Spatial Spies, Home-Based Heists: ‘Laser Dance’ Enters Early Access on Meta Quest

We recently sat down with solo indie developer Thomas Van Bouwel. You might know him — he’s the man, the myth, the legend behind cult classic Meta Quest game Cubism. That hit title recently celebrated its five-year anniversary, but Van Bouwel is far from one to rest on his laurels. Instead, he’s been hard at work on a new game that lets you live out your spy thriller fantasies in your own space. And today, Laser Dance enters Early Access on the Meta Horizon Store.

A former architect by trade, Van Bouwel originally got into VR in the Oculus DK1 and DK2 days. “I got really interested in this technology and how it could be applied in architectural design and that field to make the design process a bit more human-centric and to be able to see buildings before they’re built,” he explains. “That’s what got me interested in learning how to develop for VR. And then one vehicle to learn how to do VR development and Unity development was making games.”

While attending hackathons and game jams, Van Bouwel also landed a position at Resolve, a company making design review tools for architects and engineers — the perfect marriage of his dual interests. Still, he continued going to game jams and making games on the side.

What started as a hobby project, Cubism soon took on a life of its own. And even as Van Bouwel incorporated new technologies like hand tracking and Passthrough — in black and white on Quest 2, no less — he continued prototyping in the background.

When he saw The World Beyond demo at Connect 2021, Van Bouwel says it was the first time he realized that mixed reality, which blends digital content with your view of your physical space, “could be more than just a backdrop for VR games. ... That got me really excited. It felt like this whole new possibility space for making games.”

Even before Meta released its Scene API, Van Bouwel engineered a software solution on his own and set about prototyping various concepts, one of which was the genesis of what would become Laser Dance. While there have been VR games with lasers before, Laser Dance makes the most of MR by adapting to your physical space. “Your furniture, instead of becoming an obstacle, just becomes part of the gameplay,” he says. “So it felt like a really natural fit for the medium.”

Like Cubism, Laser Dance incorporates hand tracking. But unlike Cubism, Laser Dance was designed with that technology in mind from the start. Rather than focusing on fine-grained interactions like manipulating virtual puzzle pieces, Laser Dance lets you push virtual buttons with your physical hands — a simple and satisfying interaction that uses your actual hand rather than a virtual overlay of digital hands that don’t necessarily line up perfectly with your physical reality.

The teaser trailer for Laser Dance debuted during the Connect 2023 keynote, and the response from the VR community was overwhelmingly positive. Fast forward to today, and now those players waiting with bated breath can finally get their hands on this made-for-MR homage to heists.

“One of the design goals that I had with this game is that it works in as many rooms as possible and as many spaces as possible,” says Van Bouwel. “This will be the true test of it, right? So I’m nervous and excited, but also very much looking forward to the feedback people might give and the different places that people might play it in and everything that I’ll learn to make the full game even better.”

A few pro-tips from Van Bouwel for aspiring VR (or MR) devs:

• Build from the ground up with a particular mechanic, technology, or medium in mind rather than adding it as an afterthought.
• Conduct lots of playtesting, including at live events, so you can understand how different body types interact with your game in different physical environments.
• Opt for concepts and mechanics that are easy to pick up and play, yet nuanced enough that they’re difficult to master — accessibility + replayability FTW!
• Consider launching in Early Access so you can gather player feedback and build a community as you continue to develop your title.
• Issues will arise when developing for any new technology — and that’s ok. Just keep in mind it may add time and cost to your development cycle.

“My hope is that Laser Dance can be a good introduction into why MR can feel fun and interesting and magical to play,” says Van Bouwel. “And so I hope that people who are the enthusiasts and have the headsets and play Quest 3 games, I hope they also feel that this is a game that they can show to their parents or to their friends or partners who don’t play games, and hopefully this is something that will get them into it so they can see what’s interesting about it. I hope that people also try to bring it to different spaces. I’m trying to put a lot of effort into making sure that the game works in a lot of different environments, so I hope people feel encouraged to experiment.”

Check out Laser Dance in Early Access for $9.99 USD on the Meta Horizon Store. And to contribute to the game’s development, leave a review or shoot Van Bouwel a message at thomas@laserdancegame.com.