A hard first-person platformer and shooter where a cactus cowboy jumps through nine levels and three boss fights to rescue a kidnapped cactus princess.
Cactus Cowboy Land VR is a shooter and jump-and-run platformer from Cactus VR Studios. As the Cactus Cowboy, you set out with a revolver to rescue a cactus princess kidnapped by the villain Horst Weizenecker and his robot army. It is distributed through SideQuest, where it was first listed in October 2020.
How it plays
This is a first-person platformer with full 6DoF movement, where precise jumps matter as much as accurate shooting. The developer made it deliberately difficult and estimates one to two hours of play depending on skill. Content includes:
- Three worlds with nine levels of rising difficulty.
- Three boss fights and two hidden easter egg levels.
- Guns, dynamite and record players.
- A death counter in the hand menu.
- A harder Gunslinger Mode, where you open the gun barrel by holding reload and shaking the controller.
- A left-handed mode with matching controls and haptics.
Once you finish a level, you can replay it from a list in the hand menu, which also makes the secret levels easier to find. The developer has published a full playthrough video to prove the game can be beaten. It was the developer's first VR and Unity game, built with original, public domain and Creative Commons assets.
Comfort
This is not a game for VR newcomers. The developer states there are no comfort options and none will be added, and suggests that anyone who copes with Boneworks should manage this one too. Expect a real risk of motion sickness in VR if you are sensitive to artificial movement.
How to get it and what to know
- Price: free, and the developer says it will stay freeware.
- Installed from SideQuest; see sideloading on Meta Quest.
- No other stores are listed, though the developer mentions a PC VR version on itch.io.
- Supported headsets: Meta Quest headsets such as the Quest 3 and Quest 3S.
- Rated 4.7 out of 5 by 37 SideQuest users.
