This is the second game I've completed in virtual reality, after The Gallery episode 1, that feels even close to being like a 'real game' with an actual campaign storyline. Both have been a revelation, yet containing so many flaws (Greenwater especially) that I struggle to give either of them a strong recommendation. Nevertheless, here I am recommending this game, and not just to reward the developers for taking a big risk in a new artistic medium.

This game's strongest and weakest points demonstrate what can be most challenging and most rewarding in virtual reality game design. First, room-scale VR can do horror like nothing else. Most horror movies and videogames bore me or even put me to sleep. But Greenwater puts you in small, claustrophobic rooms roughly the same size as your physical play space. Unlike in The Gallery, there are no blurry far away objects or textures and no need for potentially immersion-breaking locomotion systems. Everything is right in front of you and within physical walking distance.

This also means that whatever is going to scare you, and you just know something is coming, it's going to be very close, and running is impossible both in the real and the virtual world. There were some parts of the game where I had to just stop and come back to it later because the suspense was driving me as mad and paranoid as the character you play. I found out after this happened a few times that this only makes the game more suspenseful; it's better to just keep pushing forward.

There are times when you need to move to a different room, and as long as the door is unlocked, you just press your trigger on the doorknob, and your virtual body fades out of one room and into the next. It's so simple, and works beautifully. Future VR game designers should take note of the techniques used here; mere level design could solve many of the locomotion questions that are still being asked about VR games.

Second, fear seems to make it easier to achieve presence, but wonky unrealistic physics destroys it, at least in games that aren't set in fantasy/scifi worlds. And this game's physics system is deeply awful. Even just picking things up, like the titular chair in a room, feels wrong and awkward the way it swings in your hand. When you pick up pills and put them in a mug, they sometimes fall through the mug. Drawers hardly ever shut perfectly, which is excruciating to me. It feels even wonkier than the buggy physics in Surgeon Simulator games.

This game is basically an elaborate escape-the-room, so having such broken physics occasionally feels like a deal-breaker when your progress depends on manipulation of objects. Perhaps this is good for some people, as it will add some comic relief to a game that would otherwise be so frighteningly suspenseful it would simply be unbearable. But I would rather not be shifting in and out of presence all the time.

The actual story and horror elements in the game are really rather shallow, depending almost entirely on the creepy setting, music (that always seems to be judging you), lighting, and occasional psychotic visions than on interesting characters. But it all works really, really well in this game, because you are playing a psychotic character. You feel it from the moment the game starts, that your mind is unstable and your perception of the world is unreliable, and that you are always being watched and scrutinized by the mental instutition you're trapped in. In spite of the disastrous physics system, this has been one of the most immersive gaming experiences of my life.

4/5

This is the second game I've completed in virtual reality, after [i]The Gallery[/i] episode 1, that feels even close to being like a 'real game' with an actual campaign storyline. Both have been a revelation, yet containing so many flaws ([i]Greenwater[/i] especially) that I struggle to give either of them a strong recommendation. Nevertheless, here I am recommending this game, and not just to reward the developers for taking a big risk in a new artistic medium. This game's strongest and weakest points demonstrate what can be most challenging and most rewarding in virtual reality game design. First, room-scale VR can do horror like nothing else. Most horror movies and videogames bore me or even put me to sleep. But [i]Greenwater[/i] puts you in small, claustrophobic rooms roughly the same size as your physical play space. Unlike in [i]The Gallery[/i], there are no blurry far away objects or textures and no need for potentially immersion-breaking locomotion systems. Everything is right in front of you and within physical walking distance. This also means that whatever is going to scare you, and you just [i]know[/i] something is coming, it's going to be very close, and running is impossible both in the real and the virtual world. There were some parts of the game where I had to just stop and come back to it later because the suspense was driving me as mad and paranoid as the character you play. I found out after this happened a few times that this only makes the game [i]more suspenseful[/i]; it's better to just keep pushing forward. There are times when you need to move to a different room, and as long as the door is unlocked, you just press your trigger on the doorknob, and your virtual body fades out of one room and into the next. It's so simple, and works beautifully. Future VR game designers should take note of the techniques used here; mere level design could solve many of the locomotion questions that are still being asked about VR games. Second, fear seems to make it easier to achieve presence, but wonky unrealistic physics destroys it, at least in games that aren't set in fantasy/scifi worlds. And this game's physics system is deeply awful. Even just picking things up, like the titular chair in a room, feels wrong and awkward the way it swings in your hand. When you pick up pills and put them in a mug, they sometimes fall through the mug. Drawers hardly ever shut perfectly, which is excruciating to me. It feels even wonkier than the buggy physics in Surgeon Simulator games. This game is basically an elaborate escape-the-room, so having such broken physics occasionally feels like a deal-breaker when your progress depends on manipulation of objects. Perhaps this is good for some people, as it will add some comic relief to a game that would otherwise be so frighteningly suspenseful it would simply be unbearable. But I would rather not be shifting in and out of presence all the time. The actual story and horror elements in the game are really rather shallow, depending almost entirely on the creepy setting, music (that always seems to be [i]judging[/i] you), lighting, and occasional psychotic visions than on interesting characters. But it all works really, really well in this game, because you are playing a psychotic character. You feel it from the moment the game starts, that your mind is unstable and your perception of the world is unreliable, and that you are always being watched and scrutinized by the mental instutition you're trapped in. In spite of the disastrous physics system, this has been one of the most immersive gaming experiences of my life. 4/5