Virtual Reality Eindhoven @ Enversed

Enversed Virtual Reality Eindhoven

How cool is Eindhoven? Well, very… Besides it being the home of High-Tech industry and design, there are lots of cool things to see and do. For example, in one of my exploring city walks I entered the Veem-building. Already home to the ‘Vershal ’t Veem‘, a market hall with food stands, I discovered interesting stuff on the other floors. One floor is frequently used for design purposes, another floor has an agro-tech setup by Aquaponics, where plants are being grown in ultraviolet looking light and with the help of trouts. Yes trouts, as in the fish. ? It’s like a small eco-system over on the fifth floor. Really cool if you can pop by to look it up.

Besides the design, the eco-system and a floor with expositions and two others used for design, there is a Virtual Reality Center called Enversed, where each room is set up as a private dojo, You can eat, drink and play VR games. Once I set foot in here, I knew I was coming back one day to go and play.

Well the day has come. I am here with one of my best friends and we are set up for an hour of virtual reality fun. Here we go!!!

Me and my friend had a go for one hour with two VR-glasses, giving us more than enough time to enjoy the experience. We had a host helping us out with all the games and on how the electronics worked. He was very patient, nice and really helped us on our way.
We tried different games, from shooting with bow and arrow, shooters, games that needed more hand eye coordination than we had, and a game making hamburgers together. They were all fun and needed different skills. The games are either single player, or you can play against each other. My personal favourite was a 3D version of Space Invaders, where all kinds of alien drones were attacking the base and you had to get rid of them. I had a blast playing this really cool game and I was moving like a pro, my friend said afterwards laughing…

It was really amazing what you see (and feel) when you start wearing the VR-glasses. You are instantly drawn into that VR world, and you forget everything around you. When I stepped into the first game, I had to take it all in for the first two minutes. This world was really beautifully made, and looked very much like real life. There was a beautiful moon and a great scenery in which you could practice your first VR- moves. Breathtaking…

Besides gaming, you can get all kinds of non-alcoholic drinks and Enversed offers special dinners for larger groups. Great for an outing with your team from work, but also very cool to do with some friends. Enversed is open 6 days a week, besides monday and usually opens at 11 o clock in the morning. When Enversed opened, it was one of the biggest Virtual Reality game centers in Europe and it shows.The VR center has about seven rooms, that can host about 8 people maximum at the same time. Enversed is planning on opening some more Virtual Reality centers in the Netherlands, but Eindhoven is their startup city. An interesting fact is that they create most of their games themselves, so it’s part game-studio, part game center. You can start off with a 30 minute time window or do specific games you want to play for a longer period of time. Check out Enversed’s website for more information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Enversed is situated in the old ‘forbidden city’ of Philips called Strijp S, and besides VR gaming there is an artspace museum, an arthouse movie theatre, shops and several good restaurants in the area. This area is really worth a visit and you can check out my favorite Strijp S hotspots here.

Well you’ll just have to go and see for yourself and try this amazing hotspot at Strijp S. Have fun and enjoy your first VR-experience!