Since receiving the Hot Desq Award at TechCrunch Disrupt in May 2016, Timelooper (www.timelooper.com) has continued to develop their location-locked virtual reality (VR) content.

Timelooper is location-locked, meaning the user must be at the location they want to experience for the magic of Timelooper to come through. The app transports visitors to iconic moments in history through 360° virtual reality videos that align with real world locations and landmarks. The stories featured in the app recreate historic moments and cultures through visual restorations of the buildings of the time, people in historically accurate costumes and historical relics.
— “Timelooper: VR is History”, The Architechnologist, May 14, 2016.

Timelooper has now joined forces with the New York City based ‘THE RIDE’ (www.ExperienceTheRide.com) and their fleet of custom theater buses to showcase even more of the history of NYC. The floor-to-ceiling windows and stadium-style seating bring the streets of the city into the experience; ‘THE RIDE’ takes riders on tours of the midtown area featuring live interaction with pedestrians and performers on the street as they pass.

Bringing historical scenes to life through virtual reality as tourists visit the actual locations is an ingenious evolution of THE RIDE’ experience… the new ‘DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE’ is expected to launch in Spring 2017. The Timelooper enhanced version of ‘THE RIDE’ will explore lower Manhattan, beginning near the South Street Seaport and winding around the tip of the island towards Battery Park City.

At a special press preview of the ‘DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE’, we were able to sample the first of the new Timelooper experiences at Federal Hall where users were virtually transported through time to George Washington’s Inauguration on April 30th, 1789. You can get the first look at the ‘DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE’ on the website for ‘THE RIDE’ here (direct link).

Before the ‘DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE’ premieres, ‘THE RIDE’ continues to tour New York City with both the interactive entertainment experience (featuring comedic hosts improvising while on a 75 minute route through midtown Manhattan and Times Square) and the much broader ‘THE TOUR’ (without the comedy), that navigates a 90 minute route exploring more than 10 different NYC neighborhoods and 50 landmarks.

The Architechnologist is very happy to be able to offer our readers a special discount code for your tickets to experience ‘THE RIDE’ or ‘THE TOUR’ for yourself. During checkout at ExperienceTheRide.com/Booking, use our code in the “agent code” box to apply the discount.

• For ‘THE RIDE’ use code BARCRIDE to receive $15 off the retail price per ticket (General: $74, Holiday Edition $79).
• For ‘THE TOUR’ use code BARCTOUR to receive $10 off our retail price per ticket (All Tickets: $45).

We don’t have a finalized discount yet for the ‘DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE’, but follow us on Twitter and we’ll be sure to let you know when we do.

Timelooper is still available for free on both iOS and Android devices; most content is free to download, but there are in-app purchases that bring additional content to the application at certain locations.