Sandbox VR — Restaurant in Birmingham

Been to Sandbox three times now, and have some mixed feelings about the experience.

The venue itself is well appointed and certainly looks the part. The lobby, bar area, and game rooms, all look great, with a smart industrial vibe. The place is still relatively new, and none of the furnishings are broken, damaged, or worn out. The seating is reasonably comfortable, however not so much that you would want to actively hang out there.

That's a shame, as the venue is pretty well equipped, with a proper bar, as well as a MAKR SHAKR cocktail machine. The latter is actually reasonably efficient in accurately dispensing cocktails, and is certainly an interesting gimmick. For anyone not used to seeing industrial robots, it will no doubt be a fun experience to watch it prepare drinks.

The experience of arriving and getting into a game is very good. The staff are polite and attentive, and the terminals in the lobby area make it very simple to get an account set up. It doesn't take a long time, and it's really easy. After moving into the game area, you will be outfitted with a haptic vest, headset, and peripherals by the staff. They are professional and quick to do this, however, on all three visits, they neglected to mention the IPD adjustment dial on the headset. Mine was set to MAXIMUM, and had I not known this was incorrect, I would have suffered extremely poor visuals throughout the experiences. This is a major issue, and I would strongly suggest Sandbox implements a short tutorial on how to properly self adjust the headset before play begins.

The equipment is a mixed bag, and in some cases the worst part of the experience. The headsets are of good quality (HTC Vive Focus 3?) and aside from the IPD issue, I had no problem at all with the ones I used. Likewise the vests and peripherals worked well and really enhance the experience. The real letdown is the back-end equipment doing the processing.

To date I have tried 3 games at Sandbox; Deadwood Mansion, Seekers of the Shard: Dragonfire, and Squid Game Virtuals. Deadwood is the most basic (and I think oldest) of the three, but ultimately delivered the best experience, because it was the best matched to the capabilities of the hardware. The graphics were not particularly sharp or realistic, and the entire experience takes place in one room, but the tracking was solid throughout and overall it was a very enjoyable experience. While the other two were much more ambitious, and still entertaining, the hardware is just not up to the task, with blurry visuals, and much worse, terrible input lag, which for games which really take advantage of the full body tracking, is not good at all.

As someone that's a huge VR fan, it's really easy to see the flaws in this experience. While the social aspect is great, and something not easily replicated at home, consumer VR devices like the Quest 3 are increasingly creating a standard of visuals and responsiveness which Sandbox is currently a long way from reaching. It's unfortunate that the hardware running the actual experience is not up to scratch, but the (usually empty) bar area is equipped with a £100k drink mixing robot...

Prices seem to have come down since I first visited Sandbox, to a level where I would potentially want to visit more often. As someone that lives locally, I would be able to easily take advantage of their off peak pricing, which is pretty reasonable. As it stands though, while it's hard to overstate how much I would like this to work, it's even harder to overlook the hardware issues, and I will be putting off my next visit until they do...

We recently visited Sandbox VR, and while the overall experience was fun and unique, there were definitely a few things that could have been improved, especially for first-timers.

When we arrived, we waited around 10 minutes before getting started. During this time, we were asked to sign a waiver and input our email addresses into the iPads so they could send us a video of our session afterwards, which was a nice touch that we were looking forward to.

Before entering the VR room, we were fitted with sensors on our ankles and wrists. The website does advise wearing light clothing as the room gets quite warm with all the movement involved, but I had worn an abaya. This caused a bit of a hassle, as I had to lift the whole abaya to ensure the ankle sensors weren’t covered. My sleeves were also quite loose, and they kept slipping over the wrist sensors throughout the experience, which was quite frustrating. It would have been really helpful if they’d shown a short informational video beforehand explaining how the experience works and how the gear is worn. We went in completely blind, and had I known what to expect, I would’ve worn something more suitable.

After gearing up, we entered the room, which was spacious and well set up. However, the games began immediately, there was NO practice round or demo to ease us in. This was a major downside, as none of us had done VR before and we spent the first 15-20 minutes confused and trying to figure things out. There were only around five games in total, and we had only just got the hang of it by the time we reached game three. So by the time we were enjoying ourselves — games four and five — it was already over. The whole experience lasted about 35–40 minutes, which flew by. Unfortunately, because we spent so much of that time just getting used to it, it really only felt like 15–20 minutes of actual gameplay.

It would’ve made a huge difference if there had been a short practice round before the actual games began — especially for people new to VR. That said, once we got the hang of it, the games were genuinely fun and immersive.

The experience ended with us sitting down and rewatching our experience as it’s recorded, this was the highlight of the experience! We were also emailed all of the clips which we loved!

Overall, I’d recommend Sandbox VR — but only if you’ve had some VR experience before. For newcomers, it feels like a bit of a waste of money, since you spend half the time just trying to get comfortable with the controls. With a few improvements, especially around onboarding and clothing guidance, this could be a truly...

The whole venue is set up to take you on a journey. The atmosphere is fantastic, and the screams and shouts from players in games add to the whole thing. You are greatest by one of the fantastic and enthusiastic staff who guide you through the log in system, ( which is the quickest I've ever been through) []add your real email you'll be thankful you did]

You are the guided to table with a tablet and contact less pay point. This acts as your access to "Tony" the Robot bar tender. Its a bit special watching your drink being made by a robot, it's neither slow or over priced and well worth the experience.

As you enjoy your drinks a member of will come over and make sure they have everything to tailor your game experience including what weapons you are wanting to use.

Once you are ready, you go through the awesome tunnel that feels like a portal to another time.

Your operator will help you get your feedback vests on, and also 4 funky looking things for your wrists and ankles. ( I was worried these might get in the way, but honestly didn't know I was wearing them.)

Then into the room for a very quick run down of the features and then you are assisted in putting on your head set. This is the best VR I've used, other vr is prone to shadows and ghosting, and it's heavy. Or never seems to perfectly focus. NO such problems with this kit, it's light and focused perfectlt. But should you have a problem your operator sorts it very quickly. Your are then transported into a white area, looks like the construct in the matrix movie. Your operator will hand you your weapons and you get a basic tuition on how it all works, like how to reload and revive your team mates.

Then into the games. I'm not going to say much about them for fear of spoiling the surprises but you will soon be adding to the screams you heard on entry, as you are wearing a noise cancelling headset, you can hear you mates clearly but don't realise just how loud you are.

The session is half an hour, it does not feel like it, but you will be exhausted, afterwards you get taken to a lounge area where you are able to get a drink whilst you watch the brilliant highlight reel of you doing the thing.

This video is emailed to you and is great to share and show what it was.

An absolute fantastic time, really worth every penny.

As Arnold says,...