Liminal VR Platform


VR Review  ★★★☆☆‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎
PCVR  Quest  Casual Gaming  Meditation  Comfortable  Stationary 

The image you shared features the word “LIMINAL” prominently displayed, with each letter backed by a series of vertical panels. These panels represent different themes: “The Lab,” “Sleep,” “Calm,” “Energy,” “Relief,” “Awe,” and “Focus.” Each panel has a unique background that visually conveys its theme.

Liminal is a platform that hosts a variety of virtual reality experiences categorized by mood, each offering a few moments of escape. Most content appears to be crafted by Liminal VR staff, which include professionals in neuroscience and psychology. Along the way the app questions you about your emotions as it tries to chart your state of mind before and after each experience.

The content selection is something of a mixed bag. We were intrigued by the 'sleep' experiences that gently pulsate colored lights in front of your closed eyelids, but we couldn't find much science to back up what this is meant to achieve. Another bedtime app places you in front of a small pixel-art image of a campfire while a story is gently narrated to you - we're not sure why simple content like this would be best delivered at night while wearing a VR headset.

a vibrant and chaotic scene inside a room. There are splatters of paint in various bright colors covering almost every surface. A dinosaur model, possibly a Tyrannosaurus Rex, stands on the left side of the room, also covered in paint. Numerous colored balls are suspended in the air throughout the space. The floor has some kind of texture or pattern, but it is mostly obscured by the paint. In the center, there is a structure that resembles a fountain or pedestal with more splashes of paint around it.
Splat is novel. Start with a white space, color to reveal your surroundings.

We found some of the more energetic experiences to be briefly fun, and even occasionally novel. Splat opens in a completely white environment and through the crosshairs on the screen you can look around and lob paint pellets. Paint splatters onto what turn out to be solid objects and the backgrounds behind them, and the splattering continues at an increasing pace matched by the soundtrack until the full diorama is painted and revealed. Unfortunately there's only one environment, so there's not much replayability to this five minute event.

Checking out many of the most highly rated Liminal experiences left us consistently underwhelmed however. These included Engage, Boundless, Accelerate Awe and Chromatic Funk. The first was a very simple shoot-the-UFO game that we'd be embarrassed to show on a modern headset, and the other three felt like the bastard VR children of a Windows 95 screensaver and an early Pixar graphics demo. At least after each and every one of these short experiences we had to complete a wellbeing questionnaire that allowed us to chart our increasing disappointment.

The image you shared depicts a digital artwork of a cosmic scene with a bright light source at the center, emitting rays of light that stretch out towards the edges. Surrounding this central light are various celestial bodies resembling planets and stars, each glowing with different colors such as blue, green, pink, and red. The background is filled with smaller particles and stars, giving an impression of a vast universe.
Boundless is highly rated, but it reminded us of Windows 95 screensavers.

Reading the marketing material for Liminal it's suggested that this platform offers meaningful solutions for people with mental and physical health problems, but we couldn't find any data or sound reasoning behind this. Also, if Liminal is focused on helping people with health issues it seems surprising that they didn't even think to allow snap-turning for folks with mobility problems who want to see what's behind them.

The Liminal platform is free to download for a limited number of experiences, so it costs nothing for the curious to try out. Apparently free content is rotated weekly, but we found most of the highly rated experiences to be immediately available to us. You can continue with the free experiences, or a monthly fee of $4.99 unlocks all experiences, gives you unlimited playtime and allows you to skip the frequent nagging health questionnaires.

a screenshot of a user interface from a virtual reality (VR) platform or application. It features several sections with text, images, and icons related to VR experiences and games. The central section highlights “Ripple Effect,” with various icons below it, suggesting it’s a selectable item. On the left, there’s information about “Liminal VR,” including descriptions of their role as neuropsychologists specializing in developing experiences to influence one’s state. The right side has sections titled “Calm Rank #1” and “Valence Experiences,” with star ratings for effectiveness, arousal change, valence change, and enjoyability.
Experiences are described and categorized.

Summary:
Most content is available to check out for free
Offers a wide variety of experiences
Mostly underwhelming content with basic visuals
$60 per year (monthly subscription)

Supported Languages:
English 

External Links:
YouTube:Trailer

Product Links:

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© 2024 Copyright Stuart Green all rights reserved. Content provided without warranty of accuracy. Reproduction requires explicit consent. Some copyrighted images used under fair use doctrine for review purposes.