Join gaming leaders live this May 20-21 in Los Angeles to examine the strategies needed to adapt and excel in an ever evolving landscape, featuring insights from leading voices and thought leaders in the industry. Register here.
Vinci Games has launched its virtual reality basketball game Blacktop Hoops on the Meta Quest Store, Pico and Steam.
The game is built for players who dream of dunking like their favorite basketball players, and Vinci Games describes it as a vibrant, streetball-inspired VR basketball experience that takes players to the courts. The launch trailer can be viewed here.
The studio itself was backed by Makers Fund, Y Combinator and Twitch Co-Founder Kevin Lin. Blacktop Hoops was a breakout hit on App Lab as the No. 1-rated App Lab title with over 16,000 reviews, a 4.9 rating and over 1 million players across Steam and Quest pre-launch.
Players partake in a campaign mode featuring 12 unique streetball legends across four iconic streetball courts in Oakland, Los Angeles, New York and Athens. At the end of their journey to become the GOAT, players have a final showdown against world dunk champion Jordan Kilganon.
GB Event
Countdown to GamesBeat Summit
Secure your spot now and join us in LA for an unforgettable two days experience exploring the theme of resilience and adaptation. Register today to guarantee your seat!
Register Here
For multiplayer fans, players can hit the courts in casual 1vs1, 2vs2, 3vs3 or 4vs4 matches or climb the rankings in skill-based matchmaking across 9 ranks and 21 divisions.
“As lifelong basketball players, we were obsessed with building the perfect VR basketball game,” said Vinci Games CEO Nathaniel Ventura, in a statement. “We believe we’ve been able to build a truly immersive VR basketball game rooted in authentic basketball culture and gameplay not seen since NBA 2K. Whether you’re a casual basketball fan or a hardcore hooper, Blacktop Hoops is designed with intuitive but hard to master mechanics. You can have tons of fun playing solo, with friends or competitively against the best VR ballers in the world.”
Players can ball out in a variety of game modes, honing their skills in eight training modes, including stealing, blocking, dribbling, shooting and a three-point shootout mode. In VS AI, they can train in 1vs1 or 2vs2 matches against realistic AI bots with unique move sets and tendencies driven by over 800 motion-captured basketball animations. The game also features a CourtCam mode, letting players play through the campaign in first person or a new third person top down mode.
One of the biggest additions is a new customizable avatar system. Players have access to over 600 customizations including body type, faces, skin color, shirts, emotes, sneakers, glasses, shirts and more. Players can mix and match cosmetics to build their perfect avatar with millions of possible combinations. Similarly, players can remix their single player experience with eight different modifiers in game such as big head, slow-motion, giant opponents, mega jump and chicken ball to create fresh and hilarious gameplay moments.
The game costs $30 and is fully cross-platform. The company was founded by Ventura, who led world-class developer programs at Oculus, Google, and Unity, and CTO Maciej Szcześnik, the lead gameplay designer at CD Projekt Red for the award-winning Witcher series.