Cards And Tankards Review - The Best VR Card Game On Meta Quest and PCVR

At first, I thought that the idea of a VR digital trading Card Game was unnecessary and kind of stupid. Why add VR controls to a digital card game when you can represent the same mechanics with a flat screen and a mouse, or even a phone?

After experiencing this game I realised I was dead wrong.

Cards and Tankards is the BEST VR Card Game around, and in this review, I'm going to tell you why. I first came across this game when researching the possibility of writing an article over at realityremake.com about the Best VR Card Games.

A game of Cards and Tankards

While I did find some other good examples of VR card games, none kept my interest quite as much as Cards and Tankards, and none fits the mold of what I'd consider a Virtual Reality card game nearly as well. Cards and Tankards VR is exactly what you would expect of a VR Card Game. You draw cards and use your available mana to play creatures and cast spells to defeat your opponent by draining their life points to 0. It’s the classic competitive card game formula but in VR.

Cards and Tankards can be played against the AI or competitively against other players and features quite a few different cards that you can put in your deck to use during your matches. They even recently released a whole new set of them.

You can get new cards from packs earned with the currency you receive by playing games, win or lose, and you can customize the starter decks you receive in the game and even build your own from scratch. There are all sorts of combinations that you can pull off with the right cards. You might call Cards and Tankards “VR Hearthstone” and I’m sure somebody out there has, but there are many notable differences between this game and Blizzard’s.

In Cards and Tankards you end the turn by flipping over an hourglass

A Game That Makes You Feel Like You’re Actually Playing Cards With Someone Else

Before I talk about the mechanics of Cards and Tankards I'll start with what makes this a truly unique in the trading card game scene, and that's that it can be played entirely in a VR headset. It can also be played without a VR headset for those without one, but for this Cards and Tankards VR review I'll be talking about how the game feels and plays when tried as originally intended, in Virtual Reality.

What's best about playing Cards and Tankards is how much more immersive the entire experience feels when compared to playing a digital card game on a flat screen. Since the release of Hearthstone, there have been a lot of digital card games, but none has captured the feeling of playing a game with another person at a table like this VR game has. The addition of VR makes Cards and Tankards feel like you're actually at the table with someone else.

The open mic and casual communication with your hands that you can do in Virtual Reality gives the whole experience a sense of presence. It feels like you're placing cards down across the board from another person. It's also very easy to find a game, easier than in real life, because you can play with people far away, and I never had to wait more than thirty seconds or so in the queue to find a match. I often found a game instantly.

Playing a creature in Cards and Tankards VR

Everyone I played with was really friendly too, and a casual conversation about the game we were playing naturally ensued during each match. Instead of relying on emotes to convey each player's experience of the game, you can just talk and gesture casually like you are really there.

The hand controls that VR provides also translate nicely to the actions that you take when playing the game. Your cards float above your left hand and can be plucked out and placed on the board with your right hand. Actually performing this action instead of clicking and dragging on a flat screen felt really right to me, and then seeing that action play out with 3D animations and models looked great as well.

The sense of spectacle and that you really are doing magical things with the cards you are playing come across much better in VR. To attack you have to actually grab one of the 3D models of your creatures on the board and place it in the attack position, and gesturing and pointing to designate targets for spells feels great as well. Some creatures even come with activation abilities that you use by tapping them on the head. You end your turn by grabbing and flipping over an hourglass instead of just clicking a button.

These all sound like little things, and at first, I thought they were inconsequential fluff, but the more I played the game the more I realized that all of these little touches serve to make you feel like you really are at the table just like the ability to freely talk and gesture to your opponent does.

You can even walk all the way around the table if you want to and see the game from multiple angles. It's really great.

Look at that game board

Looking at the game is also a pleasure. The developers over at Divergent Realities didn't miss the opportunity to use your immersive VR view of the game board to add some spectacle.

Your creatures on the board are actual 3D models, and have death and attack animations that play out with the action. It's a lot more satisfying than seeing a number go down and an icon on a screen explode. Spells create wisps of magic and fire through the air as they hit their targets. I always enjoyed looking at the effects of my cards on the board.

The Gameplay Mechanics Of Cards And Tankards

Now that I've fawned over how much I love the execution of a VR card game and the immersiveness of it all, let's talk about how Cards and Tankards actually plays.

To summarise. You get an additional maximum mana each turn, and each player starts with thirty health. The first player to have zero health loses. You play spells and creatures with mana each turn, and each creature has a damage and health value. If a creature’s health goes to zero it perishes.

Each turn after you play your cards until you don’t have the mana to play more you can attack with all unexhausted creatures and then end your turn. Creatures are exhausted right after you play them and after you attack or activate them. If a creature is blocked it and the blocking creature fight and even if the attacker survives it doesn’t do damage to your opponent.

Your opponent blocks with their creatures and then their turn starts when they’re done blocking. They do the same thing you just did, play cards, and then attack if they want to. Over and over until someone’s health hits zero.

Hitting an enemy with a spell

Hopefully that gives you some idea of how Cards and Tankards is played. There are clearly some elements borrowed from other card games, but the end result is a unique set of gameplay mechanics that is still very accessible and straightforward to understand.

The tutorial also explains things very well, though there were a few gaps in what it teaches you, like the maximum amount of creatures on the board (10) or what the maximum mana cap is (also 10). Cards and Tankards feels even more unique when you get into deck building and the difference between factions.

I'm very proud to report that the starter decks are actually really viable. I racked up quite a few wins without even modifying them.

I also found myself opening quite a few card packs. While progression does inevitably slow down, I was getting a lot of in game gold from the Quest system, all the games I was playing, and the free battle pass for the current season. I was opening quite a few packs without spending a single penny. Not enough to create entire decks from scratch, but enough to introduce some new cards and keep things interesting.

Deck building is also fun in this VR card game

If you want more specific cards you can also see what's for sale in the public tavern at the bar. Also while you're there you can hang out with and play games against others, or just watch players that are much better discuss the current meta and play against each other.

The social aspect of Cards and Tankards comes alive even more if you play in the public tavern, and I think this VR game benefits so much from having a public space where you can just hang out, share decklists, and play some casual games.

So Cards and Tankards, at least for now, doesn't have the problem that a lot of trading card games have. That is, to be able to have a chance against more experienced players you have to buy a lot of cards, copy somebody else's deck list, and then figure out how to play the deck. Sure you can do all of that, or make your own, but you don't have to. You'll start out with four mostly viable decks.

I played quite a few ranked games before making this review and won more than I lost, even against opponents with custom made decks. Personally, I had the most success with the first one you get, the Plundering Guild.

The Plundering Guild can enhance cards with coins, like you saw earlier, and has a lot of cards that buff cards in your hand before you play them.

The Dungeon Master faction gets a “Master” to represent you on the board

The Dungeon Master faction focuses a lot on combos and direct damage cards to burn away your opponent's health or slowly gain control of the board. I especially love that you actually get a Dungeon Master creature on the board that shares a health pool with you, giving you as the player a direct representation as a creature on the board. Also, some of them have some really great abilities.

The Augur Order faction has a special mechanic where they can use contract spells which have a constant effect on the whole game as long as you meet the requirements for it. Like their best spell of all those I tried, which makes all of your creatures deal damage equal to their health, as long as you have three creatures with more health than attack on the board. With a lot of high health, low damage creatures, this card is really powerful and can tip the balance of the whole game. Additionally, they can place a card in their hand at the bottom of their deck in order to draw a new one from the top of their deck once a turn. This gives the Augur Order a lot of flexibility.

The last faction is the Wild Horde. I played this one the least since I had no idea what their signature mechanic was and it was never tutorialized. Turns out the Wild Horde can “Reserve” a card each turn for an additional mana on that turn. This card is then placed in that player’s reserve of cards. The Wild Horde has many card synergies that complement reserving, like giving cards in your reserve bool power bonuses or playing them outright. In addition, they do also have some pretty unique cards and seem to focus a lot on buffing creatures to deal a lot of damage, and drawing and playing a lot of creatures to overwhelm your opponent.

The only reason I realized how the Wild Horde’s and Augur Order’s unique mechanics function is due to comments from readers and watchers of Reality Remake. Thanks to them, though this does, unfortunately, highlight that Cards & Tankards should really have better ingame tutorials to explain these factions.

Playing the Augur Order’s best card

There is so much more to talk about in this game. Entire books have been created to cover the ins and outs of card games and as in depth as I like to make my reviews, I can only scratch the surface of the intricacies of a VR trading card game as enjoyable as Cards and Tankards in a single article.

No VR Game Is Perfect

I do have a few minor gripes with Cards and Tankards VR. Some of the models and animations, as much as I like them, do miss opportunities to be more impressive.

I wonder what sort of spectacle this game could be if the developers really went all in on the effects and made the animations for creatures a little more expressive. Mostly they just whack each other. If I have a wizard creature on the board I'd rather they throw a fireball or something instead of just swinging their staff to do damage. The presentation of the board is still leaps and bounds beyond what a non VR card game looks like, but it could be even better.

The same goes for the sound. It's a little basic and could use some more love. Though overall the presentation is on par with other quality VR games on the Quest. You also can't see how many cards are left in your deck exactly, though you can estimate based on looking at it. It would be nice to know the exact number when a game really drags on.

It would also be nice to have an easier way to share decklists between players instead of having to manually copy another player's decklist from their collection menu. Lastly, the VR controls aren't always the best. Often your hands will clip into the table temporarily or something on the board will be frustrating to grab for a few seconds. This never killed the pace of the game for me, but was a minor annoyance.

The VR hands that you get in this game sometimes feel awkward. This is all really minor stuff that could easily be changed in the future.

You can hang out in the public tavern any time in Cards and Tankards

My biggest takeaway from this game is an even greater appreciation of the immersion that Virtual Reality can bring to all sorts of experiences.

Playing a card game in VR is a much more personal and enjoyable experience than playing with a faceless, wordless stranger on a flat screen. I've had a lot of fun against so many different opponents and felt like I was really there playing this card game with them. Cards and Tankards is free, so if any of this sounds remotely interesting, and it probably does if you've made it this far in the article, give the game a try.

I haven't spent a penny on it and I've had a ton of fun with it. You can find Cards and Tankards on the Meta Quest Store and Steam for the low price of zero dollars. There's a great tutorial to explain all of the nuts and bolts, and finding a game was always really easy. It's clear a lot of people enjoy Cards and Tankards from the fast queue time alone.

Enjoy yourself out there in VR, and hopefully, you'll also enjoy the best VR card game out there.

The 5 Best VR Card Games That You Can Enjoy On Meta Quest and PCVR

I never thought of Virtual Reality as a good way to play card games until I actually tried a few. As with so many genres in VR, I was very happy to be proven wrong by some of the fantastic VR card games that are available.

So much so that I’ve even decided to compile this list of the best VR card games around for you to try. Some are free, some are paid, but all are great examples of how card games, Virtual Reality 3D immersion, and good hand controls can make you feel like you really are playing cards with other people at a table.

I found competitive VR trading card games, and more classic games like VR poker, and they’re all in this list. Here are the best card games that you can play in Virtual Reality.

Cards and Tankards

The Cards and Tankards Logo featuring the newest card set at the time of writing

Cards and Tankards is the purest example of a VR card game out there. I had an absolute blast playing it and met some very friendly opponents along the way. Card and Tankards has cards to collect, decks to build, and most importantly both AI and human opponents to play against with those decks entirely in Virtual Reality.

Cards and Tankards is its own card game too, with its own cards, mechanics, and most significantly VR hand interactions that you use to play and use those cards in the game. It’s very reminiscent of Hearthstone, but not closely enough to be considered a direct copy. Cards and Tankards has its own strategies, balance between cards, and gameplay mechanics that make it significantly different from any other card game.

However you’ll find some similarities between this VR game and flatscreen card games like Hearthstone. For instance, a “Deathrattle” type ability that plays when a card is destroyed on the board that functions the same as it does in Hearthstone but under a different name. Still, if you want a Hearthstone VR game then Cards and Tankards will deliver on that and also have some fresh new twists to the formula.

This VR Card Game is also pretty fun to interact with and look at. Each unit you play will have a 3D representation on the board, and they all have animations that will play out when they perform the actions you command them to do. I enjoyed the immersion of not only seeing and talking to my opponent but also seeing and physically interacting with creatures and cards on the game board.

Playing a card in Cards and Tankards

Cards and Tankards has everything you would expect from a competitive trading card game but in VR. There is a competitive ladder and progression in the form of currency and card packs to purchase. Oh, and it’s entirely free to play. You can optionally buy additional cards and cosmetics, but you will also receive a lot of currency to get more cards and options just by playing the game.

There are multiple factions in Cards and Tankards with unique mechanics and some core cards that are shared between all factions. You’ll have to beat the AI with each faction’s starter deck to gain access to it, making it so you won’t be clueless when playing against a human opponent with that new deck. I played most of my early games with the first deck you acquire after the tutorial and I won quite a bit even with that.

Flipping the hourglass to finish a turn in Cards and Tankards

I did find that the VR interactions themselves aren’t the most well crafted, with some occasional bugginess and issues with grabbing items, and they’re not strictly necessary to make this game work. You flip an hourglass to end your turn, and I often get frustrated just trying to grab the thing.

The hand control interactions with the tabletop you play the game on are great though. For instance, some cards are activated by hitting their 3D model on the board on the head with your hand. This is basically the same as clicking on that card would be, but adds some fun to the VR world that you’re playing the game in and it was a little touch that I found was very entertaining and added some Virtual Reality flare to the experience. You can even walk around the table to get a different view or check out your opponent’s side of the board.

So Cards and Tankards combines Virtual Reality with the experience of playing a collectible card game. All of the opponents I played against were very nice, and talking to them through the open mic in the game felt a lot like playing a card game in person. So if you want a unique VR card game definitely give Cards and Tankards a try.

It’s also free on Meta Quest and PCVR via Steam, so you’ve got nothing to lose.

Demeo

The Demeo Logo

Demeo might be what you might consider less of a “Card Game”, but I had a ton of fun with it and really enjoyed the turn based strategy and variety of cards that each of the game’s classes has access to.

Well, before I get ahead of myself let me tell you more about what Demeo is. It’s a dungeon crawler combined with a card game. There are a number of classes to pick in the game that define the character that you play, which is represented in the dungeon you’re crawling by their piece on the board.

Each class in Demeo has a different selection of stats like maximum health, melee damage, and unique mechanics that each class has access to, such as the armor that the guardian class has, sort of like an extra health pool.

Of course, each class in the game has a different selection of cards to pick from, and there are even extra cards that you can find in chests spread throughout the map. Another favorite class of mine was the sorcerer, who has really powerful spell cards like Zap which stuns an enemy for a turn and can be reused every turn, or fireball that does a ton of damage in an area.

Freezing enemies in Demeo

Once you and your characters arrive in a dungeon it’s a long series of turn based combat challenges to get through the three levels of each dungeon and come out on the other side victorious and covered in gold and glory.

If you really enjoy the Dungeons & Dragons vibe and look and want a VR tabletop card game to play, then Demeo definitely delivers. I found that the turn based combat was fun both solo while controlling an entire party and in multiplayer with each player controlling their individual party member. I did find the constant barrage of combat encounters to be a little fatiguing over time, and my one complaint about this game is that the periods of rest between fights were few and far between.

The strategizing and decision making you do during each combat encounter felt a lot like playing Baldurs Gate 3, except Demeo is much heavier on the combat side of things. Each level of each dungeon is covered in a variety of different enemies, and you not only need to learn the strengths of the cards that your character’s class has access to but also what abilities each enemy uses.

Playing a card in Demeo

The VR controls are also superb and gave me that tactile feeling of controlling my character like I actually would during a tabletop gaming session. I liked just looking at the dungeon board itself, and each is very well made and looks fantastic in Virtual Reality.

For a game that combines dungeon crawling, excellent multiplayer coop, an immersive VR tabletop, and a class based card system that encourages tactical thinking, I recommend Demeo.

There is also a player versus player version of Demeo called Demeo Battles for those who want a more competitive than cooperative experience.

PokerVR And Vegas Infinite

The PokerVR Logo

No list of the best VR Card Games is complete without representation of the oldest sorts of card games to exist, gambling card games. I’m not the biggest gambler myself, though I’ve played poker on quite a few occasions in real life.

Whether you’re already someone who enjoys playing Poker for fun or somebody who just wants a card game to play in Virtual Reality, PokerVR and Vegas Infinite (previously known as Pokerstars VR) are both great VR Poker games. I found both of them to be very similar to the experience of sitting at a real life poker table with strangers and with the added benefit of not losing any real money if I didn’t do well.

If you’re a fan of Texas Hold’em Poker then these two PokerVR games are just what you’re looking for. There are a variety of game modes in either and some small differences that I won’t go into great detail about here. Suffice it to say both of them offered me a fun poker experience, and I really couldn’t pick one to recommend over the other. So I’ll recommend them both.

There is currently a lot of debate about which of these two games is the better one. They are both slightly different, and your preference will likely come down to what you naturally prefer. There are different environments to play Poker in both, and different characters to represent you in the game. If you’re interested in trying your hand at some card game gambling in Virtual Reality then give both of these games a try and see which one you prefer.

Both PokerVR and Vegas Infinite are 100% free!

Tabletop Simulator

The Tabletop Simulator Logo

In case you didn’t know, Tabletop Simulator can be played entirely in Virtual Reality. Though it is PCVR only and will require a way to play VR on a computer, sorry Quest standalone fans. You’ll have to set up Steam Link or Airlink to try Tabletop Simulator.

If you’re not certain what Tabletop Simulator is then it does exactly what it says, simulates a wide variety of tabletop game experiences on a flat screen, or in full immersive Virtual Reality.

Tabletop Simulator is used to digitally play everything from Chess to day long board games, and that includes all sorts of Card games. There are no specific rules to the game. Just a physics engine, and a vast array of customizable pieces for the board. That means you can play with any sort of cards you like, all in Virtual Reality.

You can play all sorts of classics like blackjack or poker in Virtual Reality using this game or even invent a card game of your own to try out. I haven’t found any experience that’s quite so diverse as Tabletop Simulator because the only restriction is your creativity and imagination. Of course, you don’t have to invent your own card game to enjoy it either.

So if you’re looking for more VR Card Games than you might know what to do with check out Tabletop Simulator’s Steam Community page for what sorts of games are available.

Of course, you’ll also have to find others interested in playing your chosen card game, though luckily there are plenty of Discord servers out there with interested players.

The one thing I didn’t like about Tabletop Simulator was that a lot of its diverse options take a lot of additional organization and effort to play both to get into a game and once you’re already at the table. Still, for twenty dollars there are a lot of different card games you can enjoy in VR here.

Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl

The Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl Logo

I’m really torn by Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl. On one hand, it’s a card based real time strategy game that should be tickling every VR satisfaction bone in my body. On the other hand, I also realize that it has some serious issues that make it a very hard game to recommend, and to be honest I just don’t play it much anymore.

Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl is sort of like a VR Clash Royale. You have one side of your map and your opponent has another. Each of you play cards from your hand to summon units and cast spells on the field in order to invade and destroy the other player’s towers and castle on their side of the map.

All of this is on a fully 3D table and with fully 3D units that you can watch fight each other completely in Virtual Reality. This game should be great to me on so many levels.

Crafting cards in Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl

So when I first picked up VR I loved this game as one of the best VR RTS games out there. I played a lot of it but was very disappointed to find that coming back to the game none of my progress was saved. This was a huge bummer because I’d spent a lot of time crafting cards with resources that I won from the many games I had played.

So starting from nothing was a huge bummer for me. What was more of a bummer is that it’s nearly impossible to find a game against another player. I waited for about five minutes before giving up, because I’d never want to have to wait any longer than that to find a match.

So I thought that I could possibly recommend this game as a Singleplayer experience against the AI but well… the AI didn’t take how horrible the starting deck is into consideration. It had better units and stomped me every time despite my experience with the game.

The field of battle in Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl

So I still consider Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl to be a great VR card game, but if there were any better options I’d rather be putting them on this list of the best VR card games.

At the moment there really aren’t, and so despite having the bones of a great game, it’s clear that Skyworld: Kingdom Brawl is dead. I’m leaving this game on this list in the hope that a VR developer might see this someday and decide to create a better version of this concept, and as a monument to fun times I once had in this VR game.

I don’t currently recommend that you buy this game for the price of 9.99$ even if it’s on sale. I’d only recommend you take a peek if it was totally free. Still, it would be much more fun if anyone still played it.

That’s it for the best VR Card Games. I hope you’ve found something here that you like. I’m still having a lot of fun in many of these games, Cards and Tankards most of all. Enjoy!

Smalland: Survive The Wilds VR Announced And Available For Preorder On Meta Quest

The Smalland: Survive The Wilds VR Announcement Trailer

A Virtual Reality spinoff of Smalland: Survive the Wilds was announced on March 28, 2024. It is now available for preorder on the Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, and Meta Quest Pro. Unfortunately for PCVR and PSVR fans this title has not been released on those platforms.

Likely as with many VR spinoffs to flatscreen games, the developers at Merge Games have likely decided to target the burgeoning market of standalone Virtual Reality headsets with Smalland VR in lieu of or before the smaller and more expensive PCVR and PSVR markets.

Smalland: Survive The Wilds VR seems to be planned to be a very similar game to its flatscreen inspiration. It will be focused on survival, base building and upgrading, crafting equipment, and most notably and uniquely the taming of creatures. Hopefully, Smalland VR will bring a quality survival experience that includes creature taming, unlike the lackluster ARK VR port and standalone title.

Smalland VR is available for Pre-Order on the Meta Quest store for 24.99$. What follows is the press release given by the developer Merge Games:

“Today, Maximum Entertainment are thrilled to reveal ‘Smalland: Survive the Wilds VR’! Bringing the towering open world of ‘Smalland’ to players from a whole new perspective, take on entirely new stand-alone survival adventure in single player as you explore, scavenge, craft and build.

Play through a brand new story as you fight to gain a foothold in the perilous Overlands, battling the elements and the many colossal creatures that reside in the forest.

Available to pre-order now on the Meta Quest store, construct and design your encampment, tame creatures, and craft unique weapons, armour sets and more in this deeply immersive VR experience.”

— Merge Games

It remains to be seen what caliber of VR game this will be, but I am hopeful that we have another great VR survival game in store in Smalland VR.

Full release is planned for the Spring of 2024.

Medieval Dynasty VR Launches On Standalone Meta Quest Headsets

The Release Trailer for Medieval Dynasty VR

A Virtual Reality spinoff of Render Cube’s 2021 title Medieval Dynasty has just been launched today, March 28, 2024 on Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, and Meta Quest Pro. Sorry PCVR and PSVR fans, but Medieval Dynasty VR hasn’t come to these platforms.

Medieval Dynasty VR is, like it’s flatscreen counterpart, a game focused on survival, crafting, and building you and your family’s lives out in a remote medieval village. The game is entirely singleplayer and retails for 29.99$. What follows is the entire press release given by Medieval Dynasty VR developer Spectral Games:

“Forget about your present day worries and dive into medieval life with ‘Medieval Dynasty New Settlement’, a delightful VR game available now on Meta Store!

Seamlessly blending simulation, role-playing and exploration it takes you on an adventure set against the backdrop of thoroughly crafted medieval landscape. Players will be tasked with the monumental challenge of founding a thriving settlement and starting their own dynasty.

As the protagonist your primary focus will be on the challenges of survival, resource gathering, and the difficult task of creating a lasting dynasty. Utilizing the immersive capabilities of VR technology, you will physically engage in the construction of buildings, cooking, crafting, hunting and cultivating fertile fields. Doing all of this and much more will ensure experiencing the gratification of watching your settlement rise from humble beginnings to a majestic medieval hub.

Venture beyond the safety of your lands to explore the enchanting landscapes, stumbling upon quests, challenges, and hidden treasures that add depth to the narrative. Encounter characters with unique personalities and stories, forging alliances or rivalries that influence the course of your settlement’s destiny. Nurture your relationships to find a lifetime partner with whom you’ll give the beginning to your very own dynasty.

Following the success of the original flat-screen version from ‘Render Cube’, polish gamedev studio ‘Spectral Games’ created a brand new VR game set in the Medieval Dynasty universe. ‘Medieval Dynasty New Settlement’ launched March 28th, 2024 on the Meta Store, available for Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3 and Meta Quest Pro.

Featuring a new story and never seen before map, it’s a whole new gaming experience with the VR technology. Put your headset on and look around the medieval world surrounding you, as you swing the axe cutting down the trees, or squat down when crafting wooden planks in your woodshed. D
on’t forget to take care of your vitals, or else your dynasty might find an early end!

‘Medieval Dynasty New Settlement’ is a perfect game for fans of the Medieval Dynasty universe, or people hungry for a vast open world to explore using a VR headset. No matter if you’re an experienced VR player, or it’d be your first time putting the headset on, you’ll be able to freely customize the difficulty and gameplay settings to your needs. Two game modes are available on initial release – an adventure mode, which puts all the new experiences in narrative order allowing the player to slowly dive into the world following the story part, and a sandbox mode that grants the access to full experience of the game mechanics from the very beginning.

This mode is dedicated mainly for the players’ own imagination to explore the world on their own terms, and build without boundaries.

Now that #MDNS is out in the world we can’t wait to improve it more with our community’s feedback, and expand its fun with co-op mode in the works, or future DLCs to come!”

— Spectral Games

After some brief time playing the game I have to say that it is certainly interesting, and a seemingly welcome addition to the VR survival game genre. For a closer look at Medieval Dynasty VR wait for my review of the game here at realityremake.com.

Tea For God Review - A VR Game Played Completely By Walking

Tea For God is an indie project with a single developer, one songwriter, and one extremely good voice actor. Tea For God has been around for a while and has changed a lot over time.

It is also in active development but is currently a complete experience that you can play from beginning to end. This isn't just a half-baked tech demo, though there is some very unique tech to experience in Tea For God, and I'm not just talking about all of the laser guns and robots.

The setup for the game is simple. You're a futuristic soldier who has a problem with the god emperor of humanity. So you go to deliver her some tea, and inside the tea is a metric ton of explosives.

The plot of Tea For God is both straightforward and impossible to understand

To get to the emperor with your tea you need to traverse a number of different levels in a technologically advanced but desolate future earth. Also, there's a war going on for some reason that I never fully understood.

I like the premise a lot, but the premise isn't what drew me into this game. No, when I first read Tea For God's SideQuest page and downloaded the free demo, what really interested me was this tagline. Quote, "Tea For God is a VR adventure that uses impossible spaces with procedural generation to allow players infinite movement within their own room."

The Tea For God SideQuest page

I was instantly intrigued, and also instantly curious as to why I hadn't heard of this game before. Tea For God can, and should, be played completely by walking.

I mean physically walking. With your feet, like you're going to the grocery store or something. Seriously, real life walking. No joystick movement to slide you around, though that's an option if you haven't got the space for a roomscale boundary, and no teleporting by pointing your controller somewhere. As you progress through the sci-fi, technological hellscape of future Earth you do it completely by using your feet.

After playing for a while you actually walk quite a bit. I racked up 150 meters in 10 minutes when first trying the demo.

Most importantly walking with your own two feet in this game felt absolutely amazing and freeing. It's a hard feeling to describe, but I'm going to try anyway. It's sort of like... standing up for the first time after a long bus or plane ride. It feels good to move your legs instead of just standing or sitting in place.

The realization that slowly dawned on me when I first saw a place in the game and realized that I could actually physically walk over to the thing I was seeing in VR with my actual legs was both hard to compute and incredibly freeing.

Fighting a centipede robot in Tea For God

Even after playing the demo the first time I started the game I tried to use the joystick purely by reflex. Tea For God's freedom of using actual, real movement took a little to settle in at first, but when it did I felt so much more than usual that I was actually in the world.

It was sort of like the first time ever playing a VR game, another barrier, another abstraction, between what I was physically doing and what my eyes were seeing was removed. In this way, Tea For God is an incredibly unique VR experience and you should definitely at least try the free demo of it just to experience how a Virtual Reality game can give you such freedom.

So how does Tea For God do this? By using something called "Impossible Space." This is basically when you've got a room and some hallways... but they don't actually make sense. A new hallway can go right into the same space the hallway you just came out of came from. This is one of the things that makes Tea For God a bit of a trip.

The space you walk through doesn't entirely make sense. It loops back in on itself, and there would be no way to physically make a building in the layout of a Tea For God level, hallways and rooms would run into each other. In VR though this makes it so that when you reach the edge of your playspace, the next generated section of rooms and hallways will loop back to an empty area that you can physically walk through, so you never reach the end of your playspace.

You do end up walking in circles a lot, and the game can feel like running through a maze, but that's all necessary to keep you inside your playspace. This game is an incredible technical achievement for pulling this off so smoothly. There was the occasional bug with the generation of an area, but this was really rare.

Getting hit in Tea For God

Tea For God also makes great use of verticality not only to provide a sense of grandness and scale, but to also make the levels not feel as cramped, and give you the feeling of going somewhere. Elevators and moving machines of all kinds also cart you around the level, which makes sense, your conception of your real life body is being moved in the game, and so while technically this is a way to teleport you around from time to time, it doesn't feel like it.

No other game has pulled off what Tea For God does with its movement system alone. Try the demo, and play this game purely just to see what playing a shooter is like by walking from place to place. It's a transformative Virtual Reality experience that everyone should try at least once.

Even if what I'm about to say about the gameplay doesn't sound appealing, download the demo and give it a shot once so you can feel what I'm talking about here.

It's incredible, and I think you'll be impressed. Also, play this game on a standalone headset like a Quest if you can. The impossible space concept involves a lot of turning around in circles, and so if you've got a cord hanging from your headset it'll get twisted and tangled really fast.

Tea For God - The Gameplay

Anyway the gameplay! Well here's where Tea For God is less impressive. Since all of the rooms you're going through are procedurally generated, you'll find this a less balanced or fair experience if you try to just play it through from beginning to end like it's Half-Life Alyx or something. Tea For God can be played straight through to experience the world and story with the challenging bits in between, or as a roguelike.

You can turn off a lot of the management bits and the need to navigate through levels to make it a more action-focused experience, and there are a ton of modifiers you can use to change the game up and make it easier or harder.

The customizability is cool, but for this review, I'm going to talk about the game in the way I played it, as a single campaign played from beginning to end with all of the features enabled, no modifiers, and every death brought me back to the latest checkpoint.

Tea For God is a VR shooter at heart.

You navigate by following signs with arrows that point in the direction you want to go on the map and fight your way through the mazes of impossible hallways and rooms until you reach the end of the level, and then you keep completing levels until there are no more. Also, some cool stuff happens in between like Turret sections, epic setpiece battles, and the occasional epic spaceship crash.

There’s a war going on. Not sure why though

You've got guns and a variety of little robots and devices to find to help you combat threats. Each of your arms has a holder for a weapon that you can activate with the trigger to bring the weapon into your hand, and you also have a couple of holsters on either leg.

Both of your arms have separate energy meters, and firing a weapon or using one of the unlockable abilities uses energy for that arm. You also have a personal shield that functions as your health. Your shields recharge once you haven't taken damage for a while, so if you take a lot of damage quickly you're destroyed.

Your shields will only recharge if you still have shield energy banked though, so you don't have infinitely recharging health, just a pool of health that can and will run out. You can recharge your energy at energy recharge stations and your shields at shield recharge stations as you progress through the game.

The recharge stations are pretty spread out, and once I did get into an infinite instant death loop because I had almost no health at both the autosave and the save at the start of the chapter. For some reason, not a single shield recharging station spawned throughout the entire second level, which is very likely unintentional and just a quirk of the procedural generation. This was not a fun time for me, though generally, you'll find enough of them spread out to avoid this frustration.

Recharging shields at a shield recharge station

As something designed as a roguelike, Tea For God also has a roguelike progression system. Every time you die you get experience points based on how far you got and how many enemies you destroyed. You can also find upgrade stations throughout the game, and some of these upgrades become unlockable in the main menu using these experience points.

You can fit two upgrades on each arm, at least in the advanced mode, in the action focused mode you can fit more. Some are passive like a damage boost, and some require clicking a button on your controller to activate like this amazing power I found that confuses all robots near you for a short period of time. I never would have gotten through my infinite dying loop in the second level of the game without it.

There are also a lot of weapons to find in the game. Sometimes just lying around, or dropped by enemies. these weapons all have different parts and stats to them. Some are slow charging and heavy hitting. Some rapid fire, and some even function as shotguns or burst firing pistols. However I found mostly powerful single shot weapons and craved more variety in my choices. That too, was probably a quirk of the generation.

The weapons in this game have a ton of stats

There are a couple of weapon types too. Mostly you'll be using plasma weapons, which are classic laser bolt shooters. Though there are also discharge weapons that function more like a futuristic taser, and corrosive weapons that shoot green at enemies and then cover them in a fart cloud.

Different enemy types will respond differently depending on what weapon you use. Some are armored and will shrug off weak attacks, some have shields you need to shoot around or punch through, and some try to avoid being destroyed by you by being small and fast. The enemy variety in Tea For God keeps you guessing, and that's a good thing.

You also fight these enemies in a variety of different environments. A lot of fighting takes place in the maze like series of corridors and rooms that you find yourself wandering through, but this is changed up pretty often with large areas and big combat arenas that get you into some longer ranged laser battles. Considering that you won't be using your joystick to slide from cover to cover, the combat feels really amazing in this game.

Gunfights feel a lot like SUPERHOT VR when you're physically peeking out from pieces of cover to get a shot off and then dashing to a new area to reposition. Not having to use clunky movement methods during a fight means that the fighting feels a lot more natural.

You're actually taking cover by moving to cover instead of joystick sliding towards it and ducking down. I damn near pulled a hamstring once or twice. The overall feel of the combat is intense and personal. However that tends to be the case mostly in large rooms and big epic fights. Most of the combat is done within the generated hallways and corridors.

The biggest fights are the best in Tea For God

The majority of the game is very cramped, even with the pretty big playspace I was using to record this footage. So most fights end up being at point blank range. This isn't as interesting as it could be, and I was really hungry for more variety in the combat.

I felt like fighting in the impossible space mazes was either a breeze or overwhelming as a few times in the game a seemingly infinite number of robots came out of nowhere. Only in the epic boss battle sections that were likely hand crafted and balanced combat experiences did the combat feel even between myself and the attacking robots.

Luckily, to even the odds you've got some devices you can find to help you out too. Like a shield that can absorb quite a bit of punishment before disappearing, or explosive traps that can be planted into a wall. Some of the little robots you find around function like this as well. Hostile robots are red while neutral ones are white or black, and some of the neutral robots are really helpful.

The little can shaped ones regenerate some energy, and you can press a switch on the spider bots to make them run towards the nearest enemy and explode. These combined with the unlockable abilities give you more options than just shooting and make the combat much more interesting if you think for a moment about how to approach each situation.

A prepared ambush in Tea For God

Tea For God doesn't explain this to you though, you'll have to figure out how these devices work when you first come across them, and that's an interesting thought in this game. Discovering the interactions you can do with these little robots to help you out is interesting and gave me a few aha moments that made me feel like a very smart cookie for figuring them out.

Either I just missed a lot of them, or there aren't as many as the developer likely wanted there to be. When you figure out a machine once, and they're generally not very complicated, you've figured out all of them forever.

Speaking of ideas with good intentions that didn't quite pan out in this game, there's also a sort of crafting system where you can exchange the parts of your weapons in special rooms. In fact the weapon system is really quite complicated with a lot going on under the hood.

Each weapon has an impressive set of stats to compare, match, and exchange. Personally, I never got really into this system. I exchanged some parts once or twice, but never had an "aha" moment where I really felt like I could improve something. Again, procedural generation, you have to work with what is generated for you to get.

Each weapon description reads like a book with a bunch of symbols and shorthand and well... figuring that out might be part of the game, but I felt better off understanding my weapons by blasting a bot or two with them instead of piecing together my own instruction manual for reading the description.

Protecting myself with a shield in Tea For God

So the combat, and really the whole game, is either an extremely fantastic one of a kind mind bending and unique VR experience, or just kind of okay. I really wish the excellent impossible space technology of Tea For God was combined with more interesting gameplay, and while procedural generation is necessary to make infinitely physically walking in a VR world possible, it feels like it really needs some tuning to give a more balanced feeling experience.

Tea For God Review - Visuals and Sound

Tea For God looks pretty basic. Lots of blocks, not much texturing to speak of, but cmon it's a futuristic sci fi distopia. Everything is usually pretty drab and that's a good thing here because the whole setting and world is drab. You're on a suicide mission, there's a war going on, and there's nothing natural and non robotic in sight

I really got the feel of this future where everything is huge and impressive and so advanced technologically, but also very bleak.

You don't see a single plant in the whole game, but a lot of guns, warships, and assembly lines. The world of Tea For God is awesome to visit, but I certainly wouldn't want to live there.

Earth is desolate in the future of Tea For God

There are still some incredible vistas and views, and after physically walking and running through the cramped interior mazes being suddenly presented with a grand vista of an impossible technological sci fi landscape is not only refreshing but absolutely amazing. A few times I found myself floored and enjoyed just looking at some of the ambitious and excellent scenery that really sells you the scale of the world you're in.

The sound is the same way. Simple, and mostly confined to a few generic sounding music tracks and the whirring and clacking of robots or the machines you are surrounded by.

There are a few moments, like when a warship passes overhead, where the boom of the insane science keeping it afloat really stopped and drew me in as it passed by. (clip here) These moments are pretty few though, and generally, the sound is serviceable, though Tea For God should really get some better weapon sound effects, they're the worst of all, have no punch, and sound cartoonish. Though I do have to say the robots did scare the hell out of me a few times, in a good way.

Overall it could use some more touch ups here and there, but generally, Tea For God looks and sounds minimalist, which I think works for the game's setting and makes complete sense considering there is a single developer and musician working on this.

There are a lot of very impressive views in this VR game

The last thing I'll talk about is the story. As I've mentioned the narrator sounds fantastic, but despite the strong premise the story just kind of... hangs. Your guy says some stuff, but most of it doesn't make sense and has no context.

There is maybe a race of bug aliens attacking. Also, tentacles are taking over some stuff. Uhhh yeah, the story is vague, full of proper nouns and names with no explanation, and really up to interpretation. The developer really went for the Dark Souls school of narrative design, but without awesome item descriptions to fill in the gaps and contemplate.

The story makes no sense, and unless you really like being generally confused about the wider world, we can leave the plot of Tea For God at "You're trying to get to the emperor to blow her up." Also shouldn't it be empress? The emperor is always called her, but then they say emperor instead of empress.

Anyway, do yourself a favor and try the Tea For God demo for the walking movement and impossible space procedural generation, it's absolutely mind melting and unique in a great way.

Despite all of the negative things I've said about Tea For God in this review I don't regret buying the full game and playing it through, and I don't regret creating this long review. It's an okay game with an insanely awesome way to move around with your real legs. It's available on the Quest store and Steam, and the demo is free.

Seriously. Try the demo, especially if you have a Quest. I highly recommend you try Tea For God for free. Okay, I'll stop now, enjoy yourself out there in VR.