A Compelling Mixed Reality Adventure

Imagine transforming your room into a jungle and going on a wild adventure. Well, that’s exactly what you do in Megaverse’s latest mixed reality platformer, Jungle Man. Available exclusively for Meta Quest 3 and 3S, this game transforms your play space into a chaotic, vine-swinging playground.

My Studio Became a Jungle 

From the minute I boot up Jungle Man, my studio is no longer a studio; it’s now morphed into a vibrant jungle filled with hanging vines, stone formations, and portals placed on my walls to navigate between. I immediately noticed how solid the anchoring of the virtual objects filling my play space is; they fill my entire scanned area perfectly. While my small studio space isn’t ideal since it tends to be a bit cluttered, it is enough to meet the game’s recommended 3×4 meter (10×13 feet) play area. If you have an even bigger room or, better yet, yard to play in, you’re in for a more immersive experience and most likely way less prone to trip over something as you dart from vine to vine. 

Ditch the Controllers It’s Hand Tracking Only Here

In Jungle Man, your hands do all the work. Publisher Fun Train and developer Megaverse are bypassing using traditional controllers for this one in favor of full-on hand tracking. Manipulating this tiny guy who seems like a cross between Tarzan and a cave man has me darting about the room as he climbs, swings, and jumps from vine to vine across procedurally generated levels.

Manipulating the action with my own hands has me physically invested like never before. This controller-free approach makes every jump and swing feel satisfying and sometimes frustrating due to the occasional sticking hand, which is a long-overdue problem that Meta really needs to address. We mentioned this in our Starship Home review last year, and I am still seeing this as an issue in most of the mixed reality titles I test and play.

Fail, Laugh, Repeat 

One of the best things about Jungle Man is how it celebrates failure with a sense of humor. Whether I’m crashing into rocks, falling into quicksand, or getting chased by murder hornets, the game keeps things lighthearted and fun. With every failure and agonizing death, our agile caveman jumps right back up, ready to dive back into the action, and trust me, you will be seeing that happen a lot.

I’m thoroughly enjoying Megaverse’s approach with the bit of sometimes dark humor here. Still, as it is with many other games, the repeated loops of seeing the same few animations each time I fail see them losing their charm over time. It becomes something I wish I could skip so I can quickly get back into the action.

Three Diverse Realms To Swing Through

Jungle Man throws you into three different biomes consisting of jungle, swamp, and volcanic. Each one comes with its own unique obstacles, creatures, and traps to keep you on your guard but also new power-ups to help you get through to the next portal. The randomness of the procedurally generated environments means no two runs are the same, adding a fresh path every time you play.

While I haven’t reached the swamp and volcano levels yet, what I’ve seen in the jungle level is impressive enough to make me want to get through all 20 levels you must beat to unlock the next realm. Megaverse went for the Angry Birds-style progression system here, where you can’t just jump in and play the higher levels in the beginning; you have to grind your way into them, and even the free swing option remained locked, so I couldn’t even take a peek.

After playing the game for a while now, I can see why. Since the levels get progressively harder and demand new skills be learned with each one played, it teaches you the timing and muscle memory you’re going to need to retain to move forward. So far I’m about twelve levels in, and I’m determined to continue even at the expense of sleep, which shows just how compelling this game can get… I can’t stop playing it.

Megaverse has knocked it out of the park with Jungle Man. The blend of intuitive hand tracking and fast-paced gameplay set inside a solid mixed reality environment sets a new standard for MR platformer games. Despite a few minor tracking hiccups here and there, the overall experience is a blast, and I had a lot of fun while playing it.

Having spent a good chunk of time now swinging through Jungle Man’s mixed reality world, I’m thoroughly impressed. It’s a funny, challenging, and immersive game that’s sure to become a new entry when we next update our best mixed reality experiences for Quest 3 & 3S list soon. So if you’ve got a Meta Quest 3 or 3S, I highly recommend giving Jungle Man a look on the Meta Horizon Store.