Pocket Lands: A Mixed Reality Playground for Creators
▼ Summary
– Pocket Lands is a new VR world-building sandbox game, now available in Early Access on Meta Quest, designed to let users express their creativity.
– It offers three distinct viewing modes: a resizable mixed reality diorama, a covered diorama, and a fully immersive voxel world with a day-night cycle.
– A key feature is the ability to instantly switch between a god-like building perspective and a first-person view to walk or fly around your creations.
– The game provides accessible building tools with over 25 block types and a simple gesture-based interface, though its hand-tracking can be unreliable.
– While a promising foundation, the Early Access version currently lacks some desired content, with future updates planned for creatures, biomes, and multiplayer.
Pocket Lands offers a fresh and flexible mixed reality sandbox for creators, now available in Early Access on Meta Quest. This new platform provides a unique space for building digital worlds, tapping into the same creative drive that made games like Minecraft so popular. It gives imaginative users a novel way to bring their visions to life, from futuristic cities to medieval castles, all from the palm of their hand. The experience shows considerable promise, though its current early state has some rough edges.
The core appeal lies in its versatile approach to world-building. Unlike other VR creation tools, Pocket Lands distinguishes itself with three distinct viewing modes. You can work on a resizable island that sits in your mixed reality space, switch to a version that blocks out your surroundings, or dive into a fully immersive voxel world complete with a dynamic day-night cycle. Switching between these perspectives is quick, using either hand tracking or a controller, letting you easily grasp the scale of your growing project.
A particularly brilliant feature is the ability to instantly drop from a god-like editing view down to ground level to walk among your creations. This shift in perspective is awe-inspiring, especially when examining intricate structures. It’s further enhanced by the freedom to jump and fly around the map, which naturally encourages you to add new details, a tower here, a mast there, as you view your work from different angles.
The building tools are designed for accessibility. A brief, clear tutorial gets you started, and the core mechanic is intuitive: make a grabbing motion with both hands to pull a block into existence, shaping it to any size. A robust menu offers over 25 different full and half block types, including materials like concrete, sand, wood, and glowing lamps, providing a solid foundation for nearly any creation. The ambient soundtrack, featuring everything from medieval-inspired tunes to gentle piano, fosters a relaxed and focused creative atmosphere.
Currently, the hand-tracking implementation can be inconsistent, which is a notable drawback. While the system includes clever gestures, like tapping your thumb to scroll or making a fist to move, it doesn’t always register when you stop a gesture. This can lead to frustrating moments where you unintentionally teleport across the map or send your diorama sliding across the room. The developer recommends gentle, deliberate movements to minimize these issues. For navigation, you can also use an amusing arm-swinging method or traditional stick-based locomotion.
As an Early Access title, the potential is clear, but the content feels somewhat limited. Users will likely crave more block varieties, items, and interactive elements. The roadmap is encouraging, with plans for adding creatures, new biomes, and multiplayer functionality. For creators missing a dedicated VR building experience, Pocket Lands presents a compelling and sturdy foundation. Its success will depend on how well it builds upon this promising start.
(Source: Upload VR)
