Adam

Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades, a.k.a. H3VR, is a virtual reality sandbox game designed for the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, Valve Index, and Windows Mixed Reality VR headsets. It has been one of the best-selling VR titles on Steam since it entered ‘Early Access’ in April 2016, and it is currently one of the top-rated Steam VR exclusives of all time.

H3VR is a darkly comedic satire of a game genre that treats people like meat. While the simulation behind H3VR's firearms is hyper-realistic, the game excludes 'realistic' representations of human violence. Instead, players battle anthropomorphic sausages (a.k.a. 'Sosigs') across over 20 levels, including parodies of Westworld, The Walking Dead, Team Fortress 2, and Saw.

Still from the exterior 'Arizona Range' in H3VR. This level is a favorite among fans who like to perform trick-shots. Well-known streamer Jeditobiwan's Arizona Range trick-shots video has been viewed over 1.5 million times on YouTube.
Boomski! is a cross between Skee-ball and Boom Blox, and is one of the oldest levels in H3VR. Players bowl with grenades, attempting to time explosions to knock down as many blocks as possible.
Pictured here is just one of the many ranges in H3VR, where fans often spend hours on target practice.
This is the interior entrance of the library at Occidental College, where H3VR was exhibited in late October of 2018. Students and community members alike were able to try the Halloween-themed level, Rise of the Rotweiners, which had just been released.
Here a student prepares to hack an undead hotdog apart in Rise of the Rotweiners, a parody of properties like The Walking Dead, where players can explore an entire town, talk to its inhabitants, and help them as they try to survive the zombie sausage apocalypse.
In the Spring of 2018, H3VR was exhibited in Valve's private area at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, CA.
H3VR was shown to a variety of industry professionals and members of the press, while it was installed in Valve's booth at GDC 2018.

I am the lead writer and narrative director for the project, and also contribute as a level designer, worldbuilder, and voice actor. Development of Hot Dogs, Horseshoes, and Hand Grenades is still going strong after seven years, but the game may finally leave Early Access in late 2024.

This is the launch trailer for Meat Fortress, a narrative team-based combat level in H3VR. It is a parody of the videogame Team Fortress 2, and contains hundreds of lines of dialogue spoken by nine different characters. Meat Fortress was released on 28 June 2019, alongside the launch of the Valve Index VR HMD.
 
This is the trailer for WurstWurld, a narrative adventure level in H3VR that contains over two hours of gameplay. It is a parody of the television property Westworld, and takes place sometime in the future in a defunct and dangerous theme park located somewhere in the American Midwest. WurstWurld was released on 30 June 2017.

Awards and Honors

Press

  • Ars Technica, Destructoid, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Polygon, PC Gamer, Road to VR, TechRaptor, Tom’s Hardware, UploadVR, VentureBeat, VR Fitness Insider, and others.
  • YouTube reviews and playthroughs of H3VR have been viewed over 50 million times (as of Oct. 2019).
  • The H3VR subreddit has over 33,000 subscribers (as of Nov. 2023).

“[H3VR] proves how powerful a medium virtual reality can be for encountering something that may make you uncomfortable in real life, in a way that’s completely safe.” -- Ben Kuchera, Polygon

Adam