For its first virtual reality game, Portland video game developer Rose City Games is getting a little help from tech giant Meta.
Next year, Rose City Games is releasing "Lovesick" a VR game that will be available on Meta Quest and SteamVR. It is being co-published with indie media producer Lyrical Media. The game was announced at the UpLoadVR June Showcase.
It’s the studio’s first game since 2022’s "Floppy Knights" was released on XBox and PC Game Pass from Microsoft and it’s first full VR game in development, said studio Director and co-founder Corey Warning.
“We don’t like doing the same thing twice. So doing a VR game was a fun challenge,” he said. “We were really wanting to go after a puzzle game that felt immersive.”
"Lovesick" takes place in middle-America in 1999 and follows members of a post-punk band that is on the verge of breaking up. Players control the bassist Sam, who must explore surreal escape room-style mindscape puzzles to try to bring the band back together. Also, a supernatural event has blown everyone’s consciousnesses out of their bodies.
The team had explored game ideas in 2019 as they mapped out future projects.
“We were shotgun blast pitching all kinds of ideas and different directions (for games) and we pitched (Lovesick) to Meta,” Warning said.
The response? Crickets. For eight months.
“We thought it was dead in the water and then out of the blue we got an email from them and they said that the project had been greenlit for some funding,” he said.
Finding financial partners for games has been key to Rose City’s business model. Typically, game studios are funded through huge hit games, so the pressure for a hit is high. To balance out the volatility of hit game reliance, many small studios take on contract work that can be unrelated to games.
To avoid such contract work, Warning and co-founder Will Lewis built Rose City to focus on financial stability of all of their games. "Floppy Knights" debuted on Game Pass, meaning development costs were recouped on day one, Warning said. The game did well and the studio's title "Garden Story" has also gone up on Game Pass.
The Meta funding helped pay for much of the upfront design work on the game. Meta was also flexible on milestones to allow Rose City to finish up the release of "Floppy Knights" at the same time, said Warning. Partnering with Lyrical brought the game to the fully funded point.
The staff count at Rose City fluctuates based on projects. For "Lovesick" it is about a dozen people. Warning added that many Rose City team members have experience in bands and the music industry, and the game draws on those experiences.
“We set out to make something unlike anything we’ve seen in VR before and this has been many years coming,” said Lewis in a written statement. “This team has shown tremendous grit through this journey, pushing boundaries of what we can do and overcoming challenges to bring 'Lovesick' to life. It’s a culmination of our passion for genuine character-driven storytelling and satisfying puzzle development.”
