Waltz of the Wizard News

Voice interaction is now available as an update for Waltz of the Wizard, the first VR app to use Meta’s new Voice SDK. This unique update makes it possible to speak to the beloved skull assistant character and use your voice and gestures to shape the world, as if by magic. Voice features are available on both Quest and PC VR headsets (SteamVR) and work internationally (English-only support for spoken language).

The update adds over 200 new character voice lines and magic commands, introducing a broad range of innovative capabilities that haven’t been possible before in consumer software. Going beyond pure voice features, Aldin’s multimodal interaction systems unlock entirely new VR/AR capabilities that let you use voice, hands and gestures all together to perform actions.

Voice and extended multimodal interaction is an important part of Aldin’s vision for natural VR/AR interfaces and believable reality experiences, which the company has been exploring since 2013. Believable reality experiences in this sense refer to content that aims to feel like real-life experiences in alternate realities— where we act like we do in reality and the world reacts believably to our presence. Voice and multimodal interaction is an important part of making that possible, opening powerful new ways to make VR feel more real and magical to use.

We will be sharing more in-depth information about the voice interaction update soon on the Aldin blog, offering greater insights into its many aspects and the parts involved in next-generation VR/AR content.

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The first update for Waltz of the Wizard: Natural Magic is out — the POWERS update includes many new features that enrich the existing Natural Magic campaign!

This update includes many things from our own list of features combined with popular requests from the community (thank you for the feedback!), focused on increasing diversity of the experience. Natural Magic introduced key foundations that will let us keep building more advanced environments, characters and powers, faster. The initial release showcased the bare core of some things, and we’re very excited to start expanding!

Here are key additions, expanding magic and the Fortress.

[h3]Magical powers
[/h3]We are expanding the natural magic system, giving you seven new powers to control — in addition to the sonic scream, flexible casting and telekinesis system of natural magic—for a total of ten magical powers.

• Lightning Bolt — Rubbing your hands together charges particles with electricity for a lightning cast.
  
• Tornado — Swirls your hand in circles to form a tornado of particles.
  
• Neutron Orb — This powerful attack condenses magic into a devastating neutron orb.
  
• Neutron Explosion — If you’ve formed a neutron orb, you can make it explode to push enemies away.
  
• Spectral Blade — A quick motion of closed fists spawns a blade. You can have one in each, and it leaves a satisfying streaks and realistic ectoplasm liquid dripping.
  
• Spectral Orb —Bowling with magic is now possible. Simply do an underhanded bowling cast and see particles form into a ‘solid’ shape.
  
• Spectral Shield — Quick crossing of your arms creates an instant block for incoming projectiles.
  

[h3]New and improved characters
[/h3]We are introducing two new enemies in this release and making extensions of character behaviors. They pay active attention to moving things in the environments, react to your hands during melee, avoid dangers like explosives and additionally perform dodging maneuvers instead of driving straight for you all the time.

• Demolisher — This automaton is magically programmed to detonate its explosives as close to you as possible.
  
• Larvops Droppers — These larger Larvops rain down explosives!
  

[h3]New items
[/h3]Behold, new creative types of grenades that are sure to make things feel like an explosive supersport. We also added nice little Obelisks to hold objects.

• Regular Grenade (pink) — Simple enough, pull the pin and it beeps until it explodes.
  
• Proximity Mine (yellow/gray) — Once activated, tentacles slither out of holes and can attach it to any surface. Once attached, it becomes a proximity mine that triggers when you or characters stand too close.
  
• Sproingbomb (orb) — Like the timer version, but bounces like a rubber ball. Sprooooiiiinng.
  
• Holy Hand Grenade (gold)— Bathe thine enemies in the holiest of forces.
  

[h3]New environments
[/h3]The main addition are colorful cave environments that are now present regularly throughout the whole campaign… Destructible stalagmites and stalactites included.

These new environments are occasional breakout areas that lead you into some of the many caves and tunnels that riddle the Fortress. Perhaps one day in the future you’ll get to see some of its native inhabitants that have evolved there throughout millions of years.



The other new area is a special occasion in level 3 — the first look at what the Observer Fortress actually looks like from the outside!

[h3]Other improvements
[/h3] Phew, is that it? No there's a bunch of others improvements too. For more technical details and images you can visit our blogpost or join our Discord!

We really hope you enjoy, - The Aldin Team

Today is the day. Waltz of the Wizard has now been updated with our first major expansion - Natural Magic. Now live on Steam!

[h3]The road so far
[/h3]This is the largest production in our long history. We founded Aldin in 2013 to create believable reality experiences — worlds that are truly designed around the concept of you physically being present in them, as if they are reality. We are proud to have come so far, and we can still hardly believe that we have the privilege to help pioneer this amazing new medium.



This is in no small part thanks to the wonderful VR community of early adopters and users of Trial of the Rift Drifter, Asunder and lastly Waltz of the Wizard, who have supported us throughout the years. This is why we are giving Natural Magic to all our existing users free of charge, while the base price of Waltz of the Wizard will now increase from $9.99 to $19.99 to reflect the scope and breadth of content we are adding.



[h3]A brief look at what’s included
[/h3]In Natural Magic, we pushed the limits of what is possible with current VR hardware (and ourselves as developers). Of the many new-to-VR features we are shipping today, here are few to mention; New magic physics engine which uses natural user motions and mic input to simulate magic and make it feel real, using an advanced particle based approach. This allows us to deliver never-before seen dynamics in interactions between the user’s presence, magic particles and the virtual world, to deliver an extremely diverse simulation of fun situations and events to enjoy over and over again.



This is just the first step in exploring the entirely new territory of simulated magic and we are very excited to keep developing it with more advanced gestures, interactions and overall functionality. We’re also introducing new advanced physical characters that can react believably in boundless number of ways to various situations and combat scenarios. Lastly we’ve created a new procedural based world-building system with believable reflective environmental lighting and immense flexibility going forward. All of these features and many more will be expanded on in upcoming updates.



[h3]We hope you enjoy
[/h3]We truly hope you find Natural Magic continues to deliver on making fantasy feel like reality—and we look forward to hearing from you. There are a ton of things in Natural Magic, including the natural magic system itself, and we’re sure you’ll both find a lot that could be better as well dream up countless ideas on how it can expand going forward. This is just the beginning and the future is bright—thank you all for the journey to date.

- The Aldin Team

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Hey everyone! We are beyond exited to announce Waltz of the Wizard: Natural Magic expansion is coming in invite-only beta this Holiday season.

Natural Magic is the first full expansion for Waltz of the Wizard, adding new locations and new form of magic for users to control. Visit the new castle courtyard and find the mysterious ritual circle to travel to new worlds - starting with the labyrinth. Adventurous wizards will explore its depths to recover forbidden knowledge and artifacts of the Observers, a race of interdimensional beings that have learned to harness magical energies to power strange gadgets and modify the fabric of space and time.



[h2]FEATURES[/h2]

• Expanded activities & replayability — As a wizard you will master your skills in wizardry and explore new worlds to recover forbidden knowledge, encounter curious creatures, collect artifacts and face surprising challenges.
  
• New magic system — Magic flows through the world like a natural force and is connected to other natural forces like gravity and wind. Your natural gestures control those energies, making magic feel and work more as if it’s real. Only the most skillful wizards will fully unleash their mystical powers.
  
• Castle courtyard — The courtyard expands the castle where you’ll learn to harness magical energies, meet curious creatures and find the mysterious ritual circle to transport to new areas.
  
• Procedural world — Natural Magic introduces Aldin’s first procedurally generated world; a labyrinth that lives between dimensions, home to mysterious artifacts and prison to the most mischievous beings in the universe.
  
• Achievements & challenges — Challenges and new achievements let you compare your skills to other wizards in the community.
  

[h2]RELEASE[/h2]
Invite-only Beta - Holiday 2020.
Join our Discord community for a chance to participate. https://discord.com/invite/cxHB5zF

Launch - Q1 2021.
Available on Oculus Quest/Quest 2 and SteamVR.

[h2]MORE INFO[/h2]
Waltz of the Wizard website - http://aldin.io/waltzofthewizard

- The Aldin team