Virtual Journal #8: Vket 2023 Winter
Tag: Virtual Journal »
Summary
Spent a few evenings last year, looking around and being amazed by my first Vket experience.
Content
Last year, I explored around Virtual Market Winter! I actually went into it before doing my OKIVFES report, but it was just too massive for me to visit everything in my spare time. Before I knew it, the event ended, and the VRChat worlds for it became hidden for a while.
A few months later, most of the areas were finally opened once again, and I got to finish my trip.
It took me a total of nine separate evenings just to go through it all, but it was a splendid time! It sure deserved its Guinness World Record for having the most booths at a VR market event.
The starting area, Parareal Central, acted as a station that connected all the areas together. Trying to ride on the trains would teleport you into the displayed world in the portals.
Changing worlds via the portals seem to put you into public instances of the areas. Being a beginner in VRChat, I’m still unsure if it’s possible to make it default to using invite-only instances…
A small section of Parareal Central was dedicated for staff credits, with several screens listing out the names of everyone involved with the event.
There’s a lot of people who worked together for this…! I hope they had fun with it. Thank you for your hard work!
For this report, I’ll mostly focus on a few selected areas only. Some of the bigger ones have an alternate counterpart with some visual differences and different booths, but I’ll just treat them as a single area.
Feel free to visit the Vket Winter 2023 page and experience it for yourself—or with your friends—in your spare time.
Actually—I’ll start with the very important news for the bench enthusiasts: There’s barely any to sit on. A few areas and booths have places where you can sit, but no noteworthy interactable benches were found.
I assume it’s possible to do pretend-sitting if you’re visiting in VR mode though. I went around in non-VR mode, as usual.
… Moving on!
As your airship crash-lands into a mystical forest, a cute fairy-like creature greets you into a world that is… a Dragon’s Back! I enjoyed traveling with the creature as it evolved throughout your little adventure.
One of the booths that took my interest was the one for Meta Theater, which seems to be a community for theater acting in VR. There were a few performances in their booth, which I ended up watching for a while. Being able to practice acting and even participate in events with less risk of COVID sounds great to me!
The next booth was Froginyata’s camping-themed diorama. Having to look at their booth at a certain angle to figure out their name was a neat gimmick, haha. Several of their original characters were having fun around the campfire, including Fluctua, which had a sample model that I used to wander about for a bit. Their sleepwear outfit looked comfy!
From the alternate world of Dragon’s Back was Fluffy’s Cafe Kedama Biyori, a cafe event held in VRChat. I liked their cafe design, and I remember enjoying the introductory video shown from inside. They also had a second floor with some of the clothing that they have.
The dreamlike Nursery Rhyme Retold—with its bright colors and fantastical set design—had a cutesy Alice in Wonderland kind of atmosphere. I might have stopped and stared at the flowers near the entrance too long because of how calming they looked, haha.
Stumbling into 1058mart’s booth, I was welcomed by a giant neatly-decorated container filled with delights of various shapes and flavors. At its center was one of their original models, Biscuit-Langue de chat, who seemed to have a favorable response about being surrounded by biscuits on a picnic mat, a fitting booth design for the current area.
Walking further in revealed the booth by Noranabe-Ya, designed as a humble shop of confections. Presented inside were delectable products from their cafe sets, like waffles, cups of coffee and tea, or slices of cake. They even have plates of desserts on display at the front, making you crave for real life sweets.
Uu Balloon Atelier’s booth was quite creative as well, with a real life balloon art of Vket’s mascot and a dog sitting and eating happily, converted into 3D models. It appears that you can commission them for custom balloon art, which they sometimes stream the process of in their channel.
Eye-popping retro game-inspired visuals are what the next area, Pixelica, blasts you with, as you enter from an arcade machine. Along with its energetic environment were fighting and shooting minigames, and even a fancy ride at the end…!
The small creative group of three pixel artists called Dotto Yorozuya had a red one-eyed creature having fun at their booth’s center. Alongside it were artistic works that showcased their skillful technique of blending pixel art and 3D models. They also sell merchandise like pins, papercrafts, and postcards at their shop.
Peeking through a slightly-opened door of Shaguna’s fashionable store, it featured a Christmas tree, a few posed characters, and some of the accessories that they sell, like glasses and caps. I remember seeing a few possible easter eggs for their peers, which made me feel how much fun they’ve had with making the booth.
In a charming little wooden booth, the capybara Chimaya presented their beautifully-rendered flower accessories with a relaxed expression. A poster for their very own world filled with various characters and props they created, Chimaya Forest, was also displayed. It looks like a fun place, so I might visit it sometime!
Parareal Shibuya & Harajuku had a scenery full of pink, accompanied by the booths of well-known companies that had their own unique attractions and products. I liked the generic food pictures used all over the place, but those might just be free images from somewhere, haha.
Tokyo Metro’s booth had a 3D reproduction of one of their Ginza Line trains, I believe. You can take pictures around it, and even go inside and sit while relaxing with a few characters.
Posters and giant robots for the Gundam series were prominent in Bandai Namco’s booth. They also had a mini classroom-like area where you can dance to Hare Hare Yukai, and a small trailer video for Witch and Lilies, a turn-based dungeon crawler, at the side.
A pink, pastel-colored food truck was parked on SO.ON Project LaV’s booth, with some of the group members marketing the accessories that they had on sale. An introduction video for the virtual idol group was also nearby.
Japan Racing Association had horses which you can ride around the area. They also had a separate world for a virtual Nakayama Racecourse. It had a Christmas theme during the event, but since I went in late, I only saw the usual racing track.
I just raced alone. It kinda made me miss playing Breath of the Wild… When will I ever finish that game…?
Here are a few honorable mentions as my trip ended: Making Kaisendon on Yaizu City’s booth in the underwater world of Parareal Okinawa, experiencing the highly-creative gimmick inside MekaMart’s booth at World End: Utopia Reboot, exploring a diorama filled with lively characters at Afro-da-afro’s booth in Fallen Eden, and racing with shopping carts in Belc Land from Parareal London.
There were also a bunch of banners on every world, either promoting some kind of VRChat community or a featured artist. I was thinking of showing some of them here, but I’ve already promoted those that got my interest on older posts. Maybe next time?
In any case, I might try going into the previous Vket events sometime. They might have to wait until early next year though, when the number of virtual events that I’d like to attend (and also write about) cools down.
… And then there’s actual video games that I’d like to talk about, too. Somehow, I kept writing about virtual events for the Virtual Journal blog category, even though it was originally for games, haha.
These are technically also games and are fun, so it’s all good!