Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality asks a simple question: what if you were Morty, but disposable?

Rick and Morty: Virtual Rick-ality asks a simple question: what if you were Morty, but disposable? Owlchemy Labs built the answer in 2017, and the result is one of the sharper VR comedies of its moment — a puzzle game that treats your hands as the punchline.

Trailer, via IGDBcom.

A Clone Made for Laundry

You play V.R. Morty, a clone of Morty Smith created to handle the chores Rick Sanchez can’t be bothered with. Laundry. Spaceship repair. The menial work of a mad scientist’s household. Rick appears as a hologram on a wristwatch to hand down orders, and you carry them out with your own two hands, or you don’t.

The setup is thin, and it knows it. The game’s own pitch is blunt about the appeal: touch things, make horrible mistakes with dire consequences.

Movement happens by warping from spot to spot, not walking. When a task sits out of reach, you summon Mr. Youseeks, a being who imitates your every motion to do the job for you. It’s a clever fix for a real problem in room-scale VR, and it fits the show’s logic.

Death, Purgatory, and the Galactic Federation

The plot escalates past laundry fast. Rick shoots the clone once the chore is done, then offers him a choice from Purgatory: come back or stay. The clone returns. What follows is a chain of errands:

1. Retrieve a faulty device from outside the garage, using Mr. Youseeks since the clone can’t leave.
2. Repair the computer to order a replacement, then attach the new device to a plunger to fish a seed from the toilet.
3. Use the seed to upgrade Rick’s spaceship, which later breaks down at a celestial nature preserve.
4. Fight off the Galactic Federation with firearms Rick hands you — before Rick abandons you there and tells you to kill yourself.

The clone chooses Purgatory again, comes back again, incubates an alien egg, watches Rick murder the hatchling, and fights the alien’s increasingly large parents. Two Ricks eventually fight; the real Rick runs over the survivor and kills Clone Morty for holding a gun. It’s a lot of story for a game about picking things up.

Hands, Holograms, and What Works

The full voice cast and Justin Roiland’s involvement in development give the comedy its timing. The puzzle design leans on physical interaction — pressing buttons, drinking detergent, fighting aliens — which is exactly what VR does well and what Owlchemy proved it could do with Job Simulator.

• Platforms: HTC Vive, PlayStation VR, Oculus Rift, Windows Mixed Reality, SteamVR
• Modes: single player, first person
• Genres: puzzle, simulator, adventure, indie

The PlayStation 4 port arrived April 10, 2018, nearly a year after the April 20, 2017 Windows launch.

Why the Cruelty Lands

Virtual Rick-ality is short, and its loop of warp-and-grab can wear thin. But the cruelty is the point, and the game commits to it. The clone dies repeatedly, is abandoned, is ordered to end himself, and keeps choosing the garage anyway. That’s a joke about service and it lands.

This is a faithful adaptation rather than a generous one. It captures the show’s meanness and its voice work, and it trusts the player’s hands to carry the comedy. For a licensed VR tie-in, that’s rare.

game review · Owlchemy Labs · PlayStation VR · Rick and Morty · Virtual Rick-ality · VR games