Naau: The Lost Eye is a stable and very comprehensive adventure game for virtual reality,
the game offers players hours of VR adventure spread over 16 levels.

You will encounter many nice creatures throughout the journey, both hostile and 'less hostile' So don't be fooled when you see some for the very first time.
You will have to fight hostile creatures and they will regularly drop useful items that you will need later on.
In addition to the usual creatures you encounter throughout the levels, you will also have to beat bigger and more difficult ones near the end of a level.

The items they drop can include arrows for the bow or, for example, energy items for creating weapons,
Creating weapons is not difficult, you will regularly see a machine with which this is possible.
The reason why you will encounter this machine regularly in every level is because your weapons break down as you use them and you have to create new ones.
That is why it is also important to always look around for certain objects that can replace weapons when you fall without them.
These objects can be, for example, a shovel or a pickaxe, it is also possible to store them in your inventory.
You will also encounter certain plants that contain useful items such as explosives or extra ammo.

The weapons you can make need a number of energy points, this number differs from weapon to weapon, you have to put these points in the machine and then you can create the weapon.
I didn't make all the weapons but the ones I made were the staff, the bow and the boomerang.
The boomerang is also something that makes the game unique because of all the games that I have played in VR, this is the first one that has a boomerang, and one that flies back nicely.

The physics in the game are also very accurate and this is very useful here for throwing explosives.
This is also beneficial for climbing and for solving puzzles where you have to move certain objects or point them in a different direction and of course also for combat.

The environments of the levels are also very well done, the fantasy worlds 'floating' above the clouds give a very good field of depth effect and despite the game is not an open world, the levels are often very extensive in both the environment and the required time to finish the level.

Early Access footage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jIAS5g98ICw

You can view my review & gameplay here: https://youtu.be/gG8AZqi4fRY

Na'au: The Lost Eye reminds me a lot of Vertigo Remastered. They are both action adventure games that feel pretty epic in VR. You have a lot of exploration and just some casual level puzzles, mixed with some combat, and a lot of atmosphere. It took me approximately 10 hours to beat the game, however, I did have to deal with several bugs which extended my playtime. The game is in Early Access, but the game is pretty much complete, unlike other EA games that promise future content, this game has it already, it is just missing polish to make it a frustrating-free experience.

Despite all the bugs I encountered, I still recommend this game. BTW, I posted all the bugs I found in the Steam Community forums so I won't mention them here. None of the bugs I encountered were game-breaking. There was an update today fixing some issues. Naau has EA correct, it should be a place where games are released early, but that are pretty much complete, working experiencess. Not a demo released in EA that is sold as a full product or where a broken game is released in hopes that it may someday be fixed.

Naau is running on the Unity Engine. On my RTX 3080, I was getting variable frame rates from 70 to 90 fps on high graphical settings (not even Ultra). However, it didn't really effect my gameplay. I believe there was an update today updating the engine which could possibly resolve this particular issue. You have full locomotion and smooth and snap turning options. Unfortunately, "blink" (which is a comfort vignette when turning) is on by default and I had to constantly turn it off after every loading screen or restart because it turns on automatically even when showing off in the settings.

I really liked Na'au: The Lost Eye VR. It is an epic game to play and not many VR game have this much content. However, it is not perfect. I think the main thing is that the combat could have been better. The boss fights were good, but the trash fights on the way to the boss fights were just too simple. There were some nice variations, like the plants that you need to shine your light on or the ghost like figure spawning with a moving red gem you need to hit precisely (unless you have the flower gun). The climbing could have been more polished. Towards the end of the game, there was a bit too much repetition of previous boss fights and also this one area was exactly the same as a prior one.

If Na'au does get patched up, and maybe a bit more fine tuning (more difficulty, more enemy variety, & less box hitting to get cubes, also no weapon damage please), then it could possibly be one of the best VR experiences. However, even with all the current bugs, I still think it's a very good VR experience. I often don't recommend buggy games, but this one is just so epic that it's a must buy ... as long as you're okay with experiencing some bugs along the way.

Rate 7/10.

Please note: I received a free Steam key through the Steam Curator Connect program. You can join my Steam Curator group here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Oculus_WMR

Another game that I think has potential but as is I cannot recommend it.

First off, breakable weapons. I almost never like this mechanic and like it even less in a game with limited crafting resources. I actually soft locked myself because of this. I was saving my crafting resource so I only had one weapon. Walked into a room, door closed behind me. Saved at the save point(no saving anytime, only at certain spots). A horde of enemies spawned and my only weapon broke part way through the fight. There was no way to advance without killing enemies and you can't deal damage without a weapon. I couldn't go back to craft one because the crafting station was behind a locked door. I was trapped in a room with no way forward and no way back.

Second point, very buggy. I had to close and restart the game several times due to bugs which just really breaks the flow.

I may come back to the game in the future but in its current state, you're probably better off passing on this one.

I've tested the game using my Rift CV1 and the Valve Index. The game works great using either hmd. After starting the game through its desktop icon, the icon is shown in Oculus Home and plays exactly like if you bought it in the Oculus Store.

I'm probably going for lcd (=Index) for this game, black levels look fine using lcd, so it should work great using Reverb, Quest 2 and Rift-S. Later levels look great (graphics are kinda poor when you start the game, don't be fooled by that), and I've got solid 90 fps even using res 200 % and 2xMSAA with the Index. That said I also get solid 90 fps using my Rift CV1 with super sampling 2.0. But even though many textures aren't high-res at all, these are so low-res close-up that adding some SDE using the CV1 ss 2.0 isn't helping much. Devs need to increase the res of many textures to really make this game shine.
It's still a highly optimized and polished game, even if it's Early Access. In the start the gameplay is quite slow and old school (even boring and repetitive), but it gets a lot better after about 30 minutes or so. Consider the first 30 minutes like a tutorial for persons new to VR. The game may be considered some kind of Zelda and Fujii combo...

You got full locomotion and smooth turning (and teleport, snap turning) - and the game supports Index with full finger tracking.
The AI might not exactly beat the hell out of Kasparov in chess, but I enjoyed the game nonetheless.
The devs should make 4K-ish textures like Boneworks, and this game would shine a lot more. 7/10 for now (I added 0.5 for the Rift native driver support :-))

Naau: The Lost Eye is a VR adventure game with light rpg elements, which involves traversing "dungeons" with a mix of combat, climbing and puzzle solving (adding up to somewhat of a "VR Zelda" vibe). You play as one of the last of an alien race, stranded on a strange and dangerous planet, searching for the power to return home. It is the first VR game developed by Studio Gamebit, and as such Naau seems like an indie passion project, as many VR games tend to be.

What drew me into accepting the game for review was the rich art style in the trailer, as well as my own inexperience with VR adventure games (and VR in general). Ultimately the art of the game does live up to the trailer, but the more important goal of being a fun game is thwarted by a lack of polish.

Firstly, the combat of the game is clunky. Weapons don't behave the way you exactly want: you'll find yourself with two weapons in one hand if you accidently unholster one while picking another up, sometimes arrows will simply phase through enemies, and you'll find that the weapons (and your hands) don't go exactly where they should, especially the melee weapons like shovels and pickaxes. For melee it was often more effective to break immersion and wiimote wiggle your controller around, than to try to treat the weapon in your hand as if it was real. As will be clear with the other aspects of the game, the combat has potential. Playing around with the weapons in the dev test room is genuinely fun for a few minutes, and the weapons do show off some unique ideas (such as the way that the crossbow is charged, with a large lever on the side). But in the campaign it rarely creates a seamless experience of fighting off creatures - the real fight was often between your controllers and your character's hands.

Movement too, was clunky. I was only ever 80% sure I was gripping something, even if the game made the gripping noise, so climbing things was fraught with annoying falls and occasional deaths. And the emulation of your hands into the game often contorted them into nonsensical and painful poses (I know that coding such things elegantly into VR is difficult, this game shows how difficult it can be).

The puzzles were alright. Nothing particularly awe-inspiring. Mostly run-of-the-mill if you've played this kind of game before. But at least they were functional.

I'll also note here that the game seemed inconsistent with what you could and couldn't interact with. Grenades don't break moveable barrels, and pretty much the only things you can break are jars and crates, and your hands or weapons will just phase through many other features of the environment. This generally meant broken immersion.

Together these added up to a stuttery package. The grand, open dungeons provided a lot of atmosphere to the game that really was impressive, but navigating those dungeons only occasionally evolved beyond a low baseline of fun, and just as often dipped into frustration. The openness of the dungeons challenged me to move quickly through them to keep a non-boring pace, but erratic weapons and slippery hands made that an inconsistent experience.

The story has potential. It was basic, but basic can be functional. But for the most part the story is wound up in the begining, set loose, and not referenced again - it almost doesn't have a story. There is some slight environmental storytelling, such as when you meet cute creatures that reveal menacing expressions as they run away from you, but the enemies in the game don't add up to a coherent reflection of the story, they seem to be just a random smattering of kinda-weird aliens.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2496591526

If there is any part of the game that excels, it is this one. As already mentioned, the open chambers of each dungeon are immersive and gives a sense of place that seems to be unique in VR. And each character in the game is well crafted and interesting to look at. I think the devs of Studio Gamebit were formerly 3D artists, so it makes sense that these parts of the game work. But the art doesn't carry the game, because of the problems of clunkyness and incoherence that are present in its other aspects.

The music is immersive and appropriate for the game. At the same time, there was a moment where a rock elemental was able to sneak up to me, stomping the whole way, and kill me from behind. I'm still a little salty about that and the audio is to blame - so it too has lack of polish.

I didn't get motion sickness during the game, but a few design choices threaten it. For one, the game has fixed areas where you can save, rather than being able to save on a whim. This means that if you want to take a break from the game, you need to push on until the next save point unless you want to lose progress. Additionally, I tried multiple kinds of movement, and the only one that seemed to work with the combat was sliding, so that also increased the likelyhood of motion sickness.

I should mention, I played this game on the HP Reverb G2 headset, which I know can have compatibility issues - but the clunkiness I experienced seems unique to this game, having played other VR games with no trouble. Also, I have an RTX 2070 and (as another reflection of unpolishedness) the game lagged uncomfortably during one boss fight with many enemies, in a way that I haven't experienced in other games.

Naau has some interesting dungeons and set pieces, and colorful unique art. But its combat and climbing aren't particularly fun, and it doesn't have a particularly compelling story. There is a lot of potential to this game, which could be unearthed with some careful attention, bug hunting and polish, but that seems unlikely with Gamebit working on their second game at this time.

Follow our curator page, OCG-Curations, if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

It starts a bit slow but opens up later. For the first 30 minutes, the game introduces the mechanics but it does it overly simple. And sometimes fails to instruct players what to do which makes that firt 30 minute training quite boring. But after that 30 minutes mark, game opens up and get bigger and deeper with each area. It starts to amaze with its environment and challenges.

It starts as a indie game (which is really a indie game, done by only one person if I know correctly) but evolves into much larger than you expect it to be, to an ambitious game.

Played on a Valve Index.

Naau is a game that I would recommend to anyone looking for a nice linear singleplayer VR game. The combat is pretty great, the enemies seem to actually react to the damage given to them, like the wooden and rock enemies that actually break as you deal damage or the floating ball enemies that will be knocked around when you hit them. There were some basic puzzles which broke up the combat, and the environments were pretty nice. One thing that could've been improved is some more enemy variety. Even if the enemies were mostly the same, I would've preferred if some enemies matched the environments more instead of the same wooden enemies in every area.

The devs being a small team means Naau isn't bug free. I encountered a couple myself, one was game breaking but the devs promptly fixed it. Other bugs are more just on the annoying side, but the devs are at least listening to the bug reports.

Some other maybe information:

• I'm left handed and experienced no issues playing like a lefty.
  
• Played on an Index, had no issues and the game has finger tracking which is always nice.
  
• Took me just 9.4 hours to beat the game. I notice I'm often a bit faster than most people in other VR games, so it may be longer depending.

Has really nice graphics, game play is good, puzzles are fun to solve. Would recommend you to play this game.

Its physical based work very well. It's always exciting to be in different places. I look everywhere at every corner :) I liked the designs of the game very much. If I need to criticize the game, the game can get a little more active. These devs should be supported.

Firstly I want to say from such a small team this game is incredible and doubly so that the game universe is a persistant physics based combat enviroment. That doesn't mean it couldn't do with some changes but on the hole I really enjoyed playing it. At the moment there are countless bugs but I'm not going to detail any here as I'm sure they'll be fixed pretty quickly. So . . . being an anonymous internet user and never having used Unity or Unreal in my life so this naturally makes me perfectly qualified to tell 'Studio Gambit' how to make their game and what changed I would make to improve it . . . so here goes.

Game length and pacing
I didn't rush and played the game at a leasurely pace and it took me 10 hours. I've got to say its the first game in VR that I've really been happy with length. However because I have been exposed to short VR games I found that I expected the game to finish at any moment because I had no referance to where I was in the game. the best way to fix this would be to have some gauge for example "Chapter name" 3 of 10 between levels (also chapter names will also give more context to player about the story)

No manual save
On gripe I have is the lack of the abiltiy to save when I want. you come across save points with a shrine that you can activate however I would prefer to save when and where I want as i like to save before I try something dodgy or I don't trust the situation.


setting and art style
I really enjoyed the game all the way through, I love the low-poly art style. Many times throughout the game I stopped and stared at the scenery for a while and enjoyed poking around deep down wishing I could explore an open world.

Weapons
One of the most unfortunate aspects of the game is the weapons. in fact I only used the mace the Bow and the (and the Crossbow sparingly). I don't even know what the other more expensive weapons were because I loaded up on mace's, and the reason? because your weapons will wear out and brake with use (which I didn't like) and then theres so much ammunition for the bow that I ended up with 400+ arrows at one point . . . my fix for this would be to just get rid of weapons damage all together and just have infinite ammo, then instead of re-buying your weapons constantly over and over again it would be more enjoyable to upgrade them (range, damage ,speed, better sights (needed for the crossbow)
I would also like to see a spear and a sword

inventory
The second desperately needed change would be for the inventory. In the ten hours I played the game I still hated it by the end. the enemies are generally a casual nuisance so you can prepare your weapons before hand and generally avoid it getting in your way, however sometimes you have to switch on the fly while moving (say during a boss battle) and it can get infuriating it stays stationary while you run around. I think a full rethink of how the inventory works is in order . . . the way I would set up the inventory would be to have inventory work like a rucksack that you can select to sort stuff. There should be a quick slot over your left and right shoulder as well as a pair of side pockets containing your pre-selected items (Mace,bow/arrows/shield etc) like on a lot of games.

enemies
enemies could do with some work but they do fit the casual nature of the game,

All in all a great effort and Ill look forward to playing it gain.