spatialcomputing.info

Meta announced a new mixed reality platformer for Quest called Demeter that uses your furniture and walls so you can solve puzzles and challenges, tasking you to guide a pint-size hero get back to her world.

Developed by Novelab and published by Meta, Demeter is slated to launch on Quest 2/3/Pro next month, giving you not only an intimate background for the game’s narrative to unfold—it is after all a mixed reality game—but also bringing along with it procedurally generated environments that adapt to your room. Many VR games with MR modes more often than not only allow for passthrough views, which doesn’t necessarily use your physical environment to the fullest.

Novelab says this allows you to tackle “levels and challenges in real time that adapt to the environment you are in,” letting you guide the tiny protagonist Atalante to climb, jump, fly and run using your walls and furniture as you explore the game’s narrative.

“For the first time in history, humans will be able to interact and play with a miniature fantasy world that adapts and reacts to their actual physical environment,” the studio says on the game’s website. “Everyone’s experience will be different: because my home layout is not the same as my neighbor’s, I will not play the same game as them.”

You may recognize the name Novelab from their work on a host of award-winning XR narrative projects, including Notes On Blindness, SPHERES, and On the Morning You Wake. Since 2021 the studio has been developing original games and IPs for VR, AR and other new media.

Demeter is set to launch on the Quest Store on January 25th, 2024—priced at $20. There’s currently a 10% off pre-order deal, bringing the game to $18.