PAX East 2015: Time Machine is VR by Minority Media

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Time Machine is an in-production virtual reality game by Minority Media.

Everyone has seen time travel in multiple forms of entertainment, and have dreamt what traveling through time would be like, but Time Machine, an in-production virtual reality game by Minority Media, will be the first experience ever to really let you know what traveling through time really means. Starting in the year 2070, your goal is to create the best record of history – ever. Although you will have to avoid getting eaten by dinosaurs, and live through many other major historic events in order catalog what really happened. Lastly, don’t forget the first rule of time travel, don’t interfere with the events that actually occurred, or else…

The demo barely had explanations, and you could tell it was early in development, but that didn’t stop it from being an amazing experience. For starters, before you put on Oculus, Rommel from Minority ran through Time Machine’s controls. Although, once I put on Oculus, I was immediately transported into Time Machine’s world. I was so busy looking around Time Machine’s realistic and serene environment, that I instantly forgot all of the information Rommel had told me.

The game strangely felt like a grown up version of Pokemon Snap. Subtract the rails in that game with water, and that’s pretty much how the game is except when you combine that with Oculus, you’re actually looking at the creatures instead of aiming at them.

Minority has added the ability to freeze time, with the ‘timestop’ feature. Timestop can be activated to get ridiculously close to underwater creatures so they can be scanned into history books. However, scanning creatures also has a timer, so the idea is to get as close as possible without getting seen, start scanning and as soon as you get noticed, active timestop to escape. Sure it sounds easy, but when you are seeing these creatures from up close you almost can’t help but panic.

Minority demoed Time Machine with Oculus Rift, but Minority isn’t sure which VR platform will be Time Machine’s launch platform. No release date just yet since it’s early in development, however the progress this game has made in just a few months says a lot about the team’s potential.

Oz plays Rocket League and is very bad at it, but at least he tries. As long as there are games to talk about, he's in his happy place.

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