There is an impressive amount of VR content available already, considering there are only something like 25,000 Oculus Rift developer kits out there so far, and no new consumer-grade VR devices have been released yet. There are also a number of software solutions to force a “virtual reality mode” with mixed results. With enough tweaking, you can play Skyrim in VR, for example, but it’s not a very immersive experience. For this list, I’m only going to be considering made-for-VR apps that stand out from the crowd. I’m also not going to bother numbering them - they’re all worth checking out if you’ve got the gear.

Riftmax Theater

This one is… hard to explain. It’s a theater! That’s it, really, but the community around Riftmax is one of the most exciting things going on in VR right now, and that’s what makes it stand out. Being a theater, it has all kinds of theater capabilities… like raising the curtain to reveal a stage! And you can place a podium or microphones on that stage. Or even a talk show set. You can dim the lights, or put a movie up (2D or 3D). You can invite your friends to join you in a private theater, or you can look for a public one. You can leave the theater and walk around the hallway and lobby. The potential for this type of VR meeting space is huge, and is already being realized by the community, who host regular talk show nights, karaoke nights, and more. The audience takes their seats (in their avatar form), a speaker takes the stage and gets on the mic, and they can even lower a smaller projection screen and throw video up on it while he speaks (or sings karaoke). As a bonus, Riftmax supports the Razer Hydra, so you are free to emote with your hands, which takes the immersion and social interaction to another level. If you’ve got the gear, check out the Riftmax website for their schedule of live events. If you’ve read Ready Player One, it’s hard not to see Riftmax as an early VR chatroom. This will absolutely be one of the first of many. Even as a solo experience, though, checking out the assortment of theater spaces (including a small home theater) is enjoyable, and even with the low resolution of the DK1, it’s still fun to load up a movie and check it out from the back row.

The Stacks

Made by a huge VR enthusiast over the last year, The Stacks is an homage to VR and some of the coolest VR worlds from fiction. It draws more inspiration from Ready Player One than others, but there are sets from The Matrix and old Asimov mixed in. In the spirit of RPO, the game is a big sandbox that you can explore to locate hidden cubes and even the keys to 3 gates.

While some of the environments seem amateur (10’ tall lamps, textures that break immersion inside the Rift DK1) it’s still a very early release, and right now most VR devs are trying to gather community interest for their projects while developing for the DK2 and future VR devices, rather than for the DK1. The coolest thing about The Stacks is the passion for VR that’s evident in the presentation and how you navigate the metaverse of the game. Check out the latest build if that sounds up your alley - and if you get stuck in the crate maze at the beginning, just remember the content that inspired the book that inspired the game. (spoiler: the maze is the Adventure maze from the Atari 2600 game)

Crashland

Don’t bother if you don’t have a Razer Hydra controller (and you probably don’t, given how rare/expensive they’ve gotten) - this experience is designed to be had with both a VR display and motion controllers. Thankfully, the Sixense STEM system should also be compatible once that hardware launches later this year.

You have crash landed on an alien planet that is (gasp) full of giant, alien spiders that want to kill you. You have two guns, one in each hand, and one of them has a radar screen you can activate.

It is an incredible feeling to look down and see your virtual reality arms, moving and twisting and bending in time with your actual meatbag arms. Twisting a gun around and looking down its barrel made me shudder the first time I tried it - it’s so cool it feels wrong. You can activate the radar on your secondary gun, which prevents it from firing but is crucial for detecting where the next wave of spiders is going to attack from. You can view the radar while the gun is at arm’s length, but pulling the gun closer to your head brings the radar map into clear view, a great example of how natural motion control can add so much to the immersion factor.

It’s also worth noting that aiming by holding your arm out at full length, looking down the barren of your gun and pulling a physical trigger is incredibly fun. Crashland is one of the few VR experiences out there for the DK1 that has polish and replayability, and I can’t wait to play an updated version for the DK2. (protip: check out your shadow - you have a cape!)

Lunar Flight

Here’s a rare, full-fledged game with complete support for the Oculus Rift DK1 built-in, playable from Steam with no hacks necessary. Additionally, it’s a nearly perfect fit for VR - you’re in the cockpit of a lunar lander (cockpit views drastically reduce VR sickness), and when you look down, you actually see yourself in a space suit, holding a bulky Xbox 360 controller. It’s campy, but also thoughtful. Seeing a VR representation of your seated position, complete with the controller in your laptop, is an incredibly honest solution to a big problem facing VR devs right now: interacting with virtual object is weird unless you’re going through the motions.

The user interface is also completely different in VR mode - you now simply look to the left or right side of your cockpit to view different monitors or readouts, and focusing your view (pseudo eye-tracking) on a handful of available buttons will activate them, changing the readout on a particular screen, for example. As a full package, Lunar Flight nails the VR experience on the head. It’s thoughtfully designed and perfectly functional, even with the low resolution of the DK1. It’s a challenging simulation while still remaining accessible. It has achievements, multiplayer and a host of other modern features. If only I was better at it.

Dreadhalls

Everyone should try a horror game in virtual reality. It’s hard to expand on that, really - you just need to try it. And the good thing is, there’s already something for everyone. Feint of heart and don’t think you could handle a fully interactive experience? That’s okay, there are “on rails” haunted houses and rollercoasters for you to enjoy. Prefer to walk around a haunted house at your own pace? VR has that, too. Maybe you’d like to walk around a haunted forest, using a wiimote or other motion controller as a flashlight? Good luck, because that one nearly had me in tears before I tore off the headset. Dreadhalls, though, is a simple game, appropriately made during the 2013 VRJam. You are dropped inside of a dungeon, with nothing but a map and a lantern to cast light a few feet in front of you. You have to look down to view the map in your hands, which you might not think is scary until the first time you look back up into the eyes of a gargoyle (DON’T BLINK). If you take your time and are cautious, you can avoid the monsters crawling the darkness and find the exit. (note: the creator is working on a full version release, but you can still download the original VRJam game)

Notable omissions:

Spacewalk - I’ve spent a few hours in this game, blissfully floating around the ISS, pretending I’m an astronaut. For space nerds, this is the ultimate escapism. Bonus: the game will occasionally drop in another player from the internet to be your silent spacewalk companion, which always leads to the [unofficial] game mode: ASTRONAUT JOUST. Ram each other as hard as you can. If you bounce off into space, you lose (just like real life).

JanusVR - Appropriately named after the goddess of portals, Janus is an early imagining of what the future metaverse might look like. It’s essentially an internet browser, re-imagined for VR, with navigation (browsing) controlled by actually moving your avatar through the internet, from one place to another. It’s nerdy, it’s ugly, and there’s not much content, but it’s worth checking out just to say you were there. It’s hard to say “this is teh future” with a straight face, but it’s harder to laugh it off completely when you’re zipping around the metaverse version of a Reddit sub.

Proton Pulse - Classic Breakout gameplay, but controlled with your face. It’s fun! And not as nauseating as you might think.