Here's a trailer for Harmonix's next music game, a suite of four trippy, music-related experiences for PlayStation VR.
When it was first announced last year, Harmonix Music VR was pitched mainly as a music visualizer, a chance to create "actual environments that were themselves an expression of your music," according to designer Jon Carter.
At the time, he also framed this project as an opportunity for Harmonix to familiarize itself with virtual reality. "This is my company's first foray into the medium, and an attempt to define the category of VR music visualization," he wrote on the PlayStation Blog.
Harmonix recently showed Music VR at a pre-E3 media event. It's clear that the result of those VR experiments are as varied, imaginative and downright weird as you might hope. They are also difficult to define, falling somewhere between toys, games, experiences and apps.
The results are as varied, imaginative and downright weird as you might hope
"The Trip" is the simplest of the four parts of Harmonix Music VR. You strap on your headset and plug in your favorite music, and you are duly surrounded by a universe of psychedelic meanderings. It's the sort of thing that could easily while away a few lost hours, especially as it works with any song in your PlayStation library.
"The Easel" is like a basic PlayStation VR version of Google's amazing VR art creation tool, Tilt Brush. Players use one hand to choose brushes and patterns, and the other to paint whimsical patterns and creations, zooming in and out to devise 3D concoctions of colors and shapes.
"The Beach" is a basic environmental toy. Players enter a picture and click on various elements to unlock musical and visual vignettes. It's cute but limited in scope.
"Dance Party" is the most game-like part of the package. Players enter a dollhouse world of puppets and are invited to manipulate them into little dance routines. These are then choreographed into one great dancing scene that can be funny and bizarre.
Harmonix Music VR is scheduled to be released in October. No price has been announced as yet.
