Remember Couch Knights, the Oculus Rift DK2 showcase game by Epic Games?
It’s now available to download – for free – from either the Unreal Marketplace (active subscription required) or by clicking this link. To start the game, simply navigate to WindowsNoEditor\CouchKnights\Binaries\Win64 and click on the CouchKnights.exe. If you get an error message try installing Visual Studio 2013 then run the game again.
Surprisingly the game works well on the DK1, albeit without positional tracking. However, it was clearly designed with the DK2 hardware in mind. Without it you can’t lean in for a closer look at the avatars running and leaping around the room, nor can you examine the richly-detailed room rendered in real-time by Unreal Engine 4. For those without an Oculus Rift headset you’ll find a quick gameplay video above.
While on that subject, also released today was Unreal Engine version 4.3. It’s packed with more than 500 new features, including a moveable skylight, distance field ambient occlusion, translucency shadowing from stationary lights and new 2D game tools. However, all we’re really interested in is the Oculus Rift, so it’s great to see that a few new tweaks and additions have been made:
- Upgraded to new Oculus SDK (0.3.3-pre.1 SDK), with latest goodies!
- Oculus Rift DK2 supported out of the box, with full motion tracking
- New direct rendering path and time-warping, which significantly reduces latency on the device.
You’ll find all the details and more from the Unreal Engine website.