This week, somebody on the RyanSchultz.com Discord server alerted me to a brand new, Chinese-language social VR platform called…Oasis.
First, let’s talk about that name: Oasis. As I have said before, when reviewing a completely different, adult-oriented virtual world also called Oasis (that link is safe for work), that is a truly TERRIBLE choice to name a social VR platform:
Another big problem with Oasis? As I mentioned earlier, it’s almost impossible to find this game on Google, due to so many other unrelated hits you get from searching on “Oasis”. Search on “Oasis VR” or “Oasis game” and you get the Ready Player One-branded experience by VIVEPORT, or the Chinese game company.* Search on “Oasis adult” or “Oasis sex” and you get the Oasis Aqualounge, a “sexual adventure playground for adults”, which appears to be a swingers resort in downtown Toronto. Search on “Oasis adult game” and you finally get the right hits—as well as this blogpost as the third** highest-ranking hit on Google. That’s not a good sign.
*And it’s not even the same Chinese company as this new one!
**Now, my highly critical blogpost is the second highest-ranking hit.
Having yet another platform called Oasis is just plain lazy thinking on the part of the developers, and a cheap attempt to cash in on Ready Player One. It also makes this app almost impossible to find on the Internet. (Try a few Google searches yourself and see what you come up with. You’ll pull up a lot of stuff called Oasis, but not this new app.)
I was able to find a recent Sina.com new article, which I ran through Google Translate, to get some more details:
Oasis VR’s self-developed VR game will be launched on Steam on December 12th. Its online version supports both PC and VR platforms… [OASIS VR] is a virtual world that provides a completely immersive gaming experience, including full body tracking, social networking, creation, etc. Players can upload their own virtual images, meet new friends, and build their own world in the “oasis”. Rather than saying [it] is a game, it is better to say that it is like a virtual world. There is no fixed gameplay, but there are endless ways to play. Going to the bar with friends, playing killing games, spelling spells like Harry Potter, etc., [if] tired, you can run the ranch, go to the cafe and chat with friends…
In the current 1.0 version, there are more than 10 different worlds to play in, such as ballrooms, killing games, ranches, Harry Potter, cat cafes, ferris wheel, candy dance room, outdoor theater, etc.
Here’s the Steam page for Oasis, where the app is in the Early Access Program. You can take a look at a video and some pictures of the product. But everything is in Chinese, and the page notes that you need to have a Chinese mobile phone number in order to use the program, so that excludes most of us. If anybody out there has a Chinese mobile phone number and wants to test this one out and report back to us, I’ll publish a review.
And I’m adding this one to my ever-growing list of social VR/virtual worlds, just for completeness.
UPDATE May 31st, 2020: Somebody posted a ten-minute play-through video of Oasis to YouTube:
If you want to learn more about Oasis, you can visit their website, or you can join the Oasis Discord server. There’s also a YouTube channel.
