Electric Nightmares

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Jack your feet in with Cybershoes

Shoes not included

Imagine stepping into cyberspace in meatshoes. The horror. All the cybermen will point at those useless nonvirtual feet flapping all jigglephysicsed at the end of your legs and laugh. The cyberbouncer won't even let you jack in: no shirt, no cybershoes; no net service.

Cyberpals, rest easy. You can now blast your bytecoins at Cybershoes, a new controller for VR games which strap onto your shoes to let you move around in cyberspace by moving your feet irl. They really are named Cybershoes. They've already hit their Kickstarter crowdfunding goal, so we can sit comfortably and enjoy these GIFs of people enjoying wearing Cybershoes.

I have spent several minutes watching this fella chew gum while legging it around Whiterun in Skyrim, and tbh I'll sack off half the afternoon watching him go.


(Click to play all these, obvs.)

Cybershoes have rollers in their soles, see, which detect movement against carpet as you stroke it with your feet. Yes, you need carpet, and yes should be seated on a spinny chair. But they do work, our Katharine thought when she tried Cybershoes at Gamescom in August.

"It's a weird sensation, cycling your feet around while sitting down, and for several minutes it felt like my Cybershoes had been secretly swapped out for a pair of rollerskates – one step sending me careering towards the opposite end of the room at 100 miles an hour," she said. "I eventually got my head round it – all too close to the end of my demo, unfortunately – but even that brief lightbulb moment was enough to confirm that they're a much more natural (not to mention less tiring) mode of moving around in virtual reality than, say, walking on the spot standing up, or using one of those aforementioned treadmills."

The Cybershoes Kickstarter campaign has already blown past its goal of €30,000 (about £26k) in less than one week, now up past €158k (£139k-ish). The campaign is partially to pre-order Cybershoes (and fund making them), with pairs available from €163 (£143), but also to fund development of new features. They hope to add support for crouching and even jumping.

I must point out that certain pledge tiers also include a "Cybercarpet" perfect for use with the gadget. CYBERCARPET! That's not even me creating that name; they did. They named these products Cybershoes and Cybercarpet.

I cannot get enough of their pitch video. Cybershoes.

Get your mates round for a laugh, with CYBERSHOES.

CYBERSHOES!

I'm so happy they're named Cybershoes.

So damn happy.

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About the Author
Alice O'Connor avatar

Alice O'Connor

Associate Editor

Alice has been playing video games since SkiFree and writing about them since 2009, with nine years at RPS. She enjoys immersive sims, roguelikelikes, chunky revolvers, weird little spooky indies, mods, walking simulators, and finding joy in details. Alice lives, swims, and cycles in Scotland.

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