Valve and Cloudheads Games have recently teamed up to make a demo game for Index users to use the Valve controllers for the first time in a guided demonstration. The game is called Aperture Hand Lab, and it is aimed mainly towards the finger tracking of the controllers, and how to optimize the controller the best way possible.
This experience is also available to the owners of a HTC Vive because the Valve controllers can work with any Steam headset, but you will have trouble with this demo if you’re using the HTC controllers. If you have an Oculus Rift or Rift S and you are curious on how this game works, or even if you want to laugh at some well-written dialogue, go ahead and download it. The experience will be completely different with the Valve controllers though.
To download the game and have it work with your Oculus headset you will need to follow the instructions that Cloudhead released on Reddit.
- Launch the game
- Open the SteamVR menu and click Settings > Controller Binding (or Devices > Configure Controller on desktop)
- Select “Knux [Testing]” under “Current Application”
- Click “View” on the binding labelled “CHG Recommended”
- Click “Select this Binding”
After that is done, you should be able to work with the game. Understand that it will choppy and will feel unfinished with the wrong controllers.
If you visit the Steam page in which you can find the game, they mention that you will need a 6’ x 4.5’ area to play this game. Make sure that is cleared and setup before you start interacting with your virtual robots.
In this game you will be working with (and against) multiple ‘personality cores’ of different robot arms. If you ever did the Valve demo names “The Lab” back in 2016, you will find this is nearly the same thing. Each of the core personalities are giving you a different gesture you need to complete before you move onto the next core. Although they are relatively easy, they make great fun out of what you need to do. You will enjoy each challenge.
If you know how Cloudhead Games operate, you will understand how this game will be. If you aren’t familiar with their games, go ahead and download this title to see what they are all about. They are mostly known for their VR series “The Gallery” back in 2016. Although their idea was great, it was released when VR was still just a shell of what it could be now.
What Cloudhead Games did back then was very smart. Because the VR industry was still being plagued by the constant topic of terrible locomotion engines, they opted to go with no locomotion. instead, they played it very safe. Many developers are still taking what they did back then and taking it and applying it to their business practices right now.
