Flume Gorge In Winter
VR Review ★★★☆☆
Quest Link Free Travel Comfortable Stationary
Flume Gorge is a popular scenic geological feature in New Hampshire's White Mountains that's well worth a visit. In fact, living in New Hampshire as we do we're no stranger to the place as our hiking trail review at our sister site Trailspotting will attest. Although the park's entrance closes at the end of the season and the boardwalks are dismantled until the next year, explorers are still free to visit and its a place that's particularly memorable to visit after winter takes hold.
Flume Gorge In Winter is a virtual reality trip that allows you to visit the Gorge in winter conditions from the safety and warmth of your own home. Upon launch, you're presented with a realistic photogrammatic representation of Flume Gorge, complete with running water in the icy stream below.
From here you can use the trigger button to fly slowly from your current position in the direction of your gaze. Alternatively by clicking on one of the green dots around the landscape you'll be slowly transported to a point of interest that will often trigger a new viewpoint and reveal an animated ice climber, or a fast flowing stream of water. Immersive ambient sounds surround you, there's occasional music and frequent narration from the experiences' creator Luke Farrer who adds detail and context to the place.
Green markers indicate clickable points of interest.
We would have preferred a little more presentation and polish to the app, including a better menu and options to toggle the green markers and silence the narration. Flying around the Gorge produces a great effect, but this flight effect also employed in transitions when you select a green marker and that makes the transitions frustratingly slow at times. Also, snap-turning would have been a helpful addition, particularly since this is otherwise a suitable seated experience.
Perhaps this travel experience might have also delivered an even better sense of place if it included an introductory video or photography montage that describes Flume Gorge's place in the New Hampshire White Mountains, and also identifies the location of New Hampshire on a map. Thankfully for us we were already familiar, but some others will not know how to find this place. Regardless, Flume Gorge In Winter does a great job of conveying a sense of place with excellent animated photogrammetry and is well worth checking out.
Summary:
Excellent animated photogrammetry
Experience a place difficult to visit in winter
Short experience
Needs an introduction and menu polishSupported Languages:
English
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