Our XR fitness game HitMotion: Reloaded has finally been released on SideQuest VR, with App Lab publishing coming soon. It is now available for the vast audience of Oculus Quest users, and many people will be able to stay fit while having fun. If you want to play the game now, you can find it at this link: https://sidequestvr.com/app/4555
HitMotion: Reloaded was in 2019 one of the launch titles of the Vive Focus Plus, the only one in mixed reality. It has been probably the first game of its kind, and it was special because the user could play it safely because he/she could see his/her surroundings. The game got many positive feedbacks, but since the Vive Focus Plus was aimed at the enterprise market in the West, it was difficult for VR gamers to have the possibility of playing it. Everyone wanted a porting to the Quest, and finally, we have been able to finish it.
In this period, fitness has become one of the mainstream applications of VR beyond gaming, and even Facebook itself is marketing the Quest 2 as a fitness machine, so we thought it was the right moment to launch our fitness game, too. We worked many nights to finish the porting of HitMotion, and we are proud of finally being able to let you play it on the Oculus Quest.
The game has been rebooted to convert it to virtual reality and has been updated to the current trends of indie VR games. The graphics, the sounds, the internal mechanisms, everything has been upgraded to give the game a more modern touch and let it compete with the other fitness applications on the XR market. This new version has been possible thanks to the joint work of New Technology Walkers, MID Studio, and DPStudios, not forgetting the neverending support of HTC Vive China, which was the partner of the first version of HitMotion: Reloaded.
Notwithstanding all these improvements, the core mechanics of HitMotion: Reloaded have remained the same. You are in a ring, and targets appear all around you, and you have to move all around your play area and punch them fast. When the enemies try to attack by dashing towards you, you have to dodge them. The difference with many XR fitness games out there is that there is not a front rail from which all the enemies are arriving, but the targets appear around you, and you have to be fast and reactive to destroy them.
We made the training in HitMotion: Reloaded more intense. There are many more targets appearing, and there are no pauses during a training level. This means that even if levels may be short in time (e.g. 2 minutes), they actually seem very long when you play them, because they are very intense, you constantly find yourself punching or dodging. Many users want to take a break after having played one or two levels of the game.
Another thing that has not changed from the previous version of HitMotion: Reloaded is Bob, the trainer. But while it was a low-poly blue guy in the previous version, now he’s a cool robot donning a VR headset. We at New Technology Walkers all love Bob, he is the mascot of our game, and we will keep improving him in all the future editions of our game.
The version on SideQuest we are releasing today is not the full game HitMotion: Reloaded that was already available on the Vive Focus Plus, but it is an alpha demo. It is an alpha version because it has not been polished and refined yet, and it is a demo because it just features 7 levels of the game. Our idea is to release this demo for free, so the biggest number possible of people can play this game, have fun, and tell us how the game could be improved. We invite all of you to play the game and tell us your impressions by contacting us via e-mail or on our social media channels. We want to shape this game together with you, and make it evolve following your suggestions, until we make it become the ideal fitness VR game that you can play to stay fit while having fun.
In this demo you can find:
- 2 training levels, with Bob explaining to you all the main mechanics of the game;
- 5 static workout levels, ranging from 1 to 3 minutes of training. They are static because they don’t let you move around your room
- Time and force modifiers, that let you customize your training. The force modifier is one of our favorite features because it lets you make the targets harder to destroy, requiring you to punch harder, for a more effective training. It is good if you really want to challenge yourself.
We’ll keep updating the demo version in the upcoming months, but the idea is building a full version of HitMotion: Reloaded in VR. If we manage to find a funding partner or a publisher, we would like to develop:
- A full set of workout levels
- Dynamic workout levels (that let the user move around the room)
- New modifiers and game modes
- Dailies, achievements, and leaderboards
- Statistical data about the workout sessions
- Multilanguage
- Accessibility options
- Multiplayer
- Polish and optimization
This would let us realize the full version of HitMotion that we have in mind, letting a lot of people to stay fit while having fun.
For now, let’s keep the feet on the ground and let’s think about the present. HitMotion: Reloaded is available on SideQuest, so follow this link, download it, and play it! And don’t forget to let us know your impressions so that we can improve the game… and also to share something about it on your social media channel to help us in spreading the word. Thank you!
Are you ready for the fitness battle?