One of the hardest problems in VR has been locomotion -- how do you move from place to place in a way that's seamless and fluid? Even Half-Life Alyx struggles hard with this. You'll notice that whenever anything cool is going on, they have you put your hand on some pillar or controller to keep you from wandering off.

Beat Saber is probably the best app for VR, because it solves that problem by not having any locomotion. The world locomotes to you.

But that works well for an abstract rhythm game. I don't know how well that works for anything else.

I basically use it for kickboxing, and the lack of locomotion in my apartment is a feature, not a bug. One reason I haven’t really gotten into thrill of the fight is because it involves actual moving, and I’ve found that isn’t really safe unless you have the space for it. Instead, I have to duck, lean, and weave enough with boxvr, and that is good enough for a lower body workout.

I’ve never used the knobs and triggers on my VR controller for anything beyond game selection. In fact, I think Oculus would do better just to put out additional simplified controllers meant for fitness gaming.

Nothing wrong with rhythm games if they can help you drop 40 pounds.

The space problem is easy to solve with....space. A VR gym setup could easily solve it by putting you in a racket court with an appropriate guardian, and then let the VR system do the rest. Otherwise we will have to wait for Omni directional treadmill tech to get better.

I remember trying a VR game in a shopping centre in Malta of all places in the 90s. They strapped you in a harness and you walked on an omnidirectional treadmill within a "ring".

The game was basic, early "3d" (in the gaming sense), low polygon, low resolution, no depth or actual streoscopic, but this was the 90s.

I tried to check it out again on a subsequent visit to Malta but it had of course gone. Real shame, I saw nothing of its kind for decades later.

This rig like from "Community": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQEiXST_qms

Yes it was like that, but standalone, the computer, I presume was in the base, which was like a platform; about a foot-high puck shape you stood on within the ring which had the treadmill built in.

Edit: I seem to recall it costing 2 lira for a turn.

Sounds like Dactyl Nightmare!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xj7qPEUEq0

Oh this is cool, it wasn't this one from what I recall (which isn't a lot).

The main things I remember are; it was an FPS, it was indoors/enclosed, the lighting was bad so it was really hard to tell where walls/corners were and it was very, very red.

The controller was sort of ring/oval shaped, I remember basically nothing about the headset other than that it was tethered.

You might like to the top, it's not quite as much exercise as boxvr or beat saber but still a decent bit, and fairly minimal space requirements.

I thought half life alyx wasn't released yet?

It's not which is why their comments are confusing to me too and also highly anecdotal. I know just as many half life fans who are super excited for it.

> People expecting a half life gaming experience have been disappointed

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2020/02/25/its-the-simple-a...

Half Life Alyx was amazing when I play tested it. The only thi g lacking was that they hadn't turned hard mode yet so I have to play through on normal, which was still challenging and exciting.