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Comment by jaegrqualm | Hacker News Reader

Not that you asked, but there's exactly one (popular) game that utilizes the same control scheme in modern times, Outer Wilds. Although it's not a shooter, it's quite a nice adventure game.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/753640/Outer_Wilds/

There is, however, an outright continuation of the subgenre, in Overload.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/448850/Overload/

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Overload was mostly the same people who built Descent (I helped a tiny bit). Those guys are really good.

One of the most polished "flight" games in VR too, extremely immersive and perfect controls.

Did you have trouble with nausea?

Everyone has nausea initially when using VR. It will go away eventually. You need to train your brain to not feel G forces when you see movement.

Not everyone has it even initially; it really varies from person to person. I suspect that to some extent it is influenced by past exposure to fast-paced first-person games (e.g. FPS when played using the mouse).

I used to get nausea when playing Doom in the nineties, it never got better. But I never get nausea from fps games with slower movement. I suspect the problem with Doom is how quickly you can change direction while running. You can run quite fast and a 90 degree turn doesn't slow you down at all.

Doom does some weird stuff with FOV and how it renders the environment though; newer FPS games have "real" 3D graphics, Doom used some interesting tricks to make things look 3D. The Quake engine was iirc the first "real" 3D engine.

Doom also has a camera bob effect that makes your brain think you are mowing down those monsters on a sailboat.

Quake was the first widely popular "real" 3D engine, but ironically the first game in the series being discussed in this thread, Descent, pre-dated it by around a year with fully 3D graphics in 1995.

> The Quake engine was iirc the first "real" 3D engine.

There were many 3D engines before Quake. You had a bunch of Micropose combat flight sims, a ton of 3d driving games, even Elite on the BBC micro.

Hell, I'd written some 3D graphics on the Atari ST before Quake.

Quake was the first 3D texture mapped, dynamically lit, first person shooter...maybe...depending on your definition. It was certainly one of the first to have that ran at frame rates around 30fps.

As others have said, Descent was also around the same time too.

In pretty much any FPS that allows using the mouse to turn (which was already the case even in Wolf3D), you can turn as fast as you can move the mouse. When playing competitively, and with experienced players in general, it is common to set mouse sensitivity rather high, allowing one to perform very fast - but still highly precise! - turns, either to follow the target, or to switch rapidly from one target to another, or to scan the area etc. Really good players can do what's known as a "180 quickscope" like that, which is exactly what it says on the tin - a very rapid 180 degree turn & aim to shoot someone you know is behind you. Example: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEC4AE6KbxY

If you don't have experience doing this yourself, watching such a player over the shoulder can be very nausea-inducing. I think to some extent this is innate, but I suspect for those who don't have a strongly pronounced response to begin with, playing such games (and doing those rapid turns yourself) desensitizes you over time. And I think that also transfers to VR to some extent; I've been playing first-person shooters with WASD+mouse for ~30 years now, and I had no nausea whatsoever the first time I tried VR.

For me there was practically no sickness at all, first time I used the headset I felt a little weird after an hour, and after that had no issues playing a variety of genres, with no teleportation.

Okay except that one time playing COMPOUND. By accident I moved the analog stick to the left while turning my head to the right, and the image moving the opposite of what I expected made me feel bad. I finished the level there, and then had to go rest for a couple of minutes and stop playing VR for the day.

tl;dr for some people it almost never happens, until it does.

> It will go away eventually.

No. It can actually get _worse_, as you get more sensitized to VR. The recommendation seems to be to _stop_ using VR if you get motion sick, rather than trying to power through it.

Not sure if the two of you are disagreeing or not, so genuinely asking:

Could it be that you are both right? As in, you should stop right away when you start getting motion sick, but with time it will get better?

Something like: play 15 minutes everyday, stop as soon as you are sick, and after a while you will be able to play 30min, etc.

I have no idea, just asking for a friend :-).

This is interesting for me to, but I'd be surprised to learn someone actually has an authoritative answer.

Data points would be interesting too. Someone saying "I used to get sick after 15min, and now I can play for 60min without a problem. I always stop playing right when I start getting sick".

You know, just to see that it has happened to someone :-)

edit: well this became a bit longer than I initially planned, I think I just had a lot to share when it comes to my recent VR adventures.

Well here I am: I initially got queasy as soon as I moved, then I'd immediately stop and take a break, longer breaks in the beginning. Initially I got a strong sense of de-realization / depersonalization after getting out of the digital world (i.e. looking at your hands and your brain being confused if they're real) But that also went away very quickly. The nausea, and 'am I still in the matrix' feeling got better within days, and went away within weeks. Now I can stomach any crazy topsy-turvy locomotion in any game. But I still feel the sweat and excitement, when swinging off 1000 feet high cliffs in Jet Island, or diving hundreds of meters deep in Subnautica.

It's just amazing how immersive it can be. I think you can only get there by having it at home and really giving yourself the time to get into it.

It's also re-ignited my love for single player games, especially modded triple A titles like Dragon Quest XI, or Resident Evil 2 (Remake) for example.

And btw, I run all of this on (arch) linux, on a Valve Index kit, using both SteamVR and OpenXR through Envision (Monado). It's been a bit of tinkering but that's only made it more satisfying for me. Plus, there are great communities like the Linux VR Adventure group: https://lvra.gitlab.io/

Yeah, add me to the list of people who have used the "stop immediately when you're getting noticeably queasy" technique to train my stupid brain to realize that no, it's not actually being poisoned, so it should stop fucking thinking it is and grow the fuck up. ;)

There are still some sorts of games that will make me queasy (games that have a lot of uncontrollable-by-me jumping around (think "leaping ninja fighting games') for instance), but by and large, I've no trouble.

I also found Dramamine to be helpful during the intermediate period where I'd still otherwise get nauseous after a while. I find it continues to be helpful for things like those stupid "leaping ninja fighting games".

My experience is analogous to yours. Initial motion sickness, *strong* de-realization and de-personalization (especially with hands, but also my torso and legs).

Nausea didn't get better and seemed to be present when my head was turning but the camera was moving either the opposite way or in the same direction but too fast.

I have some really good memories of spending hours inside of Obduction VR (highly recommended if you liked Myst / Riven / The Witness / etc), but the de-realization was so severe that I ended up abandoning that form of entertainment out of concern for my sanity.

Here's my experience.. got a Vive, ZERO motion sickness, was developing some games and toys with it for 6 months or so. Played about 20 minutes of some Resident Evil game on PSVR and got REALLY motion sick around the 10 minute mark and just powered through for another 10 minutes. I had to lay down and it took a good hour to fully recover. Now I can't play VR at all without getting sick, start getting the sweats and nausea as soon as I put my vive headset on. completely ruined VR for me, never finished my game I was working on, VIVE just collecting dust. Fuck the PSVR, I'm still mad about it.

I remember playing VR games with my HP Reverb G2 years ago and I did initially power through the motion sickness for a bit, but it did get better over the weeks until it just wasn't an issue at all.

Correct, according to general understanding from VR gamers and green my own experience. If you feel queasy stop immediately because pushing on will make it worse and cement the association in your brain. Leave it a while (a day or more ideally) then try again, repeat.

Maybe it differs on why you get motion sickness? Is it because the screens lag behind your movement with x millisecons or is it becase the eyes detect movement but the balance does not? Or a combination?

I'm guessing it's easier to get used to the motion/display lag than the balance sence issues.

> I'm guessing it's easier to get used to the motion/display lag than the balance sence issues.

Maybe, but people who work on boats surely get used to it. So it seems like it is possible for some people to some extent :-).

I've owned multiple VR headsets and have many, many hours of VR experience. With seated experiences (vehicles/aircrafts/rollercoasters) I never got nausea, not even initially.

The only experiences that made me nauseas were the ones that simulated movement of characters, where pressing a button would move the character and camera forwards. That was just too much of a disconnect. Movement by teleporting was not a problem.

It was worst the first few times, and I did not last long before I had to take a break, powering through was not possible. With experience it got better, the nausea/dizzyness was less intense and I could play longer sessions, but it never went away completely.

Nausea no. Migraine trigger? Yes. :(

It may sound crazy, but I have never felt nausea with a computer. The only issue I had with VR was my hair trying to cover my eyes, in the middle of a race, and that was it.

However, once I rented a plane to go over the Nazca lines, and it was in a tiny plane, that was capable of changing direction very easily.

That day I felt nausea. By this, I mean you can't ignore it, it is a strong sensation. So much, that the guides will advise to do the flight on an empty stomach. And it was overpowering, one girl in the plane did not watch anything because she was focused on a paper bag close to her mouth.

Not even fast turning karts or anything else has been able to reproduce that feeling.

I've never felt nauseated from VR either. Tried it as a teenager in the 90s with an old-school Lawnmower-Man-style HMD, several generations of Oculus goggles, two different commercial HMDs in immersive gaming venues, etc. I do remember feeling disoriented when first playing the original Descent in the 90s, but no nausea.

In a small (3-4 seat) plane, I got a little nervous from the sudden changes in direction, but I didn't feel nauseated then either. I've been on one of those astronaut trainer 3-axis spinning chair contraptions a few times when I was younger and didn't feel any ill effects. I thought it was a fun experience.

I have gotten a weird variation on motion sickness a few times when I was on small boats. I'd be fine on the boat itself, but a day or two later, back on land, I'd feel like the surface of the Earth was bobbing up and down the way the boat had. It went away in a few hours or less, but it was hard to do anything productive while it lasted. I still didn't feel like I was going to vomit.

I wouldn't get nauseas when I played Overload in VR, but I definitely developed a cold sweat fast. 30 minute sessions were a push and I'd need to recover after. The developers did all the best practices, but there's something inherently mentally stressful about a 6DoF game in VR while you sit still in a chair.

I got these symptoms from Wolf3D when playing on an empty stomach...

Actually, it's exactly like that! Most games with movement as a physical body, either with or without breast/hip make me car-sick, but this game is mostly taxing mentally because of all of the input. The only game that doesn't affect me, at all and which I can play for many hours is Contractors Showdown.

Not even VR, I had to stop normal Descent 3 after about 1 hour of gameplay because I started getting sick. Infuriating

I’m about to try it in VR. I’ve gotten over most of my VR nausea, but I will say, the original Decent series games gave made me nauseated/gave me vertigo and headaches if I played them too much. Therefore, I am a little worried.

So much fun, though!

Was surprised to find out today that in 2023 Overload modding community remade the complete Descent 1 campaign, definitely worth checking out:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyMduxHsXko

https://steamcommunity.com/app/448850/discussions/0/38095358...

Super cheap on GOG right now... https://www.gog.com/en/game/overload

There’s this review that stands out:

«I am the CEO of Orbital Design Studios, and am the designer behind the canceled "Descent IV" project in 2002. This game is a thing I thought I'd never see, aside from prototypes in my company's archives.

A very warm welcome back to Matt & Mike and all of the old crew of Parallax and Outrage Entertainment who have returned to create this long dreamed of and hoped for creation. Thank you for putting my regrets that D4 couldn't get made, to rest. Overload will stand for all time in its place.»

Thanks for the head's up! I grabbed a copy. Not a big gamer, but it looks like a lot of fun. Thanks!

I'm confused. This is another game?

"Overload" was a game made in Descent style, by the original creators of Descent (Mike and Matt), with a great deal of input from the Descent community. My wife and I spent a week at the studio (while ~6 months pregnant with a child we named for a Descent friend) working on Overload's flight model and tweaking some in-game stuff. The game is now largely maintained by fans, with significant multiplayer mod support and even a full remake of the D1 campaign!

Overload is awesome! However I wonder if some remnants of 90s game design like tight time limits and repeating enemy ambushes that make the game such a familiar and intense experience for the old school in reality disadvantage the game and the genre from reaching wider audiences.

There was also another classic Descent contender, Forsaken, that got remastared in 2018 to run on Linux and macOS in addition to modern Windows platforms. The original game was actually used as a graphics benchmark for early 3d accelerators due to its lighting effects.

That said, looking forward to playing Descent 3 on a modern platform!

The Forsaken soundtrack was so good!

Making it a 6DOF shooter at all probably severely hampered any chance of achieving mass appeal. If it had been 40-80 hour open world, character-based, third-person action adventure game, their chances would likely have been much higher.

The target audience was always going to be people trying to relive descent so the narrowness I suspect was just accepted

Yes, I was just rather facetiously making a point that the game is all the more interesting to its intended audience for not trying too hard to appeal to anyone else.

If we're including Outer Wilds, wouldn't almost every other space sim/pilot game also qualify? Elite Dangerous, Star Citizen, etc. They all have 6 DoF for both rotation and strafing.

Yeah, really. Heck, even No Man's Sky and Star Wars Squadrons qualify and they're way more mainstream

Neither of those are 6DOF (unless NMS patched it in at some point).

Other than the control scheme Outer Wilds really could not be more different to Descent.

You are correct. It’s an awesome game though.

I tried it and literally couldn’t figure it out. I got like 15 minutes into and had no idea what to do. What makes it so good?

The way Outer Wilds rewards curiosity is incredibly novel. More subjectively, I’m quite partial to how the narrative reveals itself. Wish I could relive that experience all over again.

For me it's how you discover one by one elements of the history of the "aliens" and how you use the physics to solve some puzzles. I also love the story. IMHO is one of the best videogames ever made together with Obra Dinn

The fact the game has no items, no power ups, no levels, no enemies. Just one question: what is going on? And your job is to figure it out. Knowledge is your only way forward. Unfortunately that means the game can only be played once and any spoiler will ruin it for you.

I disagree with "ruining", I've resorted to looking up some hints; mind you, in hindsight I would've figured it out myself if I spent a bit more time on it.

Eh, I think that game definitely needed a bit more play-testing polishing. More than once I got stuck and had to look up a hint. Only to discover that I actually had attempted the correct solution, but the mechanics were so clunky I was mislead into believing I was doing something stupid.

It’s all fits together in a very nice way. It’s very much a space archaeology game — if you like exploring the game universe and understanding how it works, you’ll like it, but that exploration is the bulk of what it has going on.

> It’s all fits together in a very nice way.

This. Everything or at least nearly everything is consistent and logical. The goal of the game is for you to piece out how all the element relates together.

As someone who also bounced off it initially - I would recommend getting through the tutorial area and flying out somewhere in the ship before you put it down for good. Once I started going out there and visiting places, it really grabbed me. The more stuff you scan and read, the more intrigued it made me, and eventually I couldn't stop until I'd unraveled every story thread and mystery the game had to offer.

That's quite intentional on the game part. The best advice I can give you is reach the observatory / museum on your home planet, and from there try randomly exploring the entire solar system (Hint: what's literally the first thing you see when your character open their eyes?).

Get past the tutorial into space, then open up the panel in your spaceship into Rumours mode, showing the equivalent of a madman's red yarn walls; there will always be one item in there that is incomplete.

Else, open the map, pick an unexplored planet and go there. There is no wrong way to go.

> What makes it so good?

Figuring it out! Going from all loose ends to a decent picture of what's going on can be really satisfying.

I didn't get it either, and I play tons of walking sims and narrative adventure games.

It feels more like a roguelike or a survival game to me with it's anti-features like falling damage and time limited resources and inescapable holes to get trapped in. And then you die and have to start all over again from the beginning. The epitome of not respecting the player's time.

It's the only game I have ever refunded on Steam, and annoyingly I keep getting recommended it because it's "like" all the other games that I play even though it clearly is not. I feel like I am in bizarro world with the amount of people who rave about it.

> because it's "like" all the other games that I play even though it clearly is not

That part is at least true - there are no other games like Outer Wilds.

I don't know, there are lots of games that feature the same die-and-repeat mechanics - roguelikes, soulslikes, metroidvanias, shmups, survival games - and I don't play those games precisely because I find them tedious and disrespectful of my time. This game for some reason gets grouped in with walking sims and adventure games but in fact it shares little in common with those genres due to the instadeath scenarios, time limits, resource limits, and so on.

It is not really die-and-repeat, but die-and-meaningfully-progress even though you seemingly start from the same place. It's so unlike metroidvanias and other stuff you mentioned that I'm wondering if we are talking about the same game.

It is absolutely an adventure game - aside from some arcade elements - you solve puzzles throughout entire game and you retain progress once you've solved them.

You are deeply misunderstanding the game and its mechanics.

It's basically a really well implemented Newtonian physics based platformer in a deterministic universe on a time loop that resets (22 minutes), so the loop is basically figure out how to get some place and then execute it (i.e. you could decide you want to de-orbit the moon into its planet, practice it, and get it right). Timing also matters as the celestial bodies orbit around and some of them fall apart.

So maybe it's less frustrating if considered like "a Mario level that's supposed to be difficult"

The story is understated, poignant, and one of those "ultimately nothing happened but the real story is what happened along the way". For reasons like this I consider it similar to Disco Elysium, a totally different game on the surface

I think that's sort of true, but unlike Disco Elysium - which I simply loved - the bits of Outer Wilds I loved were at odds with the fact that basically all of the worlds gave me anxiety from their specific quirks (plus, I found them all being so small - especially the ones closest to the sun - made me constantly worried about falling off), and I couldn't finish it. (I did watch a YouTube play through to get some of the experience without the terror later)

Can't believe Sublevel Zero Redux isn't on your list!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/327880/Sublevel_Zero_Redu...

This game is such an underappreciated hidden gem.

There also was a nice game called "Parkan" (and then Parkan 2), but it's not really well-known outside of Russian-speaking markets. It looks like it's available on Steam now.

I'm probably in the minority, but I wish Overload kept the Mass Driver from Descent 3. Particularly handy in Monsterball.

Glad D3 is in open source now, because the Steam version has broken multiplayer. I'd be glad to have a multiplayer session again one day.

Adding my vote for Overload. I'm not sure if it is the same team that built Descent(s) but some of them were involved in level design of the originals. I believe music composers were the same.

I really enjoyed the story too, that was probably the first game I played through to the end, just to find out how the story ends.

I believe the team has long disbanded which is a shame, it is a very _decent_ product (ha!)

> I'm not sure if it is the same team that built Descent(s) but some of them were involved in level design of the originals

Not the same exact team head-for-head but pretty close. Matt Toschlog and Mike Kula were both game directors on the original (and founded Parallax Software). They were the game directors of Overload as well and they're the founders of Revival, the studio that made the game.

Great to know!

The game is very well made, and as far as I know they delivered everything they promised to their backers (it was on Kickstarter). I bought the game (on PC AND on XBox) and left positive review on Steam. Hopefully they're working on something else that's just as awesome!

> I believe music composers were the same.

The midi Descent music (from 1 and 2) was to me the best game soundtrack in many years. Only when Portal appeared, it was removed from my top 1.

It is the only set of game related songs I enjoy using as ringtones =)

I know what my next steam purchase is...thanks for sharing, never heard of it and I loved the Descent games when I was a kid.

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