Novalab’s newest title, Demeter, will have you platforming from a whole new perspective as they blend virtual reality with your own living space for one incredibly fun mixed reality adventure. 

A Story Unfolding In Own Living Room

Imagine, for a second, sitting in your living room, enjoying doing whatever you do, and suddenly, you hear a distress signal. It’s a plea for help as a mysterious individual seemingly veers off course to their homeworld, landing in a land of the unknown. Her name is Atlanta, and she’s on a mission to save her world.

It is a story that many of us are most likely familiar with, but it’s not just her story, as the unknown world she landed in just so happens to be yours, literally. 

This is where the tale of Demeter truly begins, as it’s up to you, as in your physical self, to help Atlanta navigate through treacherous environments that have suddenly sprung up in your living room so that she may find her way back home. Her fate and her world rests on your shoulders.  

As a Quest exclusive, Demeter does feel like a title that fully utilizes the hardware in a unique and fun way. While available on the Quest 2, the Quest 3 comes with a long list of improvements, the biggest being mixed reality. That’s not to say you can’t enjoy Demeter on the Quest 2 in VR, but for a game entirely built with mixed reality in mind, it does shine with the hardware of the Meta Quest 3. 

It’s not some crazy Iron-Man-like experience, mind you, but given the story and how it revolves around how the character ended up in your room and saving her world, it’s fun seeing these interactions play out in your own living space. Atlanta herself will even make gestures and such right at you.  

Platformers aren’t the genre that most expect to play in a VR space, let alone mixed reality, but many titles, such as The Book of Moss, Astro Bots, and a few others, have proven that there’s a place for platformers in VR. With Demeter, it takes things up a notch by not so much bringing you into a virtual space but by bringing the virtual space to you. It’s a unique way of gaming in VR, and Demeter plays well with the idea. 

Being able to control a character while moving (as in myself) around and gaining new perspectives on a level is such a cool idea. As I climbed what would be considered tree vines, I moved around a corner to see what potential dangers awaited me or what secrets may be lying around. It’s such an added depth of gameplay that only VR could provide.

Now, couple that with playing in your own living space, with the environment and character reacting to your surroundings, including you. It’s insanely awesome, with some gameplay mechanics letting you scale the level the character plays on. 

That lets you get all kinds of creative with how you play, such as blowing up the level so you can almost wander around it yourselves (a feature called Inception Portal lets you view levels from Atlanta’s perspective, but not move around) or scaling it down tiny enough to fit a small table. 

That, to me, is mind-blowing, giving me a new way to play, almost like an over-the-top view like it’s some board game. All on my coffee table! 

It’s a relatively new idea, platformers, VR, and Mixed Reality, but one that Novelab manages to nail down. It works fantastic. I was impressed by how some of the levels would scale down to fit perfectly on some of the furniture I had. The scaling technology and matching to the environment are incredibly good, with little to no clipping into my furniture. That takes work to perfect. 

As a platformer, Demeter is also fun and charming. Mind you, it’s not some grand adventure with roughly 4-6 hours of story, but the price tag reflects that enough to know you should expect a smaller experience. Still, it does have a good feel to it and can be pretty challenging with some of the procedurally generated levels that are based on your environment.

You’ll get to control Atlanta yourself, moving around, jumping, climbing, and even some combat that is very in line with classic platformers. Then there’s you. I’ve already mentioned how you can move around and gain different perspectives of levels, but you’ll also have other tools to get you a little more involved with Atlanta’s journey.

These range from moving platforms to using powers to reveal new pathways. It’s not the most complex form of gameplay, but considering everything else that goes on during mixed reality, sometimes simplicity is the best way to keep things. That becomes more true later in the game when levels ramp up the challenge, putting you to the test in not just navigating Atlanta but also changing perspectives. 

You May Want to Make Room

The one thing you’ll want to know about Demeter is that the game works best when you have a large and clear space to walk around. Demeter does a good job mostly when it comes to scaling to your environment, but I’ve also run into many instances where the level spawned far away from my reach and over some furniture that I wasn’t going to climb on. This is even with boundaries set on Quest 3, as Demeter sometimes spawns levels further than I’d like.

Luckily, you can grab, move, and scale any of the levels to be closer, though there were some instances I found where the grab mechanics were as responsive as I’d like.  That should help those with smaller play spaces, but I’d still recommend you clear the area up, as it’ll make the experience all the better. This is a title that makes heavy use of mixed reality, so the more room you have, the better. 

A Mixed Reality Like No Other

Mixed reality was something that I always thought was a gimmick. It’s cool to look at, and great for educational and social applications. But for gaming? Not so much, at least until now, as Novalab proves that the technology works in a way that can enhance the gaming experience.  

Demeter is fantastic as a platformer, but its use of technology is truly where it shines, giving us a taste of what mixed reality can be about. It’s challenging when it wants to be, and in those moments, it gives players a new way to solve puzzles, allowing them to view a world from a whole new perspective. I highly recommend Demeter to anyone with a Quest 3, as while it’s short, its unique approach to mixed reality makes for a memorable experience.

Demeter is now available for purchase, exclusively for the Quest.

Score: 8/10

Pros:

• Perfect use of mixed reality. Proves that games, especially platformers, can benefit hugely from the technology. 
• Accessibility mode gives you control of the in-game environment. 
• Platforming can be fun and challenging but don’t expect it to be super deep. 
• Visually pleasing. 

Cons:

• Light on story
• Not a coach-friendly game.
• Distance scaling can be annoying, especially when a level spawns over things you’d need to climb. Accessibility mode fixes that, but still can be annoying.