A new version of Board Games VR has just been released to the Steam store.

This release comes with brand new features including multiplayer (online and offline) along with lots of improvements and bug fixes.

In addition, players can now play the game with or without a Virtual Reality headset. That's right! No more VR headset is required to play the game.

Visit artArmin Patreon page for more updates and behind the scenes.

Please use the menu button on your controller to show/hide the Main Menu.

What's new

• New: Non-VR play mode. Players without a VR headset, can now play the game in Non-VR mode, using mouse (left and right clicks) and/or touch screen input
  
• New: Online multiplayer is publicly available (no private rooms yet)
  
• New: Offline multiplayer at the same computer
  
• New: Teleport locations at both player sides of the table for players to easily play the games (in VR)
  
• New: Auto-detect VR device and launch the game in Non-VR mode, when there is no VR device attached
  
• New: Non-VR player HUD
  
• Update: Core: teleport system and mechanics
  
• Update: Core: reduced light/shadow processing requirements (improved performance)
  
• Update: Core: reduced graphics computation by dynamically updating the surrounding object mesh level of detail
  
• Update: Core: reduced processing cycles per frame for components out of player view (VR mode)
  
• Update: Core: improved shader warmaup time on game startup
  
• Update: Core: improved game performance by a large margin to be playable on machines without dedicated graphics card
  
• Update: Environment: reduced overall memory usage
  
• Update: SFX: Backgammon dice
  
• Update: VFX: the water in the lake and the waterfall
  
• Update: VFX: teleport system
  
• Update: VFX: improved texture quality, size and memory usage
  
• Update: VFX: loading screen now shows loading progress (useful on slow systems)
  
• Update: VFX: improved skybox (Sun, the moon, clouds, stars, etc.)
  
• Update: VFX: object animations
  
• Update: VFX: atmospheric animations
  
• Update: VFX: atmospheric light effects
  
• Update: VFX: the Main Menu sliders
  
• Update: VFX: library boxes now hover on top of the table for a faster/easier restart of a finished game
  
• Fixed: Board game: sometimes game info is displayed without a game on the table
  
• Fixed: Board game: issue where the board game would crash/hang when the player starts a new game while already playing an ongoing game
  
• Fixed: Board game: sometimes the advanced checkers AI starts loosing deliberately!
  
• Fixed: Board game: players are forced to wait almost one second before they can pick up their checker pieces and this is not good for professional players playing the game very fast
  
• Fixed: Board game: sometimes the Checkers AI gets stuck mid-game and cannot play anymore
  
• Fixed: Board game: sometimes the Backgammon game picks a winner before the game is fully finished
  
• Fixed: Board game: sometimes when the Checkers game finished, it gets stuck and does not declair a winner
  
• Fixed: Board game: sometimes the Checkers game AI plays twice when it should only play once
  
• Fixed: Board game: in Backgammon sometimes checker pieces get dropped into the wrong fields (varies every time, not always the same fields)
  
• Fixed: Core: GC runs too many times and slows down the game over time
  
• Fixed: Core: user could activate game debug mode in release builds
  
• Fixed: Core: teleport system and mechanics
  
• Fixed: Core: non-vr player could interact with environment while in the Main Menu, instead of the Main Menu
  
• Fixed: Core: when player is grabbing/dragging objects sometimes they do not follow and stay put instead
  
• Fixed: Core: sometimes camera does not blink when teleporting the player to a location
  
• Fixed: Environment: the Void could get loaded in multiplayer mode
  
• Fixed: Environment: sometimes atmosphere lighting is incorrect when loading an environment
  
• Fixed: Environment: direct light intensity in the Void
  
• Fixed: Environment: ambient lighting system
  
• Fixed: Multiplayer: sometimes the player avatar head jumps in-place
  
• Fixed: Multiplayer: sometimes player hands movements are delayed several seconds
  
• Fixed: Multiplayer: checker piece positions get out-of-sync after a player gets disconnected and comes back to the room
  
• Fixed: Multiplayer: interactable objects are not dragged by the players when teleporting
  
• Fixed: Multiplayer: sometimes incorrect information text is displayed on the wall (where the shelves are)
  
• Fixed: SFX: table collisions
  
• Fixed: VFX: the King checker piece indication glow is not always visible to the user
  
• Fixed: VFX: sometimes the guide poster does not update its content to show the current on-going game information
  
• Fixed: VFX: sometimes the table stays visible, even at table height zero
  
• Fixed: VFX: there is a small gap between board games on top of the table and the table top itself
  
• Fixed: VFX: Anti-Aliasing issue in VR
  
• Fixed: VFX: sometimes HDR mode is not enabled when game is running and color blends look yucky in VR!
  
• Fixed: VFX: sometimes when loading an environment, objects do not show correct reflections of their surrounding
  
• Fixed: VFX: sometimes objects under shadows, show up as if they are under a direct light path
  
• Fixed: VFX: sometimes the Main Menu does not pop up in front of the VR player.
  

Known issues

• Core: Steamworks is not working! Due to issues between the current Steamworks API framework and IL2CPP, non of the Steamworks functionalities work properly. This includes player information (name, avatar, etc.), cloud storage, achievement system, scores. This issue will be resolved alltogether in one of the future releases. Until then the game will continue working with reduced functionality.
  
• Core: The score system is disabled. This will be published once it is decoupled from Steamworks.
  
• Core: Settings are not synced on the Steam cloud.
  
• Core: The achievement system is not public yet. This will be public once Steamworks is fixed.
  
• Core: The hand models and interactions are disabled in this build (will enable them again once the new input system and custom interactions are fully implemented).
  
• Core: Unable to pick up checker pieces with the pinch gesture.
  
• Core: Sometimes music playback gets corrupted when starting the game and remains corrupted until the game is fully restarted.
  
• Multiplayer: Players cannot create private rooms. This feature is disabled in the current release due to bugs. It will be released once the bugs are fixed.
  
• Multiplayer: In online multiplayer, player names are not visible. This will be fixed once Steamworks issues are resolved.
  
• Multiplayer: In online multiplayer, the interactable room objects disappear when the room host leaves the room.
  
• SFX: When picking up and moving checker pieces the SFX is not audiable!
  
• SFX: When picking up and moving checker pieces the SFX is not audiable!
  
• VFX: Backgammon board triangles are not correctly positioned.
  
• VFX: Checkers/Chess board material reflection is too high.
  

Your feedback is most welcome in the Discussions page.

Thank you for playing the game and your continuous support.

Armin

Patreon: https://patreon.com/artarmin