Panoptic, a local asymmetric multiplayer game played between one VR headset wearer and a one playing on a regular screen, sees one player sneaking around a shadowy world, avoiding being caught by a giant all-seeing mask with a laser eye.
Panoptic consists of a dark world filled with citizens being watched by a giant mask called the Overseer. This Overseer has reigned over the city, watching and making sure everyone obeys its wishes for far too long. One civilian is looking to stop the Overseer, to make sure they do not control this world anymore. The Overseer can use their laser eye to stop the citizen, but the citizen is able to blend in with all of the other people of this world. If they blend in well, the citizen can make it across the city to a gem and destroy it, stopping the Overseer’s reign.
Panoptic is a two player game, one player being the Overseer in the VR mask, looking around and shooting a laser from their face and the other player controlling a single civilian through a standard screen on a computer. The civilian must blend in with the world around them and make their way to the gem across the city. Being the citizen is slightly easier than being the Overseer, as you can blend in easily with a large number of citizens walking around the city. The Overseer has a laser eye and can randomly zap citizens, in an attempt to find your opponent. There is a real power in doing this, feeling like an omnipotent being who can instantly decide who lives and who dies in the world they watch over.
Panoptic does some really clever things with scale – you can scamper around in the shadows as the civilian and peer into buildings and look around corners at the tiny people below as the Overseer. It makes for a fun game of hide and seek that plays like a big cat attempting to hunt down a little mouse in a stylish shadowy low poly landscape. Size matters, but so does stealth and cunning!
Download Panoptic Alpha Demo Here (HTC Vive & Oculus Rift)