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Chiaro and the Elixir of Life - reviews and impressions

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

This game looks interesting, it's also available on Steam (Rift + Vive + MR):



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Reviews are positive on Steam, and it's nearly a perfect 5/5 (average) in the Oculus Store, but it's based on only 8 ratings - and the price is $30. 

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/rift/1728179110583222/

Furthermore RoadToVR did their very best (again) to kill the game in their review - verdict 5/10:

https://www.roadtovr.com/chiaro-elixir-life-review-thin-slice-ghibli-side-order-corn/

SUMMARY

'Chiaro and the Elixir of Life' tries to recreate some of the whimsical feeling of a Studio Ghibli film, but fails to deliver the gravitas that made the latter so balanced and effectual. Hobbled by inconsistent object interaction and at times a corny script, its varied and inventive puzzles offer glimmers of a greatness that just don't shine through brightly enough. 
Gameplay: 5 | Immersion: 4 | Comfort: 7

Well, maybe 5/10 from RoadToVR is a sign of great quality, hmmmm - other 5/10 games by RoadToVR include: Marvel Powers United and Detached  😉  

Has anyone tried Chiaro and the Elixir of Life ? 

PS. Right now there's no free locomotion, but teleportation - according to the devs, free locomation will be ready in a few days:

"Smooth locomotion is on our roadmap but we were unable to finish an acceptable solution for launch. We expect to have this feature ready in ~1 week. :D"
Source: https://steamcommunity.com/app/551440/discussions/0/1742220359683446277/

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

16 REPLIES 16

cybereality
Grand Champion
Nice art direction.
AMD Ryzen 7 1800X | MSI X370 Titanium | G.Skill 16GB DDR4 3200 | EVGA SuperNOVA 1000 | Corsair Hydro H110i Gigabyte RX Vega 64 x2 | Samsung 960 Evo M.2 500GB | Seagate FireCuda SSHD 2TB | Phanteks ENTHOO EVOLV

MowTin
Expert Trustee
Wow, this looks cool. I'll wait for the smooth locomotion patch.
i7 9700k 3090 rtx   CV1, Rift-S, Index, G2

RuneSR2
Grand Champion

MowTin said:

Wow, this looks cool. I'll wait for the smooth locomotion patch.



Awesome - then I'll wait for you to try the game first and your elaborate review 😉

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"

martov
Honored Guest
This is my team's game, if you'd like to discuss it / check when smooth locomotion is up (we've got someone on it full time) we're on discord at https://discord.gg/CycNsGN . We've fixed the bugs mentioned in that article. Regarding the general tone, most people who play the game seem to really love it. None of the reviews are plants (almost half are in foreign languages). 

Thanks for your interest in Chiaro and The Elixir of Life, and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask, either here or on our discord.

Martin

CrashFu
Consultant
I'm really looking forward to experiencing this one myself; You make a game this quirky and imaginative, you can expect me to be there. :grin:

(Might take me a little while to get to it, though. I've got quite a backlog at the moment. :sweat:  )
It's hard being the voice of reason when you're surrounded by unreasonable people.

Morgrum
Expert Trustee
Amen Crash such a backlog myself.
WAAAGH!

nrosko
Superstar

martov said:

This is my team's game, if you'd like to discuss it / check when smooth locomotion is up (we've got someone on it full time) we're on discord at https://discord.gg/CycNsGN . We've fixed the bugs mentioned in that article. Regarding the general tone, most people who play the game seem to really love it. None of the reviews are plants (almost half are in foreign languages). 

Thanks for your interest in Chiaro and The Elixir of Life, and if you have any more questions, feel free to ask, either here or on our discord.

Martin


I'm waiting for smooth loco to be added before i pick this up. 

Anonymous
Not applicable
The graphics are wonderful! But maybe they shouldn't have tried to compare themselves to Ghibli ^^'.
Do we know how long it takes to complete the game? At this point I expect at least 7 hours for a 30$ game...

RuneSR2
Grand Champion
It seems this game just froze in time in the Oculus Store, 11 days after I wrote the first post in this thread there're still only 8 ratings. 

It seems that a full locomotion patch has been released - but only on Steam, where you need to install a beta-patch, more here:

Smooth Locomotion now available *IN BETA!*

22 SEPTEMBER - CHIARO_DEV
We're happy to announce we have pushed a big SMOOTH LOCOMOTION update to Chiaro that is accessible via a beta branch. We would love feedback on this feature from Vive, Oculus, and Windows MR players before we push it to the main game branch. steamhappy

To access Smooth Locomotion: in your Steam library you'll want to right click Chiaro and the Elixir of Life and go to Properties. Navigate to the BETAS tab and enter the code 'smoothlocomotion' to unlock the beta. Then in the drop down menu just above where you entered that code ('select the beta you would like to opt into'), select 'beta'

You will have access to smooth locomotion and several comfort options via Chiaro's journal, the control page!

Additionally, in this beta you will find that we have opened up some of the exterior environments and removed some of the aggressive invisible wall blocking to give you more freedom to relax and explore the world of Neverain whereever your curiosity leads you. We hope you enjoy this added sense of freedom!

Please post feedback here or visit us in Discord to chat with us about the feature, we are really eager to bring players worldwide the best possible version of smooth locomotion! Chiaro Discord[discord.gg]

Current known issues with smooth locomotion:

-Tunnel vision is only enabled for Oculus at the moment but will be available on all HMDs early next week.

-Smooth Locomotion cannot be enabled in the dark room where you grab the journal when you begin the game -- you have to wait until you load into a chapter (or if youre beginning the game, until you progress past the opening video)

-In Chapter 6, the plant trap sequence has not been properly treated to account for falling off ledges, so if you fall off, you will land at the bottom instead of dying, and might have some issues getting back up -- be careful here!

-Chapters 9, 10 and 11 have not been fixed for smooth locomotion, so falling off of the map in these chapters is still possible. Proceed at your own risk! 🙂

-There are many objects throughout the game that by default, characters can step up on. We tried searching for as many as we can, but the game is reasonably large, so we may have missed some. If you find any of these, please report and we will fix them immediately!

-You might have issues in some areas walking through doorways (Chapter 9 is a potential culprit). Would love to know where these areas are if you find them!

-Toggling crouch while in an elevator can lead to you falling through the elevator. Crouch in an elevator at your own risk 🙂

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/games/551440/announcements/detail/1689303628542405322

Oculus Rift CV1, Valve Index & PSVR2, Asus Strix OC RTX™ 3090, i9-10900K (5.3Ghz), 32GB 3200MHz, 16TB SSD
"Ask not what VR can do for you, but what you can do for VR"