I’m standing in the mouth of a giant tuna fish. Looking forward through a curtain of teeth, I can see I’m underwater and heading toward the deep unknown. The fish itself has been gabbing the entire time, narrating our voyage with the charm of a Saturday morning cartoon character. We’re on a mission to retrieve a bronze key located somewhere in a giant, flooded cabin. Still, the problem isn’t the key’s hiding place—I’ve already spotted it sitting on a nearby shelf—the problem is that I’m a tiny puppet with tiny puppet hands, and I need to open a very normal-sized door.
This all happens in the opening moments of A Fisherman’s Tale, a VR puzzle game that plays with perception and space like only VR can. Winner of the VR Game of the Year award at the VR Game Awards in London, A Fisherman’s Tale is the latest effort from Innerspace VR, the team behind the award-winning musical VR series Firebird. Originally released on the Rift Platform last January, and now available on the Oculus Quest VR headset, A Fisherman’s Tale transforms me into an animated puppet named Bob, a humble lightkeeper. When a storm rolls in and threatens nearby ships, it’s up to me to get the lighthouse working; a lighthouse sitting unlit and vacant outside my cabin door.