChat from around the world. (Lakuza doesn't remember exactly where in the real world his team is located.)

Finally opening to the public, Lakuza’s main feeling is “a massive relief”.

“At some points it felt like it was stuck in the ‘1 more month’ phase," as he puts it to me, "and definitely had stressful/burnout points throughout, since it’s a world we all worked on in our spare time after our real life jobs.” (So basically it sounds like crunchtime at an actual game studio, except without that little "getting paid to work" part.)

Developing it was no easy task -- and some potential game spoilers ahead:

VRChat More Active But Also More Insular During Pandemic Says Syrmor, VRChat's Embedded Reporter

We haven't checked in lately with Syrmor, VRChat's beloved embedded journalist and videographer -- the Errol Morris of VRChat, basically -- so here's a video he just uploaded, an in-depth interview with a slightly drunken hamster which smells like mayonnaise. (Actually Meowriza, a famous trans bodybuilder and cosplayer in real life.)

"I took a break for a while at the start of the year but I'm starting to upload again recently," Syrmor tells me. "There is an influx of new players on VRChat because of quarantine, so lots of cool new people to talk with! I'm now mixing my interviews with strangers and with different types of Internet personalities."

But has the culture of VRChat changed since the pandemic?

VRChat Concurrency Steadily Returning to Peak Levels of 2018

Via SteamDB

Remember in early 2018 when VRChat had a brief hype phase thanks to various YouTube and Twitch streamers and fairly juvenile/offensive memes and thanks to both, hit a peak concurrency of over 20,000 on Steam? After that, concurrency promptly dropped back down and many assumed its high point had long since gone.

Since then, however, VRChat's Steam concurrency has been steadily climbing back toward that 2018 level, with no signs of dropping. Over the last few weeks, its weekly peak has been in the 15,000s and 16,000s, and that's up from weekly peaks in the 12000s in February. If this steady growth continues, VRChat's Steam concurrency will once again be peaking around 20,000 -- but now, on a regular basis.

And those are just users coming in via Steam:

Watch: Furry Explores Incredibly Realistic Room in VRChat, Is Duly Impressed

I'm not sure why many insist on assuming VRChat's graphics options are low end or limited when I keep coming across walkthrough videos like this: A humanoid cat called Coopertom exploring a jaw-droppingly realistic Airbnb in VRChat. The least surprising part of that sentence is "humanoid cat", as furries seem to dominate the cutting edge of creativity in VRChat as they still do in Second Life. (See also: This furry aeronautics educator who recreated Mirror's Edge in VRChat.) What's more surprising is the vividness of the recreation, possibly followed by the fact that people are now creating and renting out Airbnb-style experiences in VRChat.

To be honest, I wasn't completely dazzled by Coopertom's walk-through until about 2:00 minutes in: When you see... dynamic shadows! Of his avatar! Cast on the floor!

As for finding a place as amazing as this in VRChat, he has some advice:

Watch: Mirror's Edge-Like Parkour Game Created in VRChat By a Furry Aerospace Educator

I got my @VRChat map onto Oculus Quest! :Dhttps://t.co/KS5xHvI3wv#VRChat #OculusQuest #MirrorsEdge pic.twitter.com/KonK0DZ7B2

— Hiyu 🚀 (@HiyuMarten) January 28, 2020

I told you about the guy who created in VRChat a heist game with bullet-time in VRChat, now here's another impressive use of VRChat's development tools: A parkour-style challenge map in VRChat inspired by the hit game Mirror's Edge, which is also playable in VRChat's Oculus Quest app. Click here to start parkouring.

It was created by Hiyu Marten, who tells me it was actually pretty simple to make the parkour leaping and vaulting gameplay action possible: "This is just stock VRChat where I set higher values for run speed, jump height, and player voice chat distance," as he puts it.

Possibly related: In his real life job, Hyu is an expert at Newtonian physics, in the sense that he's a furry aerospace educator. Yes, seriously:

Dolly Parton Challenge Meme: VRChat Edition

Bullet-Time Gameplay Cleverly Created in VRChat With In-World Features

Many people assume that VRChat's creation tools are rudimentary at best, and that the world is mostly for, you know, being in VR and chatting. But young game developer Lakuza first created this pretty impressive gameplay you're watching above, with a bullet-time movement feature, as far back as 2018. It's located in a hidden portal in his music hangout world, Lakuza Lounge. (You have to complete a series of puzzles, to unlock it.)

"So the goal with this world is to be able to say that everything in this trailer is made by people in VRChat," Lakuza tells me. "In this case, every single visual thing is modeled, textured, rigged and animated by me."

 

And yes. that includes the bullet-time effect, thanks to a clever workaround: