Welcome to our weekly feature where we ask some of the industry’s leading developers and personalities 20 questions.

This week we feature Blair the developer of the eagerly awaited Technolust.

1. State Your Name:

Blair “Anticleric” Renaud

2. What is your current Job / Role ?

Lead Designer / Developer: IRIS VR

3. What are you most famous for ?

Technolust and Grand Theft Auto: London 1969

4. What is currently on the desk in front of you ?

A Speak and Spell, The Twilight Zone Companion (book), 2 Rifts, an Arizona Green Tea, a Baby Monitor, and large action figures of Bruce Lee, ED-209 and Robocop. Hmm… this list could get long if I get into hardware.

5. What was your first VR experience ?

In 1994 or 95 at the National Exhibition I played Zone Hunter on a Virtuality 2000 series. It was awful, but I did really well. The guys running the demo said they hadn’t seen that far into the game.

6. Did you feel any sim sickness or do you ever feel any sim sickness ?

Oh yes. For about the first week with the DK1 I got it really bad. I think it went away when I realized that leaning laterally set me off (leaning back into my chair mostly). DK2 has already solved that problem. I still get it when rotating with the analog stick on a controller though.

7. What’s the longest amount of time you have spent in VR in one play session ?

Without a break, I played Skyrim with Vireio Perception for a long time. Maybe about 3 hours. Second place is Radial-G with about 45 minutes.

8. What’s the strangest experience you have had with VR ?

I put my Photoscanned head into Technolust and set an animation incorrectly. When I went into the game to check it out, the head was spinning wildly. It was like a terrifying out-of-body experience with a hint of the uncanny valley. *shudders*



9. What’s the funniest experience you have had with VR ?

Watching my girlfriend and her friend drink wine and describe what they were seeing to each other in a nude photoscan demo.

10. What game or hardware device are you currently working on ?

Mainly Technolust, but also:

QuantumCapture.com,

an untitled Carl Sagan experience,

“The Valley” (working title for a horror experience)

and two more top secret projects.



11. Do you have a release date in mind for your project ?

Roughly 4th 2014 quarter for Technolust, early 1st quarter 2015 at the latest.

12. What is the biggest surprise you have had since you started to work in VR ?

Honestly, the lack of fully fleshed-out virtual realities. I suppose it’s too early to expect them, but I’ve seen too many 1 room demos, couch simulators and tech demos. I was expecting more people to jump in feet first and blow my mind. I’m sure it will come, but I’m impatient 😛

13. If you could only choose one game from your childhood to be remade for VR what would it be ?

WipEout by Psygnosis. Amazing design, great sound track and lightning fast gameplay.

14. Besides games what do you think will be the most useful application for VR ?

A fully realized metaverse where people can meet, create and share knowledge. I think a lot of the world’s problems stem from ignorance and tribalism. In virtual space, we don’t need skin color, nationality or fancy clothes to draw lines between us. We can come together as minds, learn from each other and build new worlds. Sounds like utopia to me.

15. What advice would you give to people on how to get into VR development ?

Think about VR as a holodeck rather than a display, learn to bring your ideas to life with software and have fun.

16. What is your favorite VR related movie ?

Total Recall (1990)

17. If you had a crystal ball and could see 10 years into the future what developments in VR do you think will have happened?

All of the things that Oculus is promising plus Haptic Rigs, and surrogates.

18. Outside of VR what do you do to relax ?

Lately, my daughter Quinn and I have been playing with chalk. When I have time alone I practice martial arts (Wing Chun, Jeet Kune Do and various weapons), play the Theremin scratch records and play video games.

19. What’s your current favorite VR experience that you have not developed your self ?

Radial-G and Titans of space.

20. Sum up how you feel about Virtual Reality in 6 words or less ?

The singularity is near.

Technolust Trailer

You can pre-order Technolust by clicking here

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