Psyche 60s Interactive Experience

VR Review ★★☆☆☆‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎ ‎
Quest Uncommon Comfortable Stationary

The image shows a colorful and stylized scene with a purple sky, pink clouds, and a vibrant landscape. In the foreground, there’s a large green elephant sculpture on the left and a film camera on the right. The center features an animated Victorian-style house with exaggerated proportions, floating above a checkered ground. Above the house, text reads “Psyche 60s,” suggesting a 1960s psychedelic theme.

Late 1960s San Francisco became famous as center of psychedelic subculture, intersecting hallucinogenic drugs with beat poetry and musical genres that had blossomed in the area. The virtual reality experience Psyche 60s has been created by noted local 1960's band photographer Roberto Rabanne as a "unique collection of artwork, original music soundtracks, and rich historical insights that took place."

We expected Psyche 60s to either be an altered-state visualization of the period, or possibly an interpretation of the events of the time, drawing on the creator's personal experiences and those of the people around him. Unfortunately we get neither, and instead have a wasted opportunity that has little meaningful content.

The experience comprises two locations. The first is a colorful garden laden with simple graphics that feature Alice In Wonderland imagery, topiary animals, a dynamic color-changing Victorian period house and a Golden Gate Bridge backdrop. You can teleport and snap-turn around the garden if you like, though you can already see the full extent of the grounds from your initial vantage point.

The image shows a digitally rendered room with a vibrant and eclectic design. The ceiling has a swirling pattern of bright colors, predominantly green and purple. The walls have various wallpapers, including a red pattern and a blue fabric texture with cartoon-like yellow eyes. There’s an ornate chandelier, a classic brown sofa, and artwork on the walls. The room has multiple doorways without doors, suggesting openness or transition to other spaces.

Inside the San Francisco Victorian house.

The interior of the house is the second location, but before heading over there you're invited to view a small television that cycles through a slideshow of images. Unfortunately the images transition constantly so there's barely an opportunity to understand what were seeing.

Upon entering the period Victorian house we move into a large area that bears no relation to it's facade. Inside is one large hall with every floor, wall and ceiling decorated in garish patterns and colors. On the walls are pictures of historical figures either responsible for the creation or popularization of LSD, or representing musical artists and poets of the era. There's information about the subject of every picture, but that information is very brief and decidedly pro-drugs. We'd suggest that you get much more information from the Wikipedia page, better written and with a clean layout rather than the unmitigated mess that is this app's visual style.

We do have some good things to say - we do like the soundtrack of original music, which artfully leans very heavily on some existing very well known late 1960s songs without tripping into copyright problems. However, we'definitely recommend skipping this app for sure. There is a demo version that you can download if you're still curious, but it's not much different from the YouTube trailer that we embedded below.

The image shows a room with floral wallpaper and a framed picture of a live performance by “The Grateful Dead.” The frame is ornate with red and green accents. Below the picture are symbols for information and pause.

The image shows a room with floral wallpaper and a framed picture of a live performance by “The Grateful Dead.” The frame is ornate with red and green accents. Below the picture are symbols for information and pause.

Exhibits inside the house are visually confusing and hold little content.

Summary:

Apt soundtrack reminiscent of the period

Contains little to describe the psychedelic scene

Pro-LSD messages, no balance

Short experience

Supported Languages:
English

External Links:
YouTube|Trailer

Product Links:

$1.99 at Meta Quest Store
Get the app here and it will appear on your Quest headset.