Travel the world in this free-to-play mixed reality board game.
Visit scenic vistas and famous landmarks, in a mixed reality (MR) party game reminiscent of those featuring a certain Italian plumber.
MR TRAVELER – yes, the name really is all in caps, no one is yelling – is the latest release from Skonec Entertainment (Another Door). Launched into early access Nov. 20, this is a board game that is played fully in MR and with hand tracking.
“MR. TRAVELER is a mixed-reality tabletop game where a virtual board unfolds directly in your real-world space. The game requires no controllers everything is played using intuitive hand-tracking gestures. Players roll a virtual dice on an actual table, move their token characters, and complete missions as if traveling through cities around the world,” said Damon Noh, marketing manager with Skonec.
Players become a traveler whose goal is to visit cities around the world, collect travel points, and compete with up to three other players to visit significant locations. There are even exciting mini games that all players take part in. Winning these helps to set you apart from the other players – and can help you to overcome the competition.
While there are many tabletop games on the market, MR TRAVELER brings something new to the space.
But what was the inspiration for this game?
“We wanted to bring to life the Korean idiomatic expression “Bang-guseok World Travel” (“traveling the world from your room”) in a game. To do this, we built the experience on mixed reality, where your own room is visible through the camera, and applied familiar board game rules so that even players new to the technology could engage comfortably. Since traditional board games can feel slow when it’s not your turn, we added mini-games inspired by the popular Nintendo Switch title Mario Party, creating a party-style experience where players can have fun and interact with friends from around the world,” Noh added.
The game plays about how you might expect, you’ll either jump into an online match and play with three others, or you can host your own game and invite friends or play against bots. Regardless of your competitors, your goal is to visit the locations marked on a card, before the others.
Before we get into the gameplay, lets discuss what happens when you start for the first time.
Upon launching MR TRAVELER, you’re treated to a tutorial that gives you the gist of what to do. This is one of those unskippable things where you have to listen to a character make beep noises as text slowly appears in a bubble. The tutorial is important, there’s no doubt about that, but it doesn’t fully explain everything you might need to know here; and it can become quite tedious to play since there isn’t a full guide available in game. You can, however, go online and look it up yourself. Also, the beeping character who talks super slow does gets rather frustrating.
So helpful, right?
Once this is through, you’ll be given a chance to put your first character together.
Much like the vending machines that would entice you as a child, here you’ll be able to use earned in-game coins to take a chance at pulling an item from the machine. These will either be a new head or body for your character.
To make yourself stand out, you can swap and edit your character as you see fit.
Once your little traveler is ready to go, you’re ready to play.
Being fully MR and played with your hands, you’ll jump into your game and grab the table so it’s at the proper height for your playthrough. This is done by grabbing the handles and adjusting.
Simple, yes. However, with hand tracking still being a new and finicky technology, you may accidentally find yourself moving the table around when you don’t mean it. For instance, when you’re trying to grab the dice.
It doesn’t always happen, but it can, so you should take care when playing so your movements are precise.
Since we’re talking about the rolling the dice, there’s actually less rolling and more lobbing it into the centre of the board where little basin awaits to highlight the number. Regardless, you’ll be able to move between one and six spaces each turn, and that’s if you haven’t lost a turn – more on this shortly.
The game proceeds as you might expect: each player will toss the dice and move their respective number of spaces. Much like Monopoly and other similar games, as you’re moving around the board there may be specific actions or twists on spaces on which you can land. For instance, you may be frozen solid or end up going to jail, in which case your character remains stuck on the spot for a certain number of turns.
This is partially explained in the tutorial, however, not every instance and how you can break free is noted. Since they’re not always the same, it can become a bit infuriating to see your character land on something, only to not know what’s going on.
Throughout gameplay you’ll experience minigames – alongside other things. These are the absolute best part of MR TRAVELER and truly brings Mario Party as close to the platform as it will probably ever get.
With a number of games available, you’ll do things like pop balloons with your hands and shoot basketballs into a hoop, among other things.
Winning helps to set you apart from the rest by giving you coins that you can use to purchase items. Again, similar to Mario Party, you can purchase items that can give you an edge. A dice that only rolls a certain number, a quirky item that will help you when you’re stuck, these are all available to you via the blimp that floats off to the left of your side of the board.
As mentioned, you’ll need to visit a certain number of landmarks before the rest of your competition. These spots will be spaced out around the board, and once you land on them, you’ll get a stamp on your card – and the space around you will change from your room to a low-resolution display of whichever landmark you just collected.
Now let’s talk briefly about the mechanics.
As mentioned, everything is done via hand tracking. For those who have played games using this technology in the past, you’ll know what to expect. Things are obviously going to be finicky and while it does work well for the most part, there are times – especially when attempting to grab – when things just don’t work out.
In minigames such as the basketball one, you’re essentially playing that arcade one where you shoot to score as many as you can before the timer runs out. Having even the briefest of issues grabbing a ball can spell disaster if you’re neck and neck with another player.
This could be attributed to just not be careful, but considering the game is geared towards kids – it is free-to-play after all – there will definitely be issues.
All other small issues – difficulties turning the vending machine knob, having the random window that shows rainy weather not being accessible, can all be attributed to the hand tracking technology still being too new. Though, that last one could be attributed to the room scan just being silly.
Finally let’s talk graphics before we call it a day.
The game being full MR means that you’ll see the gameboard appear before you in your space.
The board and other characters look fantastic, Skonec should be proud of the graphical quality they’ve achieved here. However, when you visit a landmark and get “transported” there to see it briefly, you can see the graphical quality drop significantly – almost as if they just found images online and integrated those into the game.
Overall, MR TRAVELER is a fun experience for those who are looking for Mario Party in MR.
There is certainly enough here to keep people entertained and the free entry to play ensures them an audience – the same group that frequents Horizon Worlds and other low cost-to-entry games.
Noh is adamant on getting this group into their game as they note that they’re the ones who spend the most time playing.
“We observed that younger users with lower disposable income tend to become mainstream players, spending long hours in games when they first acquire the device. Accordingly, we decided to make the game free-to-play to ensure that younger players can easily download and start playing, while also maintaining continuous matchmaking.”
For the adults in the room, if you want to play this game it is best that you have your friends online who can ensure a smoother experience.
It would be ideal for Skonec to create some form of way to streamline matchmaking, so those who want to play with those their age have the opportunity to enjoy MR TRAVELER.
MR TRAVELER, was reviewed on the Quest 3 after the game launched for free on the Quest Store.
