I opened the chest and with my right hand, saw it was full of coins and started to pull them out one by one with my left hand, throwing them into a nearby bucket. It’s strange how doing something in VR can make it immediately feel exciting and new again. I immediately spied a treasure chest and sauntered over to it. The dilapidated structure was mostly crumbled stone walls around a grassy clearing.

When I first put on the headset I found myself standing on a small road with a sign pointing towards “the mines” or the “old castl.e” I pointed my gloved and cartoony hand towards the old castle and teleported down in a few short hops. Everything feels slightly larger than it needs to be, but in going with this stylistic choice, Australian developer Alta ensures the world feels very clear and crisp on a VR headset.Ī Township Tale is made by Sydney-based team for the HTC Vive, making full use of the headset, motion controls, headphones and a microphone to talk. Unlike its inspiration, Minecraft, A Township Tale's aesthetic is cartoony and lush. You'll work together to manage the town and support each others' goals, or mess with other players as you see fit. So different players acting as miners, blacksmiths, builders, hunters and more combine their skills together. The pitch for A Township Tale goes something like this: imagine a VR world where multiple players work together to run a medieval village. Of all the games I tried, A Township Tale was by far the most exciting, and the demo shown was just a proof of concept.

Indie developers were all across the show floor showing off a tonne of innovative experiences, from strategy games to VR boxing. VR was huge at this year's PAX AUS, but the biggest players weren’t the AAA developers.

A township tale oculus