It’s not just about pulling harmless jokes. It’s also about putting on your ‘skeptic hat’ and really asking whether you can believe your eyes, as trusted companies and key figures in XR dropped a few doozies yesterday that are so great
they’re terrible.‘Virtual Boy Pro’ MR Headset
Nintendo actually teamed up with
IGN to poke some serious fun at the biggest XR companies out there–but also apparently anyone who wanted the Japanese gaming giant to poke their heads back into the medium since it last released its Nintendo Labo VR kit in 2019, which brought not only a few fun VR mini-games to Switch, but also .VR support for a number of Switch titleshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vCOJmBcyEU
Virtual Boy Pro turns the world around you into a new level from Nintendo’s most beloved video game properties. Super Mario: Home Run features everyone’s favourite plumber in a new adventure, where he will be jumping, running and pounding Goombas on your planet. Virtual Boy Pro transforms any environment into an interactive level, allowing Mario and friends to interact seamlessly with your physical surroundings.
Nintendo and
IGN promised Virtual Boy Pro players could also play augmented reality versions of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, as well as fictional games Link’s Korok Catcher, Animal Crossing: Moving Day, and Luigi’s Mansion 4. Not only that, but Virtual Boy Pro was said to transform supported vacuum cleaner models by Dyson, Oreck, Shark or Bissell into
Luigi’s Poltergust 3000, “creating a seamless integration between virtual ghost hunting and real-world housekeeping.”If it wasn’t obvious by now, Virtual Boy Pro also promised to actually
let you drivewhile playing fictional game Mario Kart: Open Road, which would “transform your daily commute to work into a 200cc Grand Prix race down Rainbow Road.”‘Walkabout Mini Golf’ Legs Update
Walkabout Mini Golf
is one of the bigger VR success stories, as the game has found solid footing among fans, letting developers Mighty Coconut attract some high-profile partnerships over the years to really flush out its paid DLC courses to include everything from the original MYST map to a new .Wallace & Gromit course coming soonBut what is really missing from the hit indie putt-putt golf game? We’re glad to say that we are responding to your requests. Read all about it on our latest blog post:
— Walkabout Mini Golf(tm) VR (@WalkaboutMG)
The studio doesn’t lay it on https://t.co/N4rLwrSDUn pic.twitter.com/NQpUXt5xnP
thick, as the linked blog post simply says “April Fools,” although you can’t help but wonder when the game that tasks you with walking about will include the game’s second most important limbs.Virtual Desktop Developer Hired by MetaGuy Godin, the developer of
Virtual Desktop,
has had a bit of a love-hate relationship with Meta over the years. The highly-rated app, as well as Quest have done well, but Godin has had to fight to remain relevant, as Meta has ostensibly copied a lot your functionality. This has been a struggle to keep up with In future app versions, I will only support Meta headsets. Guy Godin, @VRDesktop Godin is not shy either. He promised in a subsequent post that he’d “take at least six months to add 120hz compatibility.” Also, I will randomly break or remove features that people are using. Can’t wait!”Pillow’s
New Toilet Mode
Pillow
is a mixed reality app from serial inventor and XR designer Lucas Rizzotto. The app is meant to be used laying down so you can do a host of relaxing things like transform your ceiling into an interactive night sky and unwind to rhythm-based breath-tracked meditations.April 1, 2024
Rizzotto announced a new ‘toilet mod’ was coming to
Pillow, which admittedly is the second most comfortable place in your home.
https://twitter.com/_LucasRizzotto/status/1774905760008532195Not only does the fake update let you use
Pillow in the toilet, but Rizzotto also teased the studio was announcing a new shower mode too, which would actually be pretty cool if the darn lenses didn’t fog up so much.Doki Doki Leahs
Indie adventure RPG
Dave the Diver (2023) isn’t a VR game, but developer MINTROCKET announced it was coming out with its own fake DLC which would include a VR love simulator based on Dave’s favorite anime idol, Leahs.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abMCr6lJvqY
The fake
says it even includes voiced lines in Korean, Japanese, English, Chinese, German, French, Vietnamese and Lithuanian.What was your favorite April Fool’s joke this year in XR? The fake
even includes voiced lines in Korean, Japanese, English and Chinese.