Raindance Immersive 2020 concluded just over a week ago, showcasing some great virtual reality (VR) content. This past weekend the festival held its awards event, celebrating immersive projects across 10 categories with winners including well-known titles such as Paper Beast and more obscure offerings.

This year’s event was held across HTC’s Viveport and VRChat, with the latter also playing host to the digital awards ceremony, just like the VR Awards, Venice VR Expanded and other events.

Raindance Immersive 2020 Winners:

• Best Narrative Experience – The Under Presents: Tempest (Tender Claws) – A live, interactive VR show inspired by Shakespeare’s famed tale.
• Best Documentary Experience – Fly – (Picture This Productions) – Become a time-travelling pilot, from Leonardo da Vinci’s ornithopter, to the potential future of flight.
• Best Animation Experience – Paper Birds (3DAR) – A story about a short-sighted child with an exceptional talent for music.
• Best Immersive Game – The Devouring (Lakuza, Fionna, CyanLaser and Legends) – A four-player VR horror experience created and based entirely inside social platform VRChat.
• Best Multiplayer Experience – Dr. Crumb’s School For Disobedient Pets (Adventure Lab) – A live escape room suitable for 2-4 players.
• Discovery Award: Best Debut – Rinlo (Gurashop) – A puzzle adventure set inside a steampunk dystopia.
• Best Immersive World – The Devouring (Lakuza, Fionna, CyanLaser and Legends)
• Outstanding Achievement in Art – Paper Beast (Pixel Reef) – Venture into an environmental puzzler with and ecosystem borning from big data.
• Outstanding Achievement in Audio – Paper Beast (Pixel Reef)
• Outstanding Achievement in Design – Dr. Crumb’s School For Disobedient Pets (Adventure Lab)
• Spirit of Raindance Award – Scarecrow VRC (Sngmoo Lee and Jihyun Jung) A theatrical VR experience with a live actor for up to three players where they have to save the scarecrow.
• Spirit of Raindance Honourable Mention – VRChat Community

“This year Virtual Reality has grown more than ever,” said Raindance Immersive curator Mária Rakušanová in a statement. “From AAA games with mind-bending physics, to virtual theatre performances with live actors and full-body tracked avatars, we’ve seen a huge expansion of innovation and creativity. We’re living in unprecedented times. When we’re unable to gather in person, VR has turned social distancing into ‘social instancing’, bringing us all closer together.”

Should this forced trend into the realm of digital events continue in 2021, VRFocus will bring you all the latest details.