SouthWest VR Meetup #1 Breakdown

Posted 2014-08-04 14:15:00 by Dan Page

Last week we had the pleasure of organising the inaugural SouthWest Virtual Reality Meetup. The event, planned to be the first of many, is a celebration of all things VR, a showcase for incredible content and hardware, and a chance for like-minded individuals to network and have a few beers.

Our special guests were:

• Sam Watts of Tammeka Games, the creators of amazing future sci-fi racer Radial G 
  
  
• Dan Da Rocha, Jon Savery and Dave Hall of Toxic Games, who talked about their awesome VR-enabled puzzler Q.U.B.E. (pronounced cube, so they tell me ;) )
  
  
• Liviu Berechet Antoni, creator of the brillant 3D-printed Android-powered VR HMD Altergaze
  
• Nick Pittom of Fire Panda, creator of the lovely Studio Ghibli demos and the upcoming RedofPaw’s Big Crazy Stupid VR Adventure

The event was an overwhelming success by all accounts, with a total of 8 Oculus Rifts in the room; three DK2s and five DK1s, which is worth celebrating itself (and hopefully a sign of things to come).

We organised SouthWest VR because we’ve got strong feelings that this is the future. Facebook knows it, Oculus knows it, and we’re here to help make it happen.

Opposable Games is making two VR games right now; one of which I can’t yet talk about, the other being Salvaged: VR (working title). We’ll be bringing Salvaged: VR to the next event and announcing our secret project very soon so as always, do keep an eye on our social media channels.

Massive thanks to everyone that came down, it was amazing to see so many smiling faces and dropped jaws behind sweaty black boxes. An extra large thanks to those that lent us equipment. helped out and showed off their content and hardware. We really hope you all enjoyed yourselves.

Big thanks to Chris, Sam and Ben for helping tech the event and for loaning their equipment, Martin Blunden for taking such brilliant pictures, and Liz for making those awesome SWVR/Oculus cupcakes.

We’re already being inundated with requests for the date of the next event, we’ll announce it very soon, so keep an eye on @SouthWestVR, join the meetup group and follow us on Facebook. In the meantime, feast your eyes on this excellent gallery of pictures from the lovely Martin Blunden: