Navigate a deadly temple and collect hidden treasures using your own two feet.
Have you ever dreamt of stepping into the boots of a fearless explorer and embarking on a dangerous adventure through a perilous jungle temple? What about battling ancient creatures and solving riddles using an Indiana Jones-style whip? How about all of the above?
Well, today’s your lucky day. Available now on Meta Quest headsets, Eye of the Temple is a location-based VR game that tasks you with navigating a labyrinth of deadly traps and primitive puzzles while collecting priceless rubies floating throughout the air and hiding within delicate jars.
The most interesting part of the game, however, is the locomotion system. Instead of using a joystick or teleportation, you physically move throughout your real-world environment using your own two feet. The game makes use of clever level design to constantly reposition you in the real world through moving blocks and rolling logs.
That said, the game requires a fair amount of open space in order to play; 6.5 feet by 6.5 feet to be exact, but I’d recommend giving yourself a bit more room just to be safe. There are even unlockable speedrunning challenges where you can navigate the temple at high speeds.
“Everyone compares the game to the Indiana Jones movies. That inspiration actually came about in a curious way,” said developer Rune Skovbo Johansen during an interview with Meta. “In the first six months of development, not much had been established beyond the fact that you were exploring some kind of temple and had a wooden torch in one hand.”
“The other controller wasn’t even used for anything. But as various friends were trying out the game, a persistent refrain I kept hearing was that playing it felt like being Indiana Jones. After hearing this enough times, I thought, ‘That’s not a bad experience to evoke—why not lean into it further?’ Without infringing on copyright or IP, of course.”
“So I set out to implement a physically simulated whip, since apart from the thematic boon, it also seemed like a cool and unique mechanic. It took an enormous amount of extra time to get the whip to work optimally because I had to implement custom-made physics for it, which was far from trivial. But the result has definitely been worth it.”
Eye of the Temple is available now on Quest 2 and Quest Pro headsets for $19.99. The game was developed by Rune Skovbo Johansen and published by Salmi Games. For more information visit eyeofthetemple.com.
Feature Image Credit: Rune Skovbo Johansen, Salmi Games
