Let’s run a virtual convention! Here’s how the development of this project went. This is the Rec Con Race!
Directional Voice Chat
The Problem
In Rec Room we’ve had a problem for a while that if you’re near a group of players all talking, trying to talk to someone else can be a pretty annoying ordeal. All the voices intermingle and appear too close and loud to be able to tune them out of your own conversation, so it’s hard for anyone to focus on what anyone else is saying.
ILS on Quest 2
Today is a very exciting day with the new Oculus Quest 2 coming out, and we’ve got a special surprise to share with you. We’ve done a lot of work to optimize Isle of Lost Skulls, and have set it live for Quest 2 players! With this release, we wanted to take the opportunity to answer a common question we get from users:
Why isn’t some content available on all devices?
The Making of Cakes
This week we want to take you behind the scenes of Rec Room’s bakery and give you some back story on how we made the cakes!
Cake has been a long-requested food item so we were excited to bring out a variety of them for our players to enjoy! Last month, we added chocolate and red velvet cakes for the first taste test. However, some cakes are just incomplete without candles. That is why we just added two brand new ones - the celebration cake and the 87 flavor cake, both with candles that can be blown out with your microphone. They are great to share with friends to celebrate special occasions together.
Content Showcase Posters
Circuits V2 Road Map
Maker Pen Workshop #1: Tomb Heist! Release
Note: this is the end of 4-part series on Tomb Heist that started with costumes++ and continued with AI features and doors++.
Maker Pen Experiment #1 Recap
Tomb Heist! is the name of the current Maker Pen Experiment we are building internally at Rec Room using only the maker pen. Unlike previous #RRO rooms, Tomb Heist will be released as a community room. As we build it, we’ll be creating and releasing new creative tools.
"Moods" Split Test
Earn Tokens by Selling Keys
How To Circuits V2
Leveling Up Leveling Up
Avatars++ and Face Shapes
This week we’re focusing on Avatars, and the new face shapes available in the mirror UI! This is part of what the art team is calling the Avatars++ initiative - a long-term trickle of small projects with the shared goal of making it easier to represent an authentic, unique, and recognizable version of yourself.
Maker Pen Workshop #1: Tomb Heist! & Room Doors++
Note: this is part 3 of a 4-part series on Tomb Heist that started with costumes++ and continued with AI features.
Tomb Heist!
It’s been a while, but just to recap what Tomb Heist! is all about:
Tomb Heist! is the name of the current Maker Pen Experiment we are building internally at Rec Room using only the maker pen. At the end of the project, this would not be released as an #RRO, but rather a community room. As we build it, we’ll be creating and releasing new creative tools.
Rec.Net Room Showcase
In the coming months, we will be making improvements to rec.net centered around creators. Specifically, we want to make it easy for you to showcase all of your Rec Room creativity. We want to allow you to transform your rec.net profile into a full-fledged creator portfolio, akin to other creative portfolio websites such as artstation.com. For creators with a lot of content, we also want to make it possible for you to choose what content visitors see first on your profile.
Tomb Heist! & AI in Circuits V2
To focus the Circuits V2 efforts in the Tomb Heist! Project we decided we wanted the AIs in this mini quest to behave fundamentally different from the regular AIs that we have in the rest of our RRO quests. We wanted to use existing enemies that players could already spawn in their rooms, but have them do something beyond just rushing at players and attacking blindly. We wanted them to be more akin to tactical adventure games like Metal Gear or Tomb Raider, but most importantly, all the new behavior had to be completely done in Circuits V2.
FNAF Hoodie Gift Drop! (this weekend only)
Special delivery from the FNAF crew! Log into Rec Room this weekend and visit the Rec Center to pick up your free FNAF hoodie. The hoodie will be dropped to everyone who enters the Rec Center from 1pm PT Friday July 3rd until 11:59pm PT Sunday July 5th. This is a limited time gift drop so be sure to let all of your friends know about the event this weekend! The hoodie will drop for anyone entering the Rec Center on any platform so you can grab your gift on iPhone, iPad, PS4, PSVR, PC, Oculus Quest, and any other Rec Room supported platforms.
For a real world version of the hoodie check out the FNAF AR shop and check out their FNAF AR app on iOS and Android.
We look forward to seeing you in Rec Room and hope everyone has an amazing July 4th weekend ✨
Creator Portfolios and Announcements
It’s 10 PM. Do you know where your inventions are?
The line between playing and creating in Rec Room is often blurry, something that we think makes us special as a user-generated content platform. Becoming a creator is as easy as taking out your Maker Pen and drawing some new shapes or placing new inventions. However, managing your created content can get a little messy. You can find your rooms in your watch menu, but you can’t view your inventions unless you’re holding your Maker Pen. If you are a creator with a large number of published rooms, it can be a hassle to find the one you want to work on without sifting through all of them. You can see other players' rooms and inventions in their player details, but you can’t see your creations from your profile. As part of our Audience Connection work, we wanted to greatly simplify the work of viewing a player’s created content and offer easier methods of sorting and searching through it.
Maker Pen Workshop #1: Tomb Heist! & Costumes++
Social Expression on Screen Devices
When we launched Rec Room in 2016, it was a VR-only experience. And one of the coolest things about VR was - and still is - the feeling of social presence that you get. As Rec Room has grown over the years, we’ve welcomed many players on non-VR devices as well - players on consoles, phones, and PCs are playing, creating, and hanging out.