Sparc

CCP makes a play for the first ‘vsport’.

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From Speedball to Discs Of Tron, game designers have long experimented with sports that lie beyond the bounds of current technology. Sparc, the Icelandic publisher CCP’s first non-spaceship-based virtual reality project, is the latest in the lineage, weaving DNA from a variety of physical and digital sources. The high-walled court of squash combines with baseball’s three-strikes rule; the back and forth of tennis is couched in the futuristic styling of 2001’s Cosmic Smash, one of the few titles released by Sega Rosso, that short-lived arcade division headed by Sega Rally’s Kenji Sasaki. These familiar ingredients combine to create something familiar, yet otherworldly.

It’s a two player game, which CCP Atlanta wincingly describes as the first ‘vsport’, since the studio intends it to become a competitive and spectator-friendly sport for the still-nascent VR scene. The rules are straightforward, but nevertheless initially bewildering when experienced first hand. Players face one another from the ends of a long, narrow court. Each holds a ball and the objective is, in simple terms, to throw the projectile with the aim of striking your opponent’s body. The ball can be spun and curved with flicks of the wrist, while its speed is set by the force of your throwing motion. In other words, clear your front room.

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