A few days ago I tried the Squid Game experience at Sandbox VR. I was very curious about it and I came out with a good impression. Do you want to know more?
I chose the location of San Mateo (Silicon Valley, California) because it was the Sandbox VR location that was closer to my BnB. The venue is inside a shopping mall.
I entered the place and I found it very elegant. It’s a very modern venue, and I liked the design of it. The mannequin that was in the lobby of the venue shows the setup the users have to wear when playing the game. The employees were all very kind, and after a few minutes, they let me go to a corridor to prepare for the match.
First of all, they made me watch a little video about safety, which basically said “Do not go outside of the Guardian and do not jump on other people” with some fancy animations. Then we started wearing all the devices. I had to put on a haptic TactSuit (from bHaptics) on my chest, a modified Vive Focus 3 on my head, and some optical tracking sensors (maybe Optitrack, but I’m not sure) on my ankle and wrist.
I’ve been told that the game supports up to 6 players, but if the group is large, then it should be played in a large room to avoid people from tripping on the others. The game started, and we found ourselves inside a virtual venue inspired by the series of Squid Game.
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The first thing we saw was another safety video: even if I found all those safety things very boring, I think it’s great they are doing that. I used these initial minutes to check how the system was working.
The setup was comfortable, but I had a little problem with the headset: the Focus 3 was probably held in a fresh place, so the lenses start fogging up a bit when I wore it, ruining a bit the visuals in the first minutes of the experience. I could see my avatar and the one of the other player very clearly, with our full body.
It was cool that we had the avatars we chose before, and we looked like characters of Squid Game. The full body tracking was decent, but not perfect: on my body, I noticed that there was a little tracking lag. What I lacked the most was the use of my fingers: there were no gloves or hand tracking of any kind, so I could not move my fingers. This is a pity because sometimes interacting with the other guy I would have liked to do the OK sign or a bro fist gesture, but I could not.
Gameplay and Immersion
After the initial introduction, we found ourselves in the real venue of the game: a place where all the players playing the Squid Game were. The setting was nice, and made me feel even more inside the Squid Game story. But at the same time, I was a bit disappointed by the graphical quality.
I’ve been in the VR field for a long time, and I’ve been able to play wonderful games like Half-Life: Alyx or amazing demos like Google’s Welcome To Lightfields. If at home I can have this fidelity, I expect that if I go out of home, I have much more than this, to give me a reason to go to a shopping mall instead of playing at home. Instead the graphical level was simply ok, it was nothing special. Don’t misunderstand me: all assets were fine, but they were not super-polished and there were not things like ray-tracing, or particle effects everywhere.
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Talking about the gameplay, the game started, and it was de-facto a collection of minigames. This makes sense because Squid Game is about various trials the participants have to go through, but at the same time it means there’s no “depth” in this game: you just play a bunch of mini-games with your friends. The minigames are all taken from the Squid Game universe and every match is made by 5 minigames.
I don’t want to spoil to you too much, so I will just mention two of them: one is the very famous “Red Light, Green Light” where you have to stop moving when the voice says “Red Light” or you get killed and the other one was “Simon Says” where you have to change your body pose depending on what Simon Says (e.g. he says to raise your left hand, and you have to do it).
The steward after the match told me that in case the same player returns to The Sandbox, the system is not giving him the same 5 minigames again, but it is adding two minigames he has not tried yet and it is scrambling the order of presentation. The games were all very easy to play, fun, and a bit scary (in perfect Squid Game style).
The goal is to make the most points possible, but being careful that if you do someting wrong, you die (you respawn after a few seconds, but in the meantime your opponents make points). It’s great that they studied the games so that to foster interactions with other people: you have to compete with the others, but sometimes you may even strategically partner to try to succeed together in a difficult game. You can speak with the others, so you may have fun about you dying, or you can exchange information.
I loved playing it also because me and the other guy were having a very close match. He won, but I finished super close to him (just 12 points of difference), so the game was even more fun because we did our best to try to win, and until the last second, it was not sure who could have been the winner.
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The only problem in the interaction with the other player is that the games require you to move in the space, and sometimes you are competing to grab or touch the same objects, which creates a small risk of physically touching the other player. It was also nice to have the haptic feedback on my chest, it made the game more immersive. The experience required me to move a lot around the room, and I ended it soaking in sweat. It’s been a fitness experience.
After we removed the headsets, we complimented each other and started chatting about the match. After all of this, we had to remove all our tracking stuff, and we went back to the entrance of the venue. There the stewards showed me the videos the system made with the highlights of the match, and gave me a QR code link to access them at home.
It was cool watching the highlight together and talking about the match we just had. I think it adds a lot to the experience: one of the best things about having an experience with friends is not only have the experience together, but also commenting on it together for the times after. Christian and I made a few jokes recalling the moments in the game where we died, and it was fun.
Here you can see the highlight of the match I had against Christian.
Pricing and Value
I have to dedicate a little chapter to talk about the price of the experience. For Italian standards, this is a bit too much. For Silicon Valley standards, this may be acceptable. Just to make a comparison, in Italy renting a house is like 5 times cheaper than in San Francisco, so it’s hard to compare the price of things.
If I had to apply this factor to the price of the ticket, and consider it being the equivalent of $10-15 in my country, I find it reasonable. But if it were $50 in Italy, it would be one of those things that you do once in your life to see how it is, but then you probably don’t do it again because it’s too expensive.
I came out happy from the experience of Squid Game in Sandbox VR. The game was fun, challenging, and a bit scary, exactly how a good game about Squid Game should be. I also had a very close match that made me put all my efforts into winning, making me enter into a flow state that made the experience more entertaining.
I also loved the interactions with the other guy (who I thank a lot), both during the game and at the end of it, when we commented the experience together. All in all, it was a fun moment and I would do it again. It’s been very different from playing VR at home, where usually I’m alone, it was a more social experience.
But at the same time, there are two things that left me with a bit of sourness in my mouth. The first one has been the immersivity: I would have liked to play a game with higher graphics, more special effects, and more intensive use of crazy gadgets that people do not have at home like haptic suits.
I would have wanted also a game with more depth. I would have liked to play a game that I could not play at home, while the game I saw could (with some optimizations and simplifications) run on Quest 3. The second issue is the price: as I’ve said, I would play it without any issue spending €10-15, but I would have more difficulties in regularly playing it for $50.
And even if I decided to spend $50 every month because I’m a VR enthusiast, I would have a hard time convincing all my friends to spend regularly that amount of money. That said, I enjoyed my experience and I’m happy to have tried it.
Here's a summary of the review's key points:
| Aspect | Details |
|---|---|
| Venue | Modern and elegant design, located inside a shopping mall. |
| Setup | Haptic TactSuit, modified Vive Focus 3, and optical tracking sensors. |
| Gameplay | Collection of mini-games from the Squid Game universe. |
| Graphics | Decent but not super-polished; lacks advanced effects like ray-tracing. |
| Interactions | Fosters interactions with other players; voice communication available. |
| Price | Considered high for some standards; more acceptable in Silicon Valley. |
| Overall Experience | Fun, challenging, and social; immersive but could benefit from higher graphics and more depth. |