The Night Cafe

Vincent van Gogh is one of the most recognized painters who ever lived, right up there with Michelangelo, da Vinci and Monet. Granted, people also know about him because of the story of how he cut off his own ear, but that doesn’t make his work any less important. In fact, you may be able to immerse yourself in his work a lot easier nowadays.

The Night Cafe is a fun little game designed to be enjoyed with a virtual reality headset, in which you get to explore Vincent van Gogh’s paintings from a first-person point of view. Hence, it should be much easier to experience his genius and get lost in the painting, especially since you do not have to stare at an actual canvas, or at your monitor in case you cannot get to the museum.

Naturally, the three-dimensional models used to recreate the environments are extrapolated from van Gogh’s actual painting, but they are obviously not perfect. On the other hand, impressionism was not based on precise lines and realistic shapes, so it doesn’t really matter. Thus, the main goal of the game is to help you get lost in the atmosphere and maybe look at the paintings in a different light.

Although you can admire the cafe scene, the famous chair, and the sunflowers, you can also see van Gogh himself walk around his paintings, which is a nice touch from the developers. You can also look out the window and see the famous starry night, and even visit the cellar for a few more surprises. For such a small game, there are quite a few surprises included.

As far as the graphics are concerned, the designers managed to recreate the unique style used by van Gogh in his paintings, which is mainly thanks to the great textures and the shading technique. The actual 3D modeling is top notch as well, at least if you are a fan of impressionism. On the other hand, the area open to exploration is incredibly small, which means that you’ll quickly see everything there is to see. However, when are you truly done looking at a painting?

In the end, The Night Cafe is a breath of fresh air in the industry, since there’s barely anything like it out there. The whole thing is that much more exciting in VR, and it’s a brilliant way to test your Oculus Rift headset.