Benjamin Outram

Press

Selected coverage of my work. Missed one? Do get in touch.

VR Today Magazine

VR Today Magazine · 9 July 2026

Squingle Arcade Debuts on Meta Quest as a Free XR Puzzle Adventure

Players physically engage with vibrant 3D environments, guiding glowing orbs through complex, living structures. Players can unwind with a relaxing, flow-based session or push their limits in more intense, skill-driven challenges.

UploadVR

UploadVR · 16 April 2026

Indie MR/VR Puzzle Game Squingle Arcade Opens First Public Playtest

I've played Squingle Arcade, and even set a few best-times, and I'm happy to report that it's a far more interesting, engaging, and fun game than I expected it to be prior to playing. In VR, it's a mesmerizing experience, one that drove me to compulsively play again and again.

The Elite Institute

The Elite Institute · 29 November 2024

Squingle [Meta Quest 3]

With its trippy aesthetic and vast number of challenging stages, this is one mixed reality game that you don't want to miss out on!

Impulse Gamer

Impulse Gamer · 24 November 2024

Squingle Review (Quest)

Squingle is an excellent VR game that is great for VR experts, amateurs, or dabblers.

MEDIUM · 24 May 2024

SideQuest Indie Spotlight—Summer 2024 Games Showcase

If you’re looking for a calming, meditative, and visually gorgeous puzzler, then Squingle is for you. It’s a stunning take on classic ‘don’t touch the sides’ physical maze puzzles with a psychedelic art style and a soothing soundtrack to get you in the flow.

RuffTalkVR

RuffTalkVR · 24 November 2023

Podcast: Interview with Ben Outram - Developer of Squingle

On this episode of Ruff Talk VR we are joined with Ben Outram the creator of Squingle! One of our favorite VR puzzle games, we wonder how this game is still on the Meta Quest app lab store instead of the official store. Listen as we catch up with Ben, hear more about the new mixed reality mode, what's coming next for Squingle, and more!

MIXED

MIXED · 24 October 2023

Squingle gets a trippy mixed reality and Quest 3 enhancements

With the mixed reality update that will be released free of charge on October 27th and that will bring optimizations for Meta Quest 3, Squingle will be the perfect game to demonstrate some of the magic features of the new device (mixed reality, hand tracking) to the uninitiated.

UPLOADVR

UPLOADVR · 21 October 2023

Squingle Receives New Mixed Reality Features Next Week On Quest App Lab

The mixed reality update also introduces Quest 3 enhancements. Speaking to UploadVR, creator Ben Outram explained that he "darkened the passthrough layer to bring out the action of the game" on Quest 2 but confirms this no longer made sense with Quest 3's improved passthrough "as it’s fun to be more connected to your real environment and lighting."

The VR Dimension

The VR Dimension · 2 October 2022

Squingle - The Interview

When working with Virtual Reality, what are your top three boxes that have to be checked off in order to be part of a Ben Outram project?

“Beautifully out of this world visual quality, metaphysical in theme, and based on joyful physics.”

FingerGuns

FingerGuns · 26 September 2022

EGX 2022: The Indie Games Making A Compelling Case For VR’s Future

After a demo of the [Squingle], I was suitably impressed with every facet of the game. I would have been happy just to stand and play the game for the rest of the day. On the back of my experiences at EGX 2022 I’m starting to feel like, for the first time in a long time, that unmet promise of VR as a platform is starting to look convincing.

RoadToVR

RoadToVR · 13 May 2022

20 Great Games for Relaxation & Meditation

“Squingle is one of those games that you can look at and still not entirely understand what you’re actually seeing. But once you get your hands on the game all becomes clear: it’s a clever, trippy, and fun puzzle game that plays to VR’s spatial strengths. To put it simply, the goal of Squingle is to guide a pair of spinning balls through a pipe. Sounds easy enough, right? Well like any good puzzle game, Squingle starts simply enough but introduces more difficult concepts as you go—like a button that reverses the spin of the balls or one that changes the axis of the spin. And the pipe? It’s actually a bit more like a cosmic bowel that undulates with twists, turns, and parallel tunnels.”

VNCCII Episode 17 · 1 May 2022

Dr Benjamin Outram: Developer of VR Game Squingle Interview

“Dr. Benjamin Outram is your true modern day polymath. He’s a developer, scientist, technologist and artist from England. His latest VR game “Squingle” has received top star ratings and reviews with VRItalia saying it’s “one of the most fascinating and original things ever seen in the world of video games” and the game was selected as the “Best VR Game Nominee” at GDWC in 2021. Dr Bejamin is a super intelligent person with his professional and research interests including virtual reality, augmented reality, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, synthetic data, computer vision, liquid crystal and display technology, computer-human interfaces, telepresence, haptics and multimodal media technology. Dr. Benjamin has also completed a PhD in liquid crystal science at the University at Oxford, then learnt Japanese and completed a Tokyo based JSPS Post-doctoral Fellowship at Embodied Media with Keio (KAY-OH) Media Design in Virtual Reality and Media Technology.”

RoadToVR

RoadToVR · 11 February 2022

Psychedelic Puzzler ‘Squingle’ Shows Just Why Mixed Reality Trailers Are So Important

“Squingle, the psychedelic puzzle game for PC VR and Quest, is one of those “so out there, it’s difficult to explain” type of experiences.”

“Maybe it’s the undulating intestinal pathways, or the shimmering patterns that seem to change with every touch as you lead orbs around its increasingly circuitous routes. It’s so otherworldly and seemingly chaotic that you don’t implicitly know what to expect when looking at Squingle”

“If you’re curious to learn more about Squingle, indie developer Benjamin Outram has published it on Quest via App Lab and on PC VR via Steam.”

VRGameCritic

VRGameCritic · 15 July 2021

Squingle

91% “A one of a kind puzzle experience with wonderful visuals and music, as well as excellent gameplay”

VR ITALIA · 15 July 2021

Squingle | the review | Oculus Quest, PCVR

Rated 9.1 / 10

9.1/10 - "Among the heavyweights like Rez, Thumper and Tetris Effect"

“One of the most fascinating and original things ever seen in the world of video games.”

“Level design that dwarfs some of the most important AAA studios.”

“The aesthetic work alone, which also leaves room for micro details on the animation front - even at the level of Paper Beast - is undoubtedly worth the full price of the ticket.”

“Squingle will delight those who seek out from VR above all experiences out of the ordinary.”

“Everything in Squingle is so refined that it is literally ridiculous that a product like this, on Oculus Quest, was released on the app lab and not on the official store.”

“Squingle guides us, puzzle after puzzle, into the birth of the Universe and the path of the human being.”

“Squingle is as atypical as it is wonderful: one of the most beautiful products I have played in the last year of virtual reality”

“Definitely ahead of everything that has recently been released both on Steam VR and on the official Oculus Quest store.”

gameskeys.net · 15 July 2021

Top Steam Games To Tryout In July 2021

“You will find the best games of different categories and genres in the list, play them now and mesmerize yourself.”

GMW3

GMW3 · 3 March 2021

You can now speedrun your way through Squingle

“I’ve always been fascinated by speedrunning since I saw a Technology Assisted Speedrun (TAS) of Super Mario Bros. 3 on the NES. There is a small but active speedrunning community in VR – notably doing speedruns of Superhot VR, Moss, and Boneworks. Our VR game, Squingle, lends itself to trying to play quickly, almost like a platformer, and as an indie game studio talking with the speedrunning community seemed like not only a natural fit to the game, but a great way to support our players.

“A speedrunner going by ‘BlitzVR’, who is famous for a viral IGN video ‘Moss (VR) Developers React to 43 Minute Speedrun’, got in touch with an interest to set a score on Squingle,” Outram continues. “Having asked the community what features might help them, the biggest request is for an ‘in-game-clock’. This sets the standard by not relying on external timing equipment to time your run, making it less friction to record a speed run. So based on Blitz’ interest, I went about to implement a speedrun timer.”

Shifty Perspective podcast · 29 April 2020

Ben Outram

Upload VR · 23 February 2020

Trippy Fingers Combines Music Visualizers With Oculus Quest Hand Tracking

While Trippy Fingers, much like many of the other hand tracking apps we’ve tried, is more of a proof-of-concept, it’s perhaps the simplest one that feels the least buggy and very fun, probably due to its simplicity.

Trippy Fingers is the latest of many apps available on SideQuest that implement the new controller-free hand tracking SDK for a proof-of-concept or short demo game. Developed by Ben Outram, the app launches you straight into a void with some royalty-free music playing in the background. Opening your hands will shoot out a string of confetti-like particles, which change colors sporadically.

You can find links to download Trippy Fingers on Oculus Quest and Hololens 2 here.

VR fitness insider · 20 January 2020

VR meets Mind-Body Health at TTC, the CES of Wellbeing

Flow Zone VR’s creators realized the capacity of the VR medium to lower the barrier-to-entry when it comes to achieving and maintaining a state of flow, and they integrated selected music into the experience designed to catalyze the flow experience. Through haptics, they have also allowed users to involve themselves in creating music through gestures. If all of this sounds intriguing, check out their 2019 research paper to learn more. At TTC, users were able to create their own immersive Flow Zone soundscape, working out with full-body movement in the process.

The Guardian · 26 March 2019

Acid test: how psychedelic virtual reality can help end society's mass bad trip

So tonight there’s the opportunity to try out virtual reality and augmented reality experiences that go beyond recreational use – there’s no diving with sharks or rollercoaster rides here. But users should strap in tightly anyway: these experiences are designed to expedite a different kind of journey.

Among those technologies to try in the Brunswick warehouse are Crystal Vibes, which induces a kind of synaesthesia by using music to shape a visual journey;

Vice · 29 May 2018

Watch This Trippy Footage of Liquid Crystals Under a Microscope

Musician Max Cooper set his new song “Music of the Tides” to footage of morphing, pulsating liquid crystals moving through phases, called mesophases. The result is a psychedelic trip, without the drugs.

The footage was taken by researcher Ben Outram at Oxford and Leeds Universities, and edited by Jennifer Tividad. Outram explains in the video’s description that here, what you’re seeing are the “flowing forms and transitions that liquid crystals undergo as they flow and undergo transitions between phases.”

reviewjournal.com · 28 January 2017

Las Vagas Review: Virtual reality films are Sundance’s latest sensation

Virtual reality standouts at Sundance include the Synesthesia Suit, a full-body exoskeleton-style suit with 26 sensors to provide as much sensation as possible while playing the video game “Rez Infinite” or experiencing the psychedelic sounds of “Crystal Vibes.”

qz.com · 22 January 2017

Quartz: This year’s Sundance Film Festival uses your body as the movie screen

“'Haptic technology came from motion-tracking development for Nintendo gaming systems,' Outram says. “My goal with Crystal Vibes and other haptic projects is about changing our perspectives in life…Can new media technologies help us transcend to something better than ourselves?'"

techcrunch.com

techcrunch.com · 20 January 2017

TechCrunch: Sundance merges VR with real life through props, AR, and vibrating suits

"For a less frenetic but wildly psychedelic introduction to virtual synesthesia, Dr. Benjamin Outran [sic] designed Crystal Vibes. Colored orbs of every color sprawl out in all directions, like the The Matrix’s 'guns, lots of guns' construct scene mixed with the Yellow Submarine and a sizable dose of acid. You can squeeze and bat around jello bubbles that satisfyingly ripple through your suit."

cnet.com · 19 January 2017

CNet: Sundance and tech: Like a trip into 'Black Mirror'

"In some cases, the technology presented at the festival leapfrogs the movies fictionalizing it. 'Synesthesia Suit: Rez Infinite and Crystal Vibes,' a Japanese VR experience, puts viewers in a full-body, 26-sensor get-up that combines audiovisual effects and tactile vibrations."

acuteart.com · 2017

Artist profile at AcuteArt with crystal vibes

Benjamin Outram is employing expertise from his background in physics and Oxford PhD in liquid crystal science to explore new possibilities in the space between the human mind and our mediated worlds, with a focus on inducing transformative states of consciousness. His virtual reality work has been showcased at Sundance Film Festival, Siggraph, Dubai International Film Festival, E3, and Tokyo Game Show.

mashable.com

mashable.com · 21 December 2016

Mashable: Virtual Reality is invading film festivals, never mind the skimpy storytelling

"When radio came along, and television, and the internet, no one really knew or could predict how they were going to affect every aspect of society," Ben Outram, creator of Sound World, an interactive psychedelic world of geodesic shapes and music (see image, top of post), told Mashable. "I think VR is one of those — we’re in this stage now where no one really knows what it’s doing. But it represents a whole new level of an ability to communicate, an ability to empathize, there’s more information being sent, there’s more levels and channels of sensory perception and we can expect a whole multitude of ways that I think is going to change society just as much as the internet has."

reuters.com · 16 September 2016

Reuters: At gamers' meet in Tokyo, absent Nintendo is talk of the town

There's a huge saturation of mobiles, there are billions (of dollars) being made in mobile gaming ... and Nintendo has realized that," said Benjamin Outram, a researcher at Keio University, who was demonstrating virtual reality goggles and a vibrating digital immersion suit at the Tokyo event. "Nintendo is an entertainment company so will go in whatever direction they can entertain.