Polyarc made its debut on one of gaming’s biggest stages.
At Sony’s press conference from the big E3 video game show in Los Angeles on Monday, Seattle-based Polyarc lifted the hood off its first title, Moss, a new single-player action-adventure virtual reality puzzle game for the PlayStation VR platform.
Moss lets players work together with Quill, a young mouse who explores a forest settlement, through a series of puzzles and games.
“As gamers, we’ve been conditioned for years to hold a gamepad in our laps when playing games, letting our thumbs and fingers do the controlling,” Polyarc co-founder Danny Bulla said in a statement. “It has been a great experience to create an immersive game that encourages players to reach into and interact with a tactile world.”
Bulla founded Polyarc in 2015 with Tam Armstrong and Chris Alderson. All three are veterans of Bungie, the Seattle-area company behind the hugely-popular Destiny game.
Polyarc, which employs 15 people, raised a $3.5 million round this past September led by China-based UCCVR, with participation from Colopl VR Fund and Vulcan Capital. It is one of many new up-and-coming virtual reality startups in the Seattle area. Others include Envelop VR, Pluto VR, Pixvana, VRStudios, VREAL, Endeavor One, AxonVR, Nullspace VR, and several others. Those are in addition to larger companies like Microsoft, Valve, HTC, and Oculus that also are developing virtual and augmented reality technologies in the region.
