Andromedum

I enjoyed the experience of a story narration with the accompanying 3D visual illustration and would like to see more of this type of content. As for this particular production, I found the narrator's voice excellent, offering a very professional delivery. The story however, whilst interesting, became increasingly more unbelievable for me with Jack seemingly completely invincible. I found it stretched credibility too far which kind of ruined an otherwise decent story line. The graphical illustration was done well on the whole and matched the story with the exception of a few areas, where clearly a lack of appropriate assets to do so was apparent. I enjoyed the ending though.

Overall an enjoyable, relaxing and a quite intimate experience in VR, which has wet my apatite for more stories told in this way.

The challenge in this "game" is to endure long enough to be able to write a review. I did put the headset on the floor for a while...

This is terrible, hundreds of pages to be read, the VR environments are of low quality, you can't move around and explore, turning your head feels strange.

It's an audio book in VR. Its doesn't do much to make use of the VR aspects, but if you want to be read a story with a bit of scene setting its nicely read and the story seems interesting enough so far, reasonably narrated.
Its so passive though that it might be nicer experienced lying down if you didn't need to look around to see the set pieces.

All I can say is that this is a good book.

Price is acceptable. I can look past the graphics being a sequence of similar-looking 360 images, and while quaint, the overall production quality is consistent and decent. Hail Zorp, is it long though! You read a page and/or click to go the next scene page. I read the first few pages, and then proceeded to just keep on clicking until I got the end (sorry, I'm not a strong reader), and it just kept going, and going, and going until I gave up. This appears to be a labour-of-love, however, and you should buy it for that reason.

[*][quote]
⠀⠀⠀⠀ːmgtriːːmghexː⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːpartypillsːːhappymeː
⠀⠀ːblotofpaintː⠀⠀⠀⠀ːmgcubeː⠀⠀ːufo_galaxyː⠀⠀⠀⠀ːradiantheartː
ːwaytohellː⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːws_peaceː⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːvoidkarmaː
ːvoidkarmaː⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːwaytohellː
⠀⠀ːradiantheartː⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːblotofpaintː
⠀⠀⠀⠀ːhappymeː⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːmgtriː
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːpartypillsː⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːmghexː
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːufo_galaxyː⠀⠀ːmgcubeː
⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ːws_peaceː [/quote]

awful, just awful
story is boring
neauseating (location is fixed)
controls are confusing and buggy
3d scenes are not rendered well (hovering over weird black hole, semi transparent objects overlaying)

I like BIG books, I can not lie. Here is the thing, I own quite an extensive library of books (500+) and an extensive library of Audible books (200+). All genres from the late 1600's to published just last month. I admire the art form of writing and the creativity that goes into it. This is an entirely new art form that is limitless in it's infancy. I stopped on page 26 of 500+ pages, just to write this review. It is a fantastic first step and I am excited to see where this goes. Bravo to the devs/authors bravery in building this. After 50 years of collecting stories, I have an entirely new format to pursue. What a great time to be alive.

I know this is cheap and all, and that's great...but essentially what we have here is a book... in VR form... with pretty pictures in the form of 3D backgrounds.

If that sounds like a really cool thing to you, then get this... The story is interesting enough but I was itching to play something, not sit down and read... I was kinda expecting to see some kind of 3D play take place in front of me while I read, but nope, just narration and a background...and hey, if you find the backgrounds distracting you can sit in a pitch black void and read a book (or tablet).

Anyway, I'm not going to give this a thumbs down... it would get a "meh" thumb if I could give one. Maybe one of these days I'll sit down and read the whole thing and it'll be a kickass story and I'll think to myself "Damn that was sweet, I hope all books are converted to VR form!"... But not today.

I really wanted to like this experience. I like books, I like post-apocalyptic worlds, I like VR. Obviously, if you combine all of them, I'll like the result, right?

Unfortunately, not in this case, no.

The VR scenes only have a fixed viewpoint, which completely shatters the illusion. One of the fantastic things about this generation of VR hardware is the ability to do positional tracking, so every little movement of your head (not just rotations) are translated into the virtual world. That is, I think, essential to a virtual experience. I don't expect full room-scale support, but the ability to move around even a little would be nice. (edit: According to the dev on the discussions, this will be added at some point in the future, so by the time you read this it might have been added)

Anyway, I could have put up with that, and I did, for the first few scenes.

But then the other bugs started.

First off, the menu navigation is awful, and even once you figure out how to use it, it's still rather janky and unpredictable. It's the same with turning the page, which can be frustrating when the narrator restarts from the start of the page each time.

I also could've put up with that, and I did, for the first few scenes.

Then, at some point, during a scene transition, the background image got very dark. No amount of page flipping and scene swapping could fix it -- every scene I went to was very dark. Okay, whatever, I'll restart the app.

After restarting the app, the narration no longer worked and I couldn't see a way to get it started again. Okay, whatever, I read way faster than the narrator anyway, I'll just keep going.

And then the background went dark again. That was it, I just exited in frustration.

In short, fantastic idea, but terrible and buggy execution.

Probably won't be requesting a refund, though, since it's only $2 -- maybe it'll work better for my wife, and hopefully the dev will fix some of the issues.

Unfortunately, however, I can't recommend this at this time.

If you like audio books get this. If you have VR and would like a VR audio book then get this. For two bucks just get this. It is worth it for the 3D scenes in 360. I sat down while it read to lessen the virtigo feeling and just move your head slowly around and focus on one part of the scene for long periods rather than looking around constantly. That is Uncle Game Cooker's advice. I have a short video up on my channel if you want to listen and see it but it is not the same as being there. I amnot into audio books but I say it is worth the buy to add to your VR collections.

i literally fell asleep for 3 hours on the floor with the vive still on my face

So this is a new medium a Visual talking book, Or VR Book?, and it works really well, the VR scenes change as the narator reads to you, You can either let him read the book or read it your self if you wish, The scenes obviously add to the story and I find myself lost in the story very quickly, each scene gives a good basis for your imagination to complete and the scenes have visual effects like smoke etc to add to the realism.
Basically the story is set in earths future when our civilisation died off for some reason, Jack is on some kind of quest with his trusty sword, The land is ruled by a King and Jack must make it to the border!, Remnents of earths past lie all around with giant metal and concrete structures littering the land.
I hope we see more of this medium on the Vive and it's a sure thumbs up for this title, At the price you will be well pleased with it.

Wasn't sure what it was, exactly, when I got it.
It's a book, a 467(If I remember correctly) page book.
The enviroment changes around you as the story moves forward.
It is a unique way of reading a book as you can listen to the narrator or read it and turn the pages yourself.
I can see other books doing this. Say, a Harry Potter book reading. As they read, you go from under the cupboard to the hotel, the shack, on the train, in Diagon Alley, so forth.
If you want to read a new book in a new way, this is one way to do it. I liked it but others may not.

This is pretty much an audio book, not a game. A story is read out loud by a male voice and you can read along with the book that is attached to one of Vive's motion controllers. There is no interaction with the player besides the reader reading the story. As the story progresses the visuals are changed to match the story. The visuals are beautifully done but static and room scale is not supported. There are small visual issues here and there but nothing important.

I'd recommend this audio book if you're into this sort of thing, definitely at this price. The reader is pleasant enough to listen to. I haven't finished the story yet (just started chapter 3) but so far the story is not bad although somewhat predictable.
This isn't a good VR demo showcase -- don't buy this to show your friends what VR can do.

This is the first Steam review and I am writing it primarily to countact the negative review that this game was given by another reviewer (the only other review of "Andromedum" at the time of this post 4/26/16.)

I'm not saying that their review is wrong or they are foolish but I feel they are judging "Andromedum" too harshly and it hurts me to see this with a thumbs down overall in the list of titles available for HTC Vive.

"Andromedum" is essentially an audiobook with stereoscopic 3D environments that feature in the story that fade in and out as the narrator reads the book to you. It concerns a young man named Jack who is alive (on Earth?) in the distant future, after some sort of apocolyptic event. There is an interesting contrast of the dark age that Jack lives in and the crumbling infastructure of present day life that is completely alien to him. (He doesn't know what power lines are but carries a sword for protection, and the narrator describes the powerlines as monuments built by ancient rulers, for example.)

The narrator does a good job overall, his voice is pleasant and easy to understand.

I have not spent lots of time in this experience but I will finish it as I work my way through the list of available HTC Vive content. Thank you to the devs for creating this and I look forward to seeing this new medium evolve.

For $2, about the price of a bottle of soda, I highly recommend you check out "Andromedum."

This is a real shame to thumbs down as in my opinion it has missed an great opportunity, I love the concept of being read to and being in the environment taking place in the story, this is a great idea...but

For me the scenes are just not interesting enough high quality enough or in sufficient number to make it more worthwhile than just sticking on an audiobook.

One final touch that would make this really polished would be some audio other than the narrator, maybe even some sort of music to accompany.