Give a Shout Out in VirZOOM

Want to greet your friends, taunt your rivals, or let the world know you’re furious some random panda in a kayak stole your ducks? Use shouts, a new feature for sending in-game messages in VirZOOM Arcade!

Figuring out the best way to communicate in multiplayer exercise games is trickier than it might sound. Steam and PlayStation have their own built-in voice chat functionality that works across games, and you can use those to chat out loud with friends in VirZOOM Arcade too. While voice chat does make a lot of sense for some games, however, we had to ask ourselves whether it’s a good way to communicate between players on exercise bikes. Thinking the answer for many might be “I’d rather not hear strangers breathing heavily right in my ear as they try to keep up with me in a bike race,” we added some pre-written messages and icons called shouts for you to blast out as needed.

Shouts offer a way to let you greet, congratulate, and playfully taunt your fellow players. Text shouts blast a short message, like “Follow me” or “Eat my dust,” while emoji shouts express a broad range of human emotion like only a cartoon face can. When you use a shout, it appears over your avatar’s head, so other players know who’s “talking” (and so you can opt not to look at someone who gets a little too chatty, even with the five-second delay between each shout).

To call up text shout options, press the X button on your handlebars or Xbox controller, or the Square button on a DualShock controller. To call up emoji shout options, use the Y/Triangle button. Once options are up, you can use face buttons on your controller/handlebar to choose which shout you want. Note that the handlebar buttons only work if you’re playing with a VirZOOM bike on Steam. If you’re on a PlayStation, you’ll want to take advantage of that fancy controller cradle that came with your bike and use the buttons on the DualShock controller. (And if you ordered so early that you don’t have a controller cradle because we didn’t start making them yet, drop us a line. We have extras!)

Shouts are already available to use on Steam, and are coming to PlayStation soon in our upcoming patch. The messages offered now represent a “first pass” just to see how players like the feature. We’re looking forward to hearing what you want to be able to say without speaking, though. Please leave us a comment to let us know!

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