Dimensional Double Shift Sporelando DLC Impressions: Teamwork Makes The Dream Work

Dimensional Double Shift, a free-to-play multiplayer hand tracking job simulator, released its third paid add-on, Florida-inspired Sporelando, on Meta Quest. I took three friends who were new to the game into the swampy confines for some co-op hijinks.

Job Simulator recently celebrated its tenth anniversary and to this day remains a mainstay in the top sales categories for its VR platforms. When I first played DDS’ Sporelando and chatted with Owlchemy Labs ‘CEOwl’ Andrew Eiche at the Game Developers Conference, one of the things we spoke about was getting back to basics with DDS.

Owlchemy Labs has evolved its winning formula as VR itself has evolved, with more sophisticated movement systems and improvements in alternative control methods like hand tracking.

Dimensional Double Shift represents the next step forward in that evolution. Eiche has been outspoken about his support for hand tracking and sees it as a necessity for mainstream adoption. Conversely, he talked to us about pulling back the free movement systems introduced in Vacation Simulator and Cosmonious High as they hindered the gameplay loop.

I kept all that in mind when I recruited three friends to join me in DDS’ latest paid add-on, Sporelando. Dimensional Double Shift’s fourth world riffs on the retirement golf community vibes of central Florida after similar send ups of other cultures in Treeatle (world coffee capital Seattle), Hexas (cowboy-inspired Texas), and New Joysey (New Jersey). The latter two, along with Sporelando, are available as a $4.99 add-on to the base free-to-play experience in Treeatle. In a move for wider adoption and replayability, only one player needs to own any of the add-ons for a full group to play.

Treeatle remains the base experience and I was on a review build, so I did need to run through the two Treeatle modules before Sporelando opened up to me. Bear in mind, I had already played the DLC with Eiche who, for the sake of time, gave clear direction to our media group on completing the various tasks. This is a fairly common practice in demo sessions where time is limited and we want to experience as much of the game as possible.

For this new session, I sat back and watched the learning process of my three friends with minimal intervention, just to see how intuitive it is. DDS’s core gameplay loop consists of choosing from two different jobs: a vehicle repair shop and a diner. My father’s side of the family is based in east-central Florida, so loading into Sporelando felt like a trip to a region I’m all too familiar with. The environment is populated with satirical billboards and a general atmosphere that nails central Florida. We started in the repair shop and I immediately picked up on the difference between DDS and other co-op experiences in VR.

A clunker of a golf cart driven by a cantankerous mushroom-like golfer eager to get back on the course pulled in to our repair bay. Everyone on the team immediately grabbed the handles in front of us and tried to lift it, independent of one another. It didn’t budge at first, and this was the first of many lessons DDS teaches. It’s not simply that all four of us exist in the same space. Teamwork is a key part of this game. This runs counter to many other co-op experiences where teamwork is optional. In shooters like Forefront or dungeon crawlers like Dungeons of Eternity, it helps to communicate, but players are fine to go rogue and do their own thing with only the possibility of failure.

DDS is different. Here, failure is guaranteed if you do not communicate with your team. This led to a few moments of frustration amongst the team as this lesson was made painfully apparent. Resolution Games’ Cook-Out: A Sandwich Tale is the best comparison to DDS’ gameplay.

After we lifted the hood, all four of us were presented with small mini-game like ‘repairs’ to make. I watched as all three other players started speaking to themselves trying to figure out how to solve each riddle. I myself was presented with one side of a map location puzzle that had me confused until I remembered that most of these modules have two sides to them and require two players to complete. One by one, everyone figured this concept out.

• “Hey, we need to both pull this crank to power up the engine.”
• “Okay, I get it. I can see where the slider needs to be on my side. Turn it to the left until I say stop. Wait, not your left, my left! Your right. I mean turn to your right.”
• “Okay, put marker at the valley. I have the map here. It’s in the upper left. Oh, my slider controls up and down. Yours controls left and right. I get it.”

Ten minutes or so later, the fungal cart owner was off to the links. We did another vehicle, this time much faster, then moved into the diner.

Here, orders come in on a carousel with ingredients to prepare and serve. Again, products and equipment have to be shared here. I shared a chargrill with one player and a meat grinder with another. Ingredients needed to be passed from one station to another. The lessons from the cart repair shop had to be relearned here. After grabbing our tickets, there were brief moments of confusion when the necessary ingredients to complete a ticket were not available in that player’s station. Again, the cycle of confusion to frustration to understanding to completion played itself out.

This module worked less well because it requires more precision from the hand tracking to properly place items. Players in VR are used to moving relatively quickly with controllers, so the lesson here was to slow down. Even with this, the hand tracking lets down a few interactions. Getting a product into the grinder was painful and passing the chunks of fish or cooked meat to another player did not work several times. Sometimes an item would just blast off into orbit, a la the janky physics of some sandbox games.

Eventually we just placed the needed items closer to the other player, who picked them up from the counter. This was easier than a direct hand off, something that has never felt great in VR, but when using hand tracking, it was a natural feeling interaction. Like “I am using my hands, so I should be able to just hand this to him/her.” Unfortunately, as far as hand tracking has come, it’s not quite there yet. Handing an item off was hit and miss. Movements have to be more precise and that feels like it hampers a player who knows what to do and wants to move faster than the hand tracking will allow for.

This is not necessarily Dimensional Double Shift’s fault. It felt more like a technical failure of the system more so than DDS’ usage of it. More than once, my friends lamented the lack of controllers, a common refrain I’ve heard in hand tracked games like Silhouette and Grokit. As hand tracking continues to improve, I would imagine this friction just fades away. Time and experience will benefit games like Dimensional Double Shift that can continue to experiment and iterate with different interactions as the technology itself continues to improve.

After our two shifts, we were rewarded with new cosmetics and funny superlative certificates, a nice touch that elicited a humorous reaction when one player did not get the moniker she was expecting. We wrapped up our time in Sporelando roasting hot dogs and marshmallows over a campfire adjacent to the job selector board, recapping what we had just done and laughing about a few interactions that went off the rails. By the end, it felt less like a game and more like four friends just hanging out in VR. The social aspect of Dimensional Double Shift is spot on and even with the moments of frustration, we were all laughing by the end.

This is where DDS delivers on, to use Eiche’s phrase, “the promise of VR.” That is, meeting the expectations of the player with minimal friction. Hand tracking jank aside, DDS gets the job done, with room to improve just from hardware and tracking advancements alone.

Dimensional Double Shift is available free to play on Quest and Android XR, with the Sporelando and other add-ons available for $4.99 each.