STRAYLIGHT

Despite ugly looking UI (and Steam store page for that matter), Straylight is a great grappling hook VR game, up there with Windlands series and Jet Island, and even better than Yupitergrad. Although technically you are not using a grappling hook: Straylight has different more arcadey physics that allows extremely high movement speed and mobility. And levels are designed for that: they are huge and full of obstacles, yet still can be beaten in a minute or two by an experienced player moving at full speed. This is what sets the game above Yupitergrad for me: the difficulty of courses here still allows constant fast movement without a need to stop and wait for the opening in deadly traps. The campaign seems to have only 11 levels on Normal and Zen difficulty, but after you beat 11th level you will be thrown and the biggest and toughest 12th level and the whole Hard mode with another 11 levels will open. And unlike Zen difficulty, that uses the same layouts as Normal, Hard provides completely unique courses through the same levels. Also mastering Normal levels to get into the leader board is quite fun: there are a lot of shortcuts and not obvious movement paths through every course.…

Absolutely fantastic little VR motion game. Which, going by leaderboard progress and the number of reviews, isn't seeing a lot of traction on Steam at this writing. Compared to other VR movement games (Sairento, To The Top, and exercise-focused titles like PowerBeats or Beat Saber), Straylight feels comfortable to play and fun to move around in. The UI is well-presented in VR, all of the levels are fun to play, and the moderate level of exercise feels good between more intense experiences. Special shoutout to the narrator who clearly had way too much fun with the lines of this game, invoking a sadistic glee reminiscent of Portal's GLaDOS. I found the early levels a little on the easy end, but felt very satisfied by the postgame challenge levels. Half the game is contained in those levels, so be aware that you have plenty to go once you've seen the credits. Overall, even at the full price of $20, this game is worth it if you enjoy nyooming around in VR.

Straylight is simple in execution, and you can learn all the basics from the short and useful tutorial before being thrown mercilessly into the main game.  Here you’ll find nearly a dozen levels that will require all your skill and patience to navigate, grappling nodes with your Straylight gadgets, two colorful pods that replace your virtual hands.  Once you attach to a node you can use your arm movement to propel you forward, up, sideways, or you can furiously move your arm to execute a powerful slingshot toward the targeted nod.  I know exactly what the designers were trying to do with Straylight, and at times I almost felt the groove they were trying to create for me, but I was constantly fighting the controls; controls you cannot remap.  Pulling back on the analog sticks is a poor choice for braking, as it would also alter my course slightly, sometimes enough that I would fail.  The ability to look somewhere quickly does not exist short of spinning my entire body around and getting wrapped up in my own cord.  The right stick moves your view in 45-degree snaps, but when you are flying past your node at blinding speeds and trying to brake and tap the right stick four times to se…

A fun game of VR movement, has a good flow state that rewards speed with alternative paths

Visuals are great. Locomotion is cool. Pretty fun, worth the try! Leader boards.

This game is magical