Paper Garden excels in doing what video games were created to do: provide simple fun. (Quick note because this is a PlayStation website: I played this on Oculus Rift, but Peter Traylor of developer Vitei Backroom told me PlayStation VR isn’t ruled out. Good enough!)
All players have to do is sit back, enjoy the scenery, and glide a paper airplane to shiny gold target in the distance. Sounds simple, might even sound boring, but it turned out to be one of my favorite VR games to date — and this was just a demo.
At first, I hesitated, because I’ve never been gifted at throwing anything other than fits of rage. But for people like me and for general playability, the planes fly with some guided physics — a hybrid of a real throw with a lil help to make it not utterly discouraging. Furthermore, after a plane is let loose, players can give it a touch of guidance by rotating their controllers (in my case, Oculus Rift). After hitting enough of the golden targets, one can fly a blue teleportation airplane and warp to another point. I enjoyed giving myself an extra challenge by trying to hit faraway targets before warping to the closer vantage point. It felt like making trick shots in basketball, except I actually had a chance at success. Can’t lie, it felt pret-ty co-ol when the dev said, “Oh, nice, haven’t seen anyone make that shot yet.”

When I was first told to throw a blue airplane to a teleportation point, I was a bit dismayed,...