Hello everybody, it’s me again. I guess I’m writing most of the blogs. One of the fun challenges we have is coming up with ways to describe the game’s core. And in some very baseline sort of way, this video describes it.

When people describe a shooter, they’d say you have a ranged weapon, you aim and you shoot. Then on top of that, they add in their intricacies that make the game unique. The baseline for A Township Tale is and always has been grabbing objects, moving your hands, and releasing them. Think for a bit what that means for an RPG.

There are many ways you do this. Mostly, we hold things in our palm. The shape of the object dictates what moving your hands do at this point. Maybe you are just holding a rock, or maybe it’s a sword. The context-sensitive gameplay at this point is literally in your hands.

Next, you can hold things with two hands. By simply, using your other hand to hold what you’re already holding. This changes the ‘movement’ part of the core game, letting you hold things more steadily and control rotation better. We allow this on most things, and give other benefits to balance sizeable items from shorter ones.

This simple core brings about many questions that make game design interesting. Can you hold something that can’t move? What does moving your hands mean when this happens? Can you hold something that can move, but is fixed at a point against the environment? What sort of force do you get throwing an item with two hands? Can you hold something that another player is holding? Can you simply hold a player’s hand? What does moving look like then? Can you move something you can’t hold?

These are a few questions among the many that we answer to create what we describe as a core VR game. Human hands are capable things, opposable thumbs blah blah and all that. So we mimic that in VR, and things happen very naturally.

In the video above, we let you pick boxes that required two hands, but couldn’t be picked up with a single one. That was something new, and gave us some new ideas on how this can play a part in the game’s future.

These simple rules are the basis for so much of the game, and is so flexible it works great with other core components. Inventory, crafting, and impacts all combine together to make amazing use of this.

As more professions and new gameplay goals come into play, this will expand into an awesome mix of…things hands do. It’s all about the hands.

Anyways, that’s it. Thanks for reading!