Good virtual reality is discovered constantly and most people just need directions so they can get there. This new section of Good Virtual Reality collects projects that push the medium forward. Like pins in a map, the collection aims to help those exploring VR in headsets navigate the impossibly large stretches between points of interest.

Developers receive a badge to certify their work and if you have recommendations for the collection you can email editor at goodvirtualreality dot com.

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Dozens of artists who persist today in their ongoing discovery of Good VR credit their early experience in Titans of Space with inspiring them to pursue all manner of spatial design. The Iranian developer Sahand Malaei, one of the creators of Banners & Bastions, recently described the work during a Good VR podcast episode.

“I remember there was this moment where I was flying close to the sun and I remember like just seeing how massive it was and how small I was and just knowing that this was an experience that could only happen in VR,” Malaei said. “I actually cried.”

So say we all. The work is proof not just that the space for discovery in VR is much larger than the focus of gaming by Oculus, but that our understanding of reality itself is constrained by the mediums of the past.

Every classroom in the world would be better with a VR headset in the room locked to the opening scene of Titans of Space and its representation of the Earth, moon and sun at one-millionth their actual scale. You can spend 20 seconds grounded in a virtual spaceship and understand not just how small the moon is in comparison to the Earth, but simply turn your head to look at the sun in three dimensions and you’ll immediately understand how incredibly large the sun is burning in our sky.

The world should be filled with more scientists, astronomers, and explorers unconstrained by the inanity of modern life fed to them by screens, books, and social feeds, and all they need to see the enormous potential floating just out of sight above their heads is to experience DrashVR’s use of scale conveyed by three dimensions.

Titans of Space remains a timeless example of the enduring power of VR to expand the human mind. Though Valve, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, Pico, and Google rushed across different periods to apply their business development to wide field of view optics in VR, most of them racing to the bottom in their own way in an attempt to establish themselves as the ground floor of everything you see and hear, Titans of Space exists as proof that you will never need a platform to stand on to have a good VR experience except one made by a single person inspired by an idea they’ve learned to express with a head-tracked 3D display.

Titans of Space remains one of the best VR experiences ever made and is one of the first to be formally certified with a Good Virtual Reality badge.

Developers studied Bad North and Thronefall as well as the dome used in Airspace Defender and then made an experience that respects players in ways few games do in VR headsets.

“We had this idea of building this prototype and worked on it for three months and it turned out to be a lot of fun,” Sahand Malaei said on the Good VR podcast. “It was an experience that worked best in XR as opposed to its flat screen inspiration.”

Banners raise high above the battlefield so grabbing one to reposition troops still gives line of sight to the action below. As the battle progresses, with forces invading from different directions, getting a better angle on the action is a light gesture from the sides of the volume to rotate the board or simply lean in to see if the archers raising their bows to the sky have enough clearance to hit their targets reliably.

Banners & Bastions can and should share space with your physical reality as well as other minimalist works of mixed reality, like Thomas Van Bouwel’s Cubism, and the brilliance of its design challenges hardware manufacturers and operating system designers to rise to the occasion and make space for work like this to flourish as it should.