That’s why ESL and Oculus have teamed up to make the VR Charity Challenge a reality. Follow two teams of streamers and influencers in a four-part YouTube series as they compete in four VR gaming challenges. Each team plays on behalf of a charity, and the winner will receive a $100,000 donation to the charity under its banner.
Leading team StackUp is veteran gamer Jon Sandman (John Sandman). He is joined by STPeach (ST Peach), Chilled Chaos (ChilledChaos), AustenMarie (Austen Marie), and Magnus Beasticus (TeamSASA). StackUp is a charity organization dedicated to helping soldiers who suffer from PTSD, depression, and distress after active duty. It aims to facilitate connections between supporters and veterans through gaming to elimite isolation and stigma. Key programs include gaming supply crates and sending veterans to attend exciting gaming events.
Opposing them is team TakeThis. Led by the enthusiastic Pamela Horton (Pamela Horton) and aided by Misses Mae (MissesMae), Panser (TradeChat), Matt Sohinki (Sohinki), and Lemming (LemmingVR), they’re looking to secure the $100,000 prize for the TakeThis charity, which focuses on supporting gamers’ mental health. TakeThis offers abundant resources that explains the nature of mental illnesses, as well as list the social stigmas against them. It also provide information that assist in self-coping and helping others cope.
The teams will compete in four VR games: Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, Face your Fears, Dead and Buried, and Creed: Rise to Glory. There’s a twist, however; each game is made extra difficult by modifiers from the “Wheel of Misfortune.”
The first trial is Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, a VR game where the player must rely on external instructions to diffuse a bomb. The team with the fastest diffuse time gets the win.
Team StackUp is off to a good start. Despite being pelted by Nerf darts thanks to the “under fire” effect, Jon Sandman is able to quickly eliminated three of the four puzzles with the precise guidance from his team. But in the final 30 seconds, Sandman has to rely on his own intuition and select which wire to cut. Fortunately, luck is on his side, and the bomb is safely defused with 11.51 seconds to spare.
Unfazed by their success, Take This team captain Pam Horton happily steps up to the challenge. While she easily clears the first two puzzles, the third set off alarms when she nipped the wrong wire. As the timer steadily approaches zero, her team scrambles to find the right page in the manual to dissolve the peril.
The victor of the first challenge will be revealed in the next episode. In addition, the teams will move onto Face your Fears, a game that immerses the players in their worst nightmares.
The VRCC series runs between December 13th to December 16th on Oculus and ESL social channels. Watch the action on Oculus Facebook, Oculus YouTube, Oculus Rift Facebook, and VR League Facebook.
