Good VR Podcast
Audio from people building toward good VR. The podcast explores the concept of Good Virtual Reality and features discussions with individuals working on positive VR experiences. It aims to support independent journalism and provides additional context on its website.
Episodes
Grabbing Mario From A Nintendo 64 Cartridge And Other Experiments With Lucas Martinic
I grabbed my Super Mario 64 cartridge off the shelf, backed up the game to my Mac and then stuck the file in a folder on Meta Quest 3. Then I opened the APK sent to me by Lucas Martinic of studio Present Futures.Voila. Mario was controllable by the analog stick on my right controller and, with my left hand, I could reach into the virtual world I first visited around 30 years ago. Mario could stand
AltSpace's Third Chance With SideQuest's Shane Harris
The head of SideQuest is looking to resurrect AltSpace again.The well-loved social platform Altspace closed down twice before. First, the startup behind the service was to close in 2017 during the start of modern VR’s first winter. It was rescued, however, in a last-minute buyout from Microsoft. Then Microsoft pulled the plug in 2023 in a sign of what was yet to come for Horizon Worlds and Rec Roo
Apple Vision Pro In An Operating Room Points To The Cost Of Doctors Turning Their Heads
A recent paper authored by Dr. Bobby Korn at the University of California, San Diego made some intriguing conclusions from 16 operations completed with physicians wearing Apple Vision Pro to view cameras inside the human body.Here are the listed highlights from the paper, bolding added: * Spatial computing improves ergonomic comfort in endoscopic surgery.* Apple Vision Pro enables immersive, hands
FitXR CEO Sam Cole On Glasses & Bundling Exercise Subscriptions With Hardware Sales
VR’s ability to instantly embody a person in simulated space turns out to be an incredible match for fitness. The idea that you can forget the pressure of the physical world and get into the rhythmic flow of a workout is one of the ways VR is transforming lives all over the world. I captured some of those stories in a recent writeup about Supernatural’s return to independence, but now I’ve had the
Flat2VR Studios Developing System Shock And High On Life VR Games For 2027
A pair of newly announced VR games are scheduled for release in 2027 from Flat2VR Studios — System Shock and High On Life.System Shock was the influential precursor to BioShock, first released in 1994 and re-released in 2023 by Nightdive. The remake is getting the full Flat2VR treatment alongside the VR version of humor-shooter High On Life from Squanch Games, where the gun you hold is a live alie
Walkabout From Mini Golf To Dungeon Golfer With Mighty Coconut's Lucas Martell
Walkabout Mini Golf development studio Mighty Coconut is taking everything it learned from developing the best way to spend time with family and friends in VR and starting fresh with a new game.Walkabout Dungeon Golfer is in active development as something of a spin-off or sequel to Walkabout Mini Golf and being developed alongside new courses for the original. The new game is still centered on go
Ferryman Collective Plays In VR With Deirdre V. Lyons & Stephen Butchko
What does it mean to play in VR?It seems a straightforward question. Meta, Valve, Sony, Google, and even Apple all sell games that substitute your reality for a simulated one with rules to learn governing your interactions. These storefronts, however, do little to sell the unique benefits VR offers in embodiment and transportation.“We’re all given this kind of carnival license in this sort of anon
Specialized Firefighter Training In VR With Evan Sitler-Bates
XpertVR CEO Evan Sitler-Bates joined the Good VR Podcast to discuss work offering firefighters extra training in VR.We spoke for just over 30 minutes and I cut it down to under 24 minutes using the podcasting platform Riverside. “This isn’t about…physical training and we’re not replacing live burns. We’re giving you the sets and reps that you can do on a daily or weekly basis between live burns an
6 Months Of Presence In Good Virtual Reality
During most episodes of the Good VR Podcast I ask guests the same question:“What is your favorite moment of presence in a headset?”The answers I’ve received cover a wide spectrum of available experiences in VR. To mark six months of Good Virtual Reality I’ve cut together answers to that question from guests Samantha Gorman, Sonya Haskins, Jasmine Uniza, Tomáš Mariančík, K. Guillory, Guy Godin, Ant
Pervert Glasses Summer Versus Timeless VR Escapes With Scott Stein
CNET’s gadget expert Scott Stein joined the Good VR Podcast for an in-depth discussion about the social impact of computerized eyewear.We talked for just over an hour and 10 minutes using the podcasting platform Riverside and I cut it down to about 55 minutes. “Our social contracts are gonna change. Design fiction — this is a wonderful time for design fiction…the idea of thinking about new interfa
Space Pirate Trainer Sold 1 Million Copies & Bundled In VR's Arena-Scale Pinnacle
Space Pirate Trainer stands the test of time as one of the best projects ever developed for the medium.In 2016 it whetted player appetites for what VR could do by immediately transporting people to a platform overlooking a sci-fi cityscape with fantastic music and a small arsenal unlocked for fighting off wave after wave of drones. When Space Pirate Trainer debuted alongside The Brookhaven Experim
Raven Zachary On VR Versus AR Across Specs, Xreal, Vision Pro, HoloLens & Magic Leap
Raven Zachary’s story with VR and AR dates back to the 1990s and, in the years since, he’s become involved with a range of impactful projects at the cutting edge of technology. As a guest for the Good VR Podcast he recaps the journey for the first 15 minutes and then we end up having a spirited discussion for the next hour about the current landscape for VR headsets and AR glasses as we cover ever
Puzzling Places Developer Daniel Sproll On Cognitive Load, 3D Scanning & Steam Frame Comfort
One of VR’s unique and delightfully meditative experiences started as an error on the PC when a 3D scan got shuffled into pieces.Daniel Sproll joined the Good VR Podcast from Realities.io in Germany to discuss the development of Puzzling Places. The game released first on SideQuest and the creators slowly stacked up a passionate community who find a sense of quiet comfort in Puzzling Places as a k
Iron Rebellion Developers Spent A Decade Building Toward MechWarrior In VR
Justin Spice is on a mission to make something like MechWarrior in VR. In the 1990s he set up a cardboard box around his PC’s monitor to simulate a cockpit for MechWarrior 2 running on Windows 95. Roughly 30 years later, Iron Rebellions’s very positive rating on Steam (and 4.6 on Quest) is a testament to his effort at Black Beach Studio to create a fully fledged VR mech game inspired by his experi
Stereo Displays For Surgical Settings With HMDmd's Jamie Lockwood
Head-mounted displays come in a lot of different configurations and not all of them deliver VR. Still, the elements that make VR experiences worth having can be better understood when looking at related technologies.That’s how I ended up talking with Jamie Lockwood at HMDmd. The company makes head-mounted stereoscopic displays with high resolution microdisplays and open peripheries designed specif
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades Exits Early Access After 10 Years In Development
A game like no other in virtual reality reached full release after 10 years of early access development.Work is already deep into development on the sequel, but as of July 4, 2026 version 1.0 of RUST LTD’s Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades is available for download and the game’s early access label is gone.On the Good VR Podcast Anton Hand and I discuss his favorite guns, modes of play, and the
Haptics 101: Motors For Touch With Ashley Huffman
When you play a game like Eleven Table Tennis you should hold something paddle-like in one hand that vibrates believably when a simulated ball collides. An open palm with a simulated ball resting on it during a serve should also provide the subtle sensation of it leaving the surface of your skin.Today, the best table tennis game in VR is played with two controllers, one in each hand. These objects
Imaginations Mingle In The Freedom Of PCs With Resonite
Tomáš Mariančík aka Frooxius is the singular mind behind Resonite — a PC-based VR service where people can create together in VR.He started up Resonite upon exit from Neos, a virtual universe that “exploded” a few years ago when one of the other people involved in the organization focused on introducing crypto concepts to the service.“It was hard,” Frooxius says on the Good VR Podcast. “One of th
10 Questions For Ian Hamilton & Good Virtual Reality
Welcome to Good Virtual Reality and I’m so glad you’re here.My name is Ian Hamilton. I’m the owner of this website, goodvirtualreality.com, and I’m a journalist. My work here is driven by my human curiosity as well as the direct connections I make to people out there who believe in what they do with their whole heart.Some weeks ago a subscriber sent me the following message using the chat features
XREAL's Two Eyewear Types: 'Glasses With Apps Versus Glasses That Connect To Your Device That Has Apps'
At Augmented World Expo in Long Beach I tried the XREAL Aura glasses running Android XR.The device brings into focus Google’s ambitions to power two completely different architectures for spatial computing eyewear using the same operating system. The two approaches are:* VR headsets like Samsung Galaxy XR with wide field of view optics featuring opaque displays passing AR through from the external
Alvin Wang Graylin On HTC Competing With Meta
At Augmented World Expo in Long Beach I met with Alvin Wang Graylin for an in-depth discussion looking back at the last decade of attempts to create a mass market for consumer VR headsets.He left HTC in 2025 after joining the organization in 2016, a few months before the launch of the PC-based Vive headset powered by Valve’s SteamVR technology. That means he had a front row seat to the effect of M
Mark Drummond From Encounter Dinosaurs In Apple Vision Pro To Pixi Garden on iPhone
A new free app called Pixi Garden available on iPhone brings eye contact and interaction to cat and robot characters sent through messages.The co-founder and CEO behind the project, Mark Drummond, sat for a conversation on the Good VR Podcast to talk about his path to develop these bite-size interactions after working on the impactful Encounter Dinosaurs experience on the Apple Vision Pro as well
Grant Hinkson's Connectome Calms With Eye & Hand Tracking On Vision Pro Or Quest
My first time in Connectome I spent nearly an hour just calmly connecting the dots and making quiet discoveries to reveal hidden shapes in the space around me.Developer Grant Hinkson describes the project as “an immersive art experience” rather than a game and I hosted him on the Good VR Podcast to discuss the unusually meditative work.“I started with feeling words — discovery, joy, moments of awe
Flat2VR Studios CEO Jasmine Uniza From Trombone Champ To FlatOut 4 In VR
The team at Flat2VR Studios ask themselves “why is this in VR?”When they are able to answer that question CEO Jasmine Uniza says they’ll often make a demo to show a prospective partner why their game should get the full Flat2VR treatment.“Make great games and have fucking fun,” Uniza says is Flat2VR’s motto. “You have to tell me why this deserves a spot in VR and why I should pick it over any othe
PROJECT MIX VR Bartending Game On More Than 130,000 Steam Wishlists
In PROJECT MIX the player embodies a bartender making drinks for patrons in an “alternate-history 90s Hong Kong” and after their workday they come home to their apartment, to a cat that can smoke cigarettes, as part of a story that takes place over 12 days.The anime-inspired narrative adventure is made for mature audiences and scheduled for release on Steam in 2027. While many developers building
Guy Godin After More Than A Decade Of Virtual Desktop
The creator of Virtual Desktop recalls the Tuscany demo as his first VR experience and Senza Peso as his favorite moment of presence in a headset.Guy Godin’s recollections are from a different time in the VR industry. Enthusiasts launched their VR experiences by clicking around with their mouse on a PC outside VR instead of selecting from a menu inside. Watching videos of people doing that led him
Cirrus Selling Luxury Personal Aircraft Using Apple Vision Pro
An app called Let’s Go Fly is available free today as part of Cirrus Aircraft’s pitch to sell personal airplanes starting with Apple Vision Pro demos.The sales team at Cirrus now carry Vision Pro headsets to show potential buyers the short immersive film made with Blackmagic immersive cameras, with the project representing a new sales tool to help in selling luxury personal aircraft.Cirrus’ sales
Devin Reimer Explores VR Input From Hands In Job Simulator To Voice In Stellar Cafe
AstroBeam’s Stellar Cafe is buried in Meta’s Quest ecosystem underneath the Horizon Worlds slop and a whole bunch of casual shooters, but it does something new and innovative with virtual reality that demands attention.It’s a game that can be played entirely with voice input. Across three days of interactions with more than half a dozen robots, you’ll find yourself feeling a lot of emotions becaus
Project Hail Mary Quest Adaptation Arrives Late 2026
The statuesque Weeping Angels of Doctor Who only move when they aren’t observed by a living being. When the episode Blink aired in 2007, the creatures became iconic lore and, roughly a decade later, three creators working with the HTC Vive pitched the BBC and Doctor Who rights holders with a demo they made centered on the terrifying creatures.They formed the studio Maze Theory to build the project
Rec Room's End 'Surreal' To Shawn Whiting After 8 Years Building Community
From June 1, 2026 a place that’s been the foundation of VR for many ceases to be. The end of Rec Room is still “surreal” for one of VR’s “OG” supporters and a core member of the team building the project for more than eight years.“There can’t be a world without Rec Room,” Shawn Whiting said on the Good VR Podcast. “It doesn’t seem real.”From his memories playing Dreadhalls to co-founding Convrge t
Sock Puppet Superstar Developer 'Just Following The Fun'
After his passion project unexpectedly went viral, developer Brandon Montell rushed to put together wishlist pages for Sock Puppet Superstar. You can wishlist the game now on Steam and the Quest store. “Anytime I do something that makes myself chuckle a little bit, I am just like, "Okay, that has to go in the game,” Montell says on the Good VR Podcast. “It was not a business market-driven decision
Building VR & AR Games From Iran To Finland
How would development studio Not Suspicious fulfill agreements to put mixed reality games Airspace Defender and Banners & Bastions on Pico headsets with developers in Iran during an Internet blackout and a war with the United States?The answer is that they wouldn’t.Iranian husand-and-wife developers Sahand Malaei and Pardis Mohtadi just arrived in Finland to continue that work after departing Iran
H3VR2 Revealed By RUST LTD. For Quest And Steam, With Anton Hand
Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand Grenades development studio RUST LTD. revealed a sequel during the Creature Feature.I’ve told people I’m not really into VR shooters, but the more nuanced truth is that nothing in the category interests me the way Pistol Whip grabbed me with its rhythm focus in about 30 seconds and then kept me playing there for years. Now, I’m anticipating Hot Dogs, Horseshoes & Hand G
Hasko7 From Oculus Rift Echo Arena To Augmented World Expo
Sonya Haskins was Hasko7 to the Echo Arena community, a supportive figure who would help people however she could.These days she’s Head of Programming for the Augmented World Expo, helping organize its latest conference June 15-18 in Long Beach, California. She recently moved to the city after spending much of her life in the southern United States. From purchasing an Oculus Rift in 2017 after a d
K. Guillory On How To Paint Cyberspace With Immersivism
Artist K Guillory joined the Good VR Podcast to discuss her path into exploring the practice of immersivism.One of the first articles on this site was about Guillory’s work painting a furry in her living room. Now on the podcast the artist dives deep into her path from Second Life to fully immersive virtual spaces in headset and her explorations making art while there.Immersivism “is when you make
Jesse Schell From Aladdin's Magic Carpet Ride To I Expect You To Die, Until You Fall & Among Us VR
Schell Games head Jesse Schell joined the Good VR podcast and recapped his path in VR from working on Disney’s pioneering VR attraction Aladdin’s Magic Carpet Ride in the early 1990s to the studio’s recent explorations in generative AI.Along the way, we discuss the seated I Expect You To Die trilogy, the physically active Until You Fall sword fighting game, and the ambitious effort to transition t
Joseph Simpson Steps Into Apple Vision Pro Development
Joseph Simpson’s Project Graveyard is one of my favorite apps on Apple Vision Pro for its simple humor: “Hopes and dreams have to go somewhere,” the App Store description states. “Project Graveyard is a tiny place where you can bury and remember your dead projects. Create gravestones for all your favorite projects and celebrate them forever.”Now on version 3.0, the volumetric app shares space with
Tender Claws From Virtual Virtual Reality & The Under Presents To Stranger Things VR & Body Proxy
Some of the most memorable experiences that have ever been made for VR headsets started in the minds of Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro at Tender Claws.Artists and creators who have closely followed good VR projects over the last decade still carry with them today their experiences in Virtual Virtual Reality on Daydream headsets and, during the pandemic, the intimate social connection possibl
Sofia Lazaro Explores Where Headsets Help In Aerospace With Dauntless XR
Sofia Lazaro is the cofounder of Dauntless XR which focuses on products in mixed reality “for the deskless workforce.”“Individuals who work in aerospace, manufacturing, and defense, and [Dauntless] really aims at use cases to how can we use XR as a medium to give people the information they need when they need it in 3D in kind of a hands-free format,” Lazaro explains on the Good VR podcast. “There
Anonymous Alcoholics Share Support In Virtual Reality
A time is coming soon when the people who attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings in VR can revisit the birthplace of the organization.Two organizers of VR meetups for AA, Paul and Mike, estimate hundreds of people have been put on the path to recovery from their meetings in virtual reality as they find themselves protected by the total anonymity of a headset connected over the Internet.The two co-fo
Exploring The Future Of Meetings With Vanessa Moss
The Future Of Meetings (TFOM) is a group exploring how technology is changing how we meet one another.I met the group recently for a pair of discussions held in Walkabout Mini Golf and gleaned some insights about the evolution of meetings from ancient times, when humans gathered around a fire to eat and talk, to modern day meetups organized via calendaring across time zones or held in VR.Across 46
The Biggest Problem To Solve For Mass Market VR Is Colocating People & Media
VR can be extremely isolating. Developers toil away for days, weeks or months at their desks with little contact. Often, the VR software they develop doesn’t help. The experience they’re building can isolate a person in a universe occupied by exactly one person for dozens or even hundreds of hours.Sometimes this solitude can be part of the charm and lure of good VR. Half-Life: Alyx, for example, c
Kluge's Arturo Perez On Taking Synth Riders Everywhere Beat Saber Won't Go
Kluge CEO Arturo Perez joined the Good VR Podcast from his home in Marina Del Rey, California for an in-depth conversation about everything from competition with Beat Saber and the coming addition of Dua Lipa to Synth Riders to layoffs and the overall reduced state of the current VR market.“When Beat Saber dropped out of PSVR 2, we released a song ‘We Are The Champions’ the same day,” Perez said.
Artist Ashley Pinnick From Tilt Brush To Starship Home
In 2014 while she was still in college, artist Ashley Pinnick asked her mom to meet someone at a 7-Eleven to pick up an Oculus Rift DK2 for her from a Craigslist ad.As she hooked the headset up to her Mac, back before Oculus stopped supporting that platform, Pinnick quickly found her last year of college work shifting to realizing her art in VR.“I kind of ended up just falling into it out of curio
JoyReign and JDun From Horizon Worlds To Apple Vision Pro
JoyReign and JDun, aka Shika Duncan and Jeremy Duncan, each wore an Apple Vision Pro to record an episode of the Good VR podcast from their home in Louisiana.Across an hour-long conversation, the VR evangelists talked about how they met, their discovery of Horizon Worlds, their regular co-watching of movies in headsets and their belief that Apple is building to a more affordable product than the $
Gravity Sketch Founder Oluwaseyi Sosanya After A Decade Of Designing In VR
Gravity Sketch co-founder Oluwaseyi Sosanya joined the Good VR podcast from London for a 50-minute conversation covering their path into VR and spatial computing.We cover the founding story, investors, headcount, an overview of the product and come back to advice he has for others looking to develop and build in this space.“Stay patient and be practical,” Sosanya said. “Spatial computing is so exc
Thomas Van Bouwel From Cubism To Laser Dance
Thomas Van Bouwel is the solo developer behind Cubism and Laser Dance.I recommend each of his projects as some of the best of VR. Laser Dance is pure wish fulfillment in mixed reality, resizing itself to your physical environment and deploying a laser maze built to your dimensions. The project is still in early access while Cubism, first launched in 2020, is a kind of spatial toy that can sit insi
Avi Bar-Zeev From Multiplayer VR In 1992 To Apple Vision Pro
Avi Bar-Zeev worked on a lot of mixed reality over 35 years with projects that impacted Disney, Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple.For just over an hour in a recent podcast recording session, Bar-Zeev first walks through his storied work history and then weaves around the language of mixing realities as well as the privacy policies that keep him from interacting with companies like Meta."I don't
Mark Schramm From SUPERHOT VR To Starship Home
Mark Schramm’s living room has an astonishing number of VR headsets on display and ready to use.Schramm is the director of engineering at Doug North Cook’s Creature. Along his wall you call see his entire path in immersive media from his time in university before making the Quest port of SUPERHOT VR to developing the first-of-its-kind mixed reality game Starship Home for the Quest 3.Be sure to che
Oculus CEO Brendan Iribe In 2012: 'This Isn't 10 Years Away'
I dug into my archives and pulled out a couple audio files recorded on my iPhone carrying the date November 13, 2012 on the file names. That appears to be the date of my first full-length interview with Brendan Iribe, the co-founder and CEO of Oculus.A few weeks later my first major article about Oculus appeared on the front page of the business section of the Orange County Register in California,
Ryan Engle Of Golf+ On Quest, Steam Frame & Building A Sustainable Business In VR
Golf+ is the provider of wish fulfillment in VR headsets for a large number of golfers that are “just looking to find ways to play more golf.”The app launched in 2020 exclusively on the Quest platform and, over the last six years, has built up to more than 50 paid downloadable courses and a subscription program to access all of them. This year, Golf+ expands to PC VR and the Steam Frame headset.“Y
The Most Important VR Developer In The World Today, Doug North Cook
Doug North Cook is the most important developer working in virtual reality today. In defense of my labeling, which drew critique from North Cook himself when I uttered my belief to him, let me walk you backward in time from the present day company he’s founded called Creature.Creature lists on its website partner studios including Thomas Van Bouwel (Cubism and Laser Dance), Funktronic Labs (The Li
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