Put on your virtual reality goggles and let your imagination run wild. Learn the secrets of ancient artists… by bringing colors and patterns back home.
From the product description
About Russian Crafts
Russian crafts are vibrant, colorful, and not something I would have ever thought of as potential fodder for a VR experience. There are museums dedicated to the genre, but this isn’t a museum app. There are books about the history of the different traditions, but this isn’t strictly an educational app either. Even though VR Voyaging doesn’t generally cover games, we do if there’s enough potential for gaining knowledge and trying out new experiences, especially if it’s possible to appreciate the environment without worrying about timers and scores as with this app.
About the Experience
The core goal of this title is to assemble pieces of a puzzle. You move around the workshop to pick up pieces that fit together. Along the way, you can play with different craft styles and apply the patterns and colors to different items. There’s an “AI” sidekick that shows up sometimes with advice, and a futuristic device for trying things out. All in all, Game of Crafts is a fun piece of edutainment that takes a unique idea and really runs with it, although it does have a fatal flaw. Read on for more!
Graphics and Sound
The graphics are really good. It appears to be a mix of photogrammetry and artist renderings. It all takes place in fairly normal environments with detailed furnishings and great attention to detail. The lighting is nicely done, and the overall look of the workshop looks like something from a TV show or movie, not a free VR app.
Information Content
As you progress through the app, you’ll find pieces of the puzzle that you’re assembling, but you’ll also have opportunities to learn more about the traditional styles and color palettes. You’ll learn words like Zhostovo, Gzhel, Khokhloma, Palekh, and Tagil, and can use an in-app encyclopedia to read about them.
The learning and “play” area is oddly futuristic. There’s also a quaint wooden workbench, but the main action happens here. I don’t love it, but it’s a style choice that they made so we’ll go with it.
Navigation and Interactivity
Moving around is standard real-world movement or teleportation. There aren’t any problems with getting around, and manipulating objects is also intuitive for VR. On the other hand, it’s a bit difficult to find the puzzle items at times. There are a number of similar items that you can find, then learn that they aren’t it (but only after going back to the workbench). Their computer screen (encyclopedia) is a bit crowded with things to learn about and I found it a bit overwhelming. There’s a watch that is on a pedestal and interactive, but that also just seemed confusing.
As you complete items, you can go back to the modern apartment and apply the patterns to furniture or even a porcelain motorcycle. It looks kind of cool, but I’d like to just to it in the apartment. Walk around and spray it, but instead you enter a separate space with the item sitting on a platform in the middle and you do the painting there.
Much of the interactivity just seems overly complicated. It definitely shows some nice artistic touches and the skills of the developers, but it really needed user testing to uncover these pain points.
I also just had some trouble figuring out the controls initially. At first it didn’t seem like much worked. I’m not sure if there was an app update, Steam update, or Meta update but then it started working. That definitely changed what I had written for a review! “Buyer” beware though, depending on your headset it may or may not work well with your controllers.
Updates and Support
This is not an app designed for ongoing content updates, and there have been no updates or fixes since the initial release.
Summary
I like the idea of this app, although it’s definitely not as straightforward as you might hope. It took me too long to figure out how to interact with things, finding the puzzle pieces was a little frustrating, and their in-app “computer” for providing information was too tried to do too much and ending up just being hard to use. I hope that they do provide an update to address some of these shortcomings, but I think this is probably it.
Pros
- Nice graphics
- Interesting theme
- Game features don’t get in the way if you just want to take it in
Cons
- Confusing user interface
- Frustrating scavenger hunt
- Needed more play testing
