Sandbox VR Lets You Fight Zombies, Alien Bugs, Pirates

July 7, 2021 at 11:01 AM PDT

Speaker 1: 00:00 Speaker 2: 00:23 Speaker 3: 00:26 Speaker 2: 00:31 Speaker 3: 00:35 Speaker 2: 00:45 Speaker 3: 00:53 Speaker 4: 01:18 Speaker 2: 01:36 Speaker 4: 01:39 Speaker 2: 01:50 Speaker 5: 01:52 Speaker 2: 01:59 Speaker 4: 02:03 Speaker 2: 02:19 Speaker 6: 02:30 Speaker 2: 02:37 Speaker 5: 02:41 Speaker 4: 02:44 Speaker 7: 03:16 Speaker 4: 03:21 Speaker 6: 03:32 Speaker 4: 03:39 Speaker 6: 03:53 Speaker 4: 03:59 Speaker 2: 04:08 Speaker 5: 04:12 Speaker 2: 04:20 Speaker 1: 04:29 Sandbox VR opened shortly before the pandemic hit and just recently reopened located in the mission valley shopping center. The virtual reality or VR gaming facility allows groups of up to six players to fight zombies, alien bugs, or each other in KPBS arts reporter, Beth duck. Amando went with some friends to check it out. Not all Businesses love to hear their clients screaming. So the screaming is basically our customers, you know, enjoying themselves to their fullest. Welcome to sandbox VR. So sandbox is a fully immersive virtual reality experience. We offer five different experiences and for sky Deadwood, Krista Davy Jones, star Trek, and also our fight one, which is UFL our group Opted for Deadwood mansion. We dubbed ourselves team Romero and geared up to battle the zombies with the help of sandbox manager, Jordan Ewing. This is room one. Each one of these rooms look exactly like this. Maybe in somewhat of a different configuration. We do have the backpacks over here in the backpacks is what powers the experiences. And then we have trackers. We have four trackers twos for your legs and two for your arms. And then we also have the haptic vests to have to invest. It's what's going to allow you to feel that end game damage. So if your friend is shooting you or of a villainous shooting you or a zombie, she's like hitting you and in your face, that's what you're going to feel. Go ahead and put on your Oculus and headphones. It was a VR game. Uh, what's a horror experience where we got to shoot some and, uh, rap, lots of rats. I screamed a lot. My throat even hurt Flamenco. Sario killed more rats than zombies. The exterminator of the group, cause rats freaked me out. Then they were coming towards me and I was just like, no Hosea Torrealba was also on team Ramiro. It's Crazy how you actually get into the horror futile. And you actually get like freaked out about things that are coming at you. Viviana Grondahl is an experienced gamer, but usually plays at home on a computer with a keyboard and Mouse first like fully immersive VR experience where I got to play with other players and see other players. And that part was so much better than just an alone experience with VR. Just being aware of your surroundings and your teammates and being able to heal each other. That was hilarious. Yeah, we died alive. But to touch on the shoulder can revive a player shoulder. This was Gavin Bowl's first experience with virtual reality gaming. It was intense. That was very immersive, very realistic, and uh, made my heart pound As a concept. Artist, Patrice Vega appreciated the games, design Environment. So we'll done that. You feel like you're in it. Totally Immersive. The sounds the field you get, um, equipped with a haptic responsive best. So when something's touching you or attacking you you're feeling it. So it is completely immersive. It's cool. Cause you get, you know, a 360 view. So it's like you're in that place. I liked the fact that the Sambisa came out from different places. You have to be like, you know, on your feet the whole time, like looking out and all the entrances and the stairs, The stairs, it's fun. They give you guns. So you get to shoot at stuff. I had two handguns and I figured I could have a little bit more blast radius. If I have two hands to shoot with one, just the one, It did start very slow, but once it gets going and they explain everything to you and you get everything all geared up, it's very fast paced. It starts off pretty like a pretty manageable level. And it's quickly picked up pace of you start getting more enemies, different mechanics. So you kind of have to figure out what's going on around you and be aware of everything around you. So it, it goes by pretty quickly escalates quickly. I think my favorite part would probably be watching the video afterwards. That video was so funny because you're equipped with all of your gear and you're seeing things that you think it looked pretty bad as it, then you watch yourself and you're just kind of flailing around Hosea Koriaga AKA bats was the team's MVP. Yes. I was pleasantly surprised about that because I did a few times, but uh, yeah, I guess that shotgun group Tandy, So kudos to team Romero for fighting off most of the zombies for KPBS muse. This is bub the untouchable. I mean Beth, like a Mondo sandbox. VR requires masks for non-vaccinated guest and sanitizes all gear between gaming sessions.

By KPBS Public Media

Sandbox VR opened shortly before the pandemic hit and has now fully reopened. Located in Mission Valley Shopping Center, the virtual reality gaming facility allows groups of up to six players fight zombies, alien bugs or each other.