Viacom NEXT and Gentle Manhands Present Chocolate -- A Joyful and Award-Winning VR Music Experience, Available Today

The award-winning Virtual Reality music video experience Chocolate, featuring adorable chrome cats shooting from your robot hands and meowing to the music launches today for the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive platforms. Presented by executive producers Viacom NEXT, the emerging technology group at Viacom and created by Gentle Manhands, the VR studio founded by Director Tyler Hurd, creator of renowned, award-winning VR experiences Old Friend and BUTTS, Chocolate is now available for special launch pricing of $1.99 on Steam and on Oculus Rift. Starting August 24th, Chocolate will be available for $2.99.

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Courtesy of Tyler Hurd & Viacom NEXT

This eye-popping, chrome-cat and champagne-filled video is a joyful celebration of bliss set to the song of the same name, Chocolate by Giraffage, electronic music producer. In this cat-centric ritual, you are a robot god shooting cute chrome cats from robot hands while dancing to the beat of the music, providing a tribe of people their precious resource, cute little kitties. Check out the trailer at: thechocolatevr.com.

“In Chocolate, the world you’re in is the music. The hope is that folks will lose themselves in that world and revert back to childlike feelings of giddiness and joy from all the sparkly colorful bits. And also get that feeling one gets from admiring cute lil kitties as they come out of your robot hands,” said Tyler Hurd, director and Gentle Manhands founder.

“As part of our hands-on collaborative focus in VR, we’ve enjoyed working with Gentle Manhands who are at the forefront of designing experiences that elicit wonder and joy. We have brought Chocolate to dozens of events and venues around the world, from Sundance to SXSW and we are excited that people can now enjoy it in comfort of their own home,” said Chaki Ng, SVP Viacom NEXT. “Chocolate represents only the beginning of many more Viacom NEXT interactive music experiences across different realities.”

Chocolate is one of the first VR experiences to be part of the SUBPAC Optimized™ program, indicating that it has been optimized for a full-body experience. “It’s increasingly difficult to find something that elicits instant, unbridled elation. Chocolate does just that. We at SUBPAC cannot wait to see what Gentle Manhands come up with next,” said Zach Jaffe, VP of Business Development, SUBPAC.

About Viacom NEXT

Viacom NEXT (viacomnext.com) is working on the future of entertainment. We explore, prototype and commission novel projects for our brands (which include MTV, Nickelodeon, Comedy Central, Paramount Pictures and BET). Our partners include startups, academics (e.g., MIT, CMU, and major NYC universities via the NYC Media Lab) as well as creators, artists, and musicians. With a focus on Virtual Reality, we are making room-scale interactive music experiences, narrative worlds, games, and exploring live-action capture techniques.

About Tyler Hurd, Director of Chocolate and Gentle Manhands Founder

Tyler is an award-winning 3D Animator and Tech Artist exploring the powerful emotional response of VR, and the joyful effect of interacting with fun animated characters. After working at the video game studio Double Fine Productions and freelancing in advertising, Tyler combined his gaming and non-interactive animation experience to enter the Virtual Reality world in 2014. His short film BUTTS is widely recognized as the first animated short film in VR. His solo animation project Old Friend, premiered at Tribeca 2016 - a room-scale VR music video set to the song by Future Islands which puts you as a wiggly puppet into an overwhelmingly joyful psychedelic dance party.

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