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Tender Claws

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Tender Claws
Information
Industry Virtual reality, augmented reality, video games, interactive media
Founded 2014
Founder Samantha Gorman, Danny Cannizzaro
Headquarters Los Angeles, California, United States
Notable Personnel Samantha Gorman (co-founder, co-director), Danny Cannizzaro (co-founder, co-director), J Noland (producer), Yuxin Gao (producer)
Products Pry, Virtual Virtual Reality, Tendar, The Under Presents, Tempest, Virtual Virtual Reality 2, Stranger Things VR, Face Jumping, Body Proxy
Website https://tenderclaws.com


Tender Claws is an art and games studio based in Los Angeles that makes narrative virtual reality games, augmented reality apps and live, actor-driven VR theater. It was founded in 2014 by Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro, who lead the studio and direct its projects.[1][2][3] The studio began with the iPad novella Pry and moved into VR with Virtual Virtual Reality, which won Google's Best VR Experience award at the 2017 Google Play Awards.[4]

Its later work includes the Android AR pet Tendar, The Under Presents for Oculus Quest, which placed live actors inside a multiplayer VR world, and Tempest, a ticketed live VR performance staged inside that game from 2020.[5][6] It has since released Virtual Virtual Reality 2 (2022) and Stranger Things VR (2024), and made two festival pieces: Face Jumping, an eye-tracked VR short, and Body Proxy, a location-based game played on Ray-Ban Meta glasses.[7][8][9]

Reviewed 15 October 2026. All cited sources reopened (NYT via archived copy, Theatre Journal via Crossref metadata) to check founding, dates, platforms, prices, award results, credits and quotes. About review dates.

History

Founding and Pry

Gorman and Cannizzaro are both alumni of Brown University's Literary Arts program; Gorman also holds an MFA from Brown and a PhD in Media Arts and Practice from the University of Southern California.[10][11] Their first joint work, Pry, is a hybrid interactive novella for the iPad that tells the story of a demolition expert who has returned from the Gulf War. In October 2014 it was one of three finalists for the inaugural Time Warner Future of Storytelling Prize.[10] Gorman's own biography says Pry was later named one of Apple's 25 best apps of 2015.[11] The University of California, Santa Cruz, where Gorman teaches computational media, lists her as co-lead of Tender Claws since 2014.[12]

Virtual Virtual Reality (2017-2019)

Google listed Virtual Virtual Reality among upcoming Google Daydream titles at GDC in February 2017.[13] The game is set in a near future where most jobs are automated; the player works for Activitude, a "Virtual Labor System" that pairs humans with AI clients, and escapes into the system by putting on a series of VR headsets inside VR.[14] It launched on Daydream in 2017,[7] and in May 2017 it won Best VR Experience at the Google Play Awards, a category Google described as recognizing a "highly engaging and immersive experience with optimal use of Daydream UI".[4]

Road to VR credited its interaction design, which worked on both three-degrees-of-freedom and six-degrees-of-freedom headsets, for the game's spread to other VR platforms.[7] It reached Samsung Gear VR and Oculus Go around the Go's launch in May 2018 and Oculus Rift in June 2018 at US$19.99, added HTC Vive support on Steam on 7 September 2018, and was released for PlayStation VR at US$19.99 in May 2019, the same week the Oculus Quest launched.[15][16][17]

Tendar (2018)

TendAR first appeared as an installation in the Artificial Intelligence strand of the 2018 Sundance Film Festival's New Frontier program, credited to Gorman and Cannizzaro as lead artists with the theater company Piehole and Matt Savitsky as key collaborators. Sundance described it as an installation combining interactive storytelling, AR and emotion and face recognition to prompt discussion about biometric data and AI.[18] Gorman's biography says the studio partnered with Google AR/VR to release Tendar as an AR and sentiment analysis game in 2018.[11] The app came out free on Android on 15 November 2018, with no iOS version announced at the time.[19][20] Players care for Guppy, a fish-like virtual pet that learns from their facial expressions and social interactions and can recognize more than 200 real-world objects.[21]

The Under Presents and Tempest (2019-2022)

The studio showed The Under as a private demo at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. No Film School described it as Oculus's first project combining immersive theater with VR, built for the Oculus Quest, with actors trained by the experimental theater collective Piehole to improvise inside the virtual space.[22] The Under Presents launched on Oculus Quest on 19 November 2019 for about US$20, and its main show, The Aickman, lets players rewind time to replay scenes from the final days of a doomed research ship.[5] A Steam version with support for standard SteamVR headsets followed on 16 April 2020.[23] The studio describes the game as a single-player time-loop experience with a multiplayer layer. It says live roving performers occasionally appeared during the two years after launch, and it gives 1 April to 19 June 2022 as the most recent live run.[24] Theatre Journal published a performance review of the work, credited to Gorman and Cannizzaro, in 2021.[25]

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Gorman created Tempest as a way to keep some of the game's actors employed after their other work was canceled, according to The New York Times.[26] Inspired by Shakespeare's The Tempest, it was a live, scripted performance of about 40 minutes in which one actor guided six to eight audience members, who were cast as Prospero's spirits.[6][27] Tickets were in-app purchases inside The Under Presents on Quest and Rift; Road to VR reported a US$15 price and the Times a US$14.99 ticket.[6][26] Eleven actors rotated in the role of Prospero.[26] The studio ran shows daily from 9 July to 30 September 2020 and again in March 2021.[27]

Virtual Virtual Reality 2 and Stranger Things VR (2022-2024)

Virtual Virtual Reality 2, a darkly comic mech platformer set in Scottsdale, a retirement metaverse that is shutting down, launched on 10 February 2022 for Meta Quest 2 and Rift at US$30, with a SteamVR release a week later.[7][28] In its review, UploadVR called it "a tale of two games": often innovative in concept, but held back by bugs, uneven level design and a thin narrative.[29] The game was part of the Cannes XR program in May 2022.[30]

Netflix revealed Stranger Things VR at Stranger Things Day in November 2022, with Tender Claws as developer; the player takes the role of Vecna, the villain of the show's fourth season.[31] A planned 30 November 2023 launch was postponed by joint decision of Tender Claws, Meta and Netflix to fix remaining bugs.[32] The game launched on 22 February 2024 for Meta Quest 3, Quest 2 and Meta Quest Pro, with telekinetic powers and mixed reality portals that the player can open and close.[8] PlayStation VR2 and SteamVR versions followed on 5 December 2024.[33]

Face Jumping and Body Proxy (2025-2026)

Face Jumping is a 25-minute interactive VR short directed by Gorman and Cannizzaro that uses eye tracking as its main mechanic: the viewer swaps perspectives by meeting the gaze of other characters, including birds, rocks, delivery bots, ghosts, cowboys and clouds.[3] It won the Audience Award in the XR Experience competition at SXSW in March 2025, where visitors played it on the Meta Quest Pro.[34] It was then selected for the Venice Immersive competition at the 82nd Venice International Film Festival and for the XR competition of the 2025 Kaohsiung Film Festival.[35][3][1]

Body Proxy debuted as a physical installation at SXSW 2026, where it won the XR Experience Jury Award.[36] Framed as onboarding at a start-up, it has participants wear Ray-Ban Meta glasses and perform physical tasks judged by AI systems, ending with a performance review called an "Initial Person Offering".[37][36] UploadVR reported that it is the studio's first experience using AI glasses, that it draws on immersive theater such as Sleep No More, and that the studio is developing free-roaming versions and planned further touring; it was also an official selection of TIFF: The Market 2026.[9]

Tender Claws Presents

Through its Tender Claws Presents program, the studio offers connections, marketing and some funding to emerging developers, especially for narrative projects. Its first collaboration, Wide Ocean, Big Jacket by TurnFollow, was an IGF finalist for Excellence in Narrative in 2020, according to the studio.[38]

Products

Title Year Type Platforms Notes
Pry 2014 Interactive novella iPad Finalist, Time Warner Future of Storytelling Prize (2014)[10]
Virtual Virtual Reality 2017 VR game Google Daydream, Samsung Gear VR, Oculus Go, Oculus Rift, Steam (HTC Vive), PlayStation VR, Oculus Quest Best VR Experience, Google Play Awards 2017[4][15][17]
Tendar 2018 AR mobile game Android Shown at Sundance New Frontier 2018 as an installation[18][19]
The Under Presents 2019 Multiplayer VR game with live performers Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift, SteamVR Made with Piehole[5][23][24]
Tempest 2020 Live VR theater performance Oculus Quest, Oculus Rift (inside The Under Presents) Ran July-September 2020 and March 2021[27][6]
Virtual Virtual Reality 2 2022 VR game Meta Quest 2, Oculus Rift, SteamVR Cannes XR 2022 program[7][30]
Stranger Things VR 2024 VR and mixed reality game Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3, Meta Quest Pro, PlayStation VR2, SteamVR Based on the Netflix series Stranger Things[31][8][33]
Face Jumping 2025 Eye-tracked VR short (festival) Meta Quest Pro (as exhibited at SXSW) SXSW XR Audience Award 2025; Venice Immersive competition 2025[34][35]
Body Proxy 2026 Location-based AI glasses game Ray-Ban Meta SXSW XR Experience Jury Award 2026[36][9]

Awards and recognition

The studio's own site lists 19 awards and selections from 2014 to 2026.[2] The following are confirmed by the awarding body or independent reporting.

Year Award or selection Work Result
2014 Time Warner Future of Storytelling Prize Pry Finalist[10]
2017 Google Play Awards, Best VR Experience Virtual Virtual Reality Won[4]
2018 Sundance Film Festival, New Frontier TendAR Selection[18]
2020 Emmy Awards, Outstanding Innovation in Interactive Media (juried) The Under Presents Finalist[39]
2020 Unity Awards, Best VR Game The Under Presents Runner-up (winner: Marvel's Iron Man VR)[40]
2021 D.I.C.E. Awards, Immersive Reality Technical Achievement Tempest Finalist[2][41]
2025 SXSW XR Experience Competition, Audience Award Face Jumping Won[34]
2025 Venice Immersive competition Face Jumping Selection[35]
2025 Kaohsiung Film Festival, XR Competition Face Jumping Selection[1]
2026 SXSW XR Experience Competition, Jury Award Body Proxy Won[36]

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 "Face Jumping". Kaohsiung Film Festival. 2025. https://kff.tw/en/film/content/4811. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 "About". Tender Claws. https://tenderclaws.com/about. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 "Biennale Cinema 2025 - Face Jumping". La Biennale di Venezia. 2025. https://www.labiennale.org/en/node/17668. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 4.3 Purnima Kochikar (2017-05-19). "And the winners of the 2017 Google Play Awards are...". The Keyword (Google). https://www.blog.google/products/google-play/winners-2017-google-play-awards-are. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Ian Hamilton (2019-11-19). "Tender Claws Releases The Under Presents For Oculus Quest". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/the-under-presents-quest-release/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 Scott Hayden (2020-07-06). "'The Under Presents' Redefines Immersive Theater in Live VR Retelling of 'The Tempest'". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/the-under-presents-immersive-theater-tempest/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 Scott Hayden (2022-02-03). "Google Daydream's Best Game is Getting a Sequel on Quest & PC VR Soon". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/virtual-virtual-reality-2-release-trailer-quest-2-steam/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 "Prepare to Enter the Upside Down: 'Stranger Things VR' Launches February 22". Meta Quest Blog. 2024-02-01. https://www.meta.com/blog/stranger-things-vr-new-launch-date-tender-claws-netflix/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Laura Mingail (2026-09-28). "Body Proxy Is A Unique Meta Smart Glasses Game From Tender Claws". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/body-proxy-is-a-unique-ray-ban-meta-game-from-tender-claws/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 10.2 10.3 "Alums". Brown University Literary Arts. 2014-10-17. https://literaryarts.brown.edu/news/2014-10-17/alums. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 11.2 "About - Samantha Gorman". Samantha Gorman. https://samanthagorman.net/About. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  12. ↑ "Tender Claws". Baskin School of Engineering, UC Santa Cruz. https://engineering.ucsc.edu/departments/computational-media/research/tender-claws/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  13. ↑ Jamil Moledina (2017-02-27). "Game on with Daydream at GDC 17". The Keyword (Google). https://blog.google/products/daydream/game-daydream-gdc-17. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  14. ↑ "Virtual Virtual Reality". Tender Claws. https://tenderclaws.com/vvr. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  15. ↑ 15.0 15.1 Jamie Feltham (2018-06-06). "The Sublime Virtual Virtual Reality Finally Comes To Oculus Rift". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/the-sublime-virtual-virtual-reality-finally-comes-to-oculus-rift/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  16. ↑ Jamie Feltham (2018-09-05). "The Excellent Virtual-Virtual Reality Hits Vive This Week". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/the-excellent-virtual-virtual-reality-hits-vive-this-week. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 Jamie Feltham (2019-05-20). "The Excellent Virtual Virtual Reality Launches On PSVR This Week". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/virtual-virtual-reality-psvr/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 18.2 "2018 Sundance Film Festival's New Frontier: Crossroads of Film, Art and Technology". Sundance Institute. 2017-12-06. https://www.sundance.org/blogs/2018-sundance-film-festivals-new-frontier-crossroads-of-film-art-and-technology-3/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 Jamie Feltham (2018-11-15). "Tendar Is A Surreal New AR App From The Makers Of Virtual Virtual Reality". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/tendar-is-a-surreal-new-ar-app-from-the-makers-of-virtual-virtual-reality/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  20. ↑ "Tendar". Games for Change. https://www.gamesforchange.org/games/tendar/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  21. ↑ "Tendar". Tender Claws. https://tenderclaws.com/tendar. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  22. ↑ Emily Buder (2019-04-17). "Immersive Theater and Virtual Reality Collide in First Oculus Quest Experience 'The Under'". No Film School. https://nofilmschool.com/sundance-vr-immersive-the-under. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  23. ↑ 23.0 23.1 Scott Hayden (2020-04-14). "Mind-bending VR Adventure 'The Under Presents' Coming to Steam This Week". Road to VR. https://www.roadtovr.com/mind-bending-vr-adventure-presents-coming-steam-week. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  24. ↑ 24.0 24.1 "The Under Presents". Tender Claws. https://tenderclaws.com/theunderpresents. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  25. ↑ Devon Baur (2021). "The Under Presents by Samantha Gorman and Danny Cannizzaro". Theatre Journal, vol. 73, no. 1, pp. 106-108. https://doi.org/10.1353/tj.2021.0029. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  26. ↑ 26.0 26.1 26.2 Alexis Soloski (2020-07-08). "Theater's Next Act? A Show That's All in Your Head". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/08/theater/virtual-reality-the-tempest.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  27. ↑ 27.0 27.1 27.2 "Tempest". Tender Claws. https://tenderclaws.com/tempest. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  28. ↑ "Virtual Virtual Reality 2". Tender Claws. https://tenderclaws.com/vvr2. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  29. ↑ Harry Baker (2022-03-14). "Virtual Virtual Reality 2 Review: An Innovative Yet Flawed Metaverse Adventure". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/virtual-virtual-reality-2-review/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  30. ↑ 30.0 30.1 Jan Wöbbeking (2022-05-21). "How to attend the Cannes XR Festival in VR". MIXED. https://mixed-news.com/en/how-to-attend-the-cannes-xr-festival-in-vr/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  31. ↑ 31.0 31.1 Steve Dent (2022-11-07). "Netflix confirms a Stranger Things VR game is coming in 'late 2023'". Engadget. https://www.engadget.com/stranger-things-vr-game-coming-from-netflix-091242862.html. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  32. ↑ Harry Baker (2023-11-22). "Stranger Things VR Delayed, New Release Date Unconfirmed". UploadVR. https://uploadvr.com/stranger-things-vr-delayed. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  33. ↑ 33.0 33.1 Scott Hayden (2024-11-07). "'Stranger Things VR' is Leaving Quest Exclusivity, Coming to PSVR 2 and PC VR Headsets in December". Road to VR. https://roadtovr.com/stranger-things-vr-psvr-2-steamvr-release-date/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  34. ↑ 34.0 34.1 34.2 Adaline Roll (2025-03-11). "New eye-tracking VR experience, Face Jumping, wins XR Audience Award at SXSW". UC Santa Cruz News. https://news.ucsc.edu/2025/03/face-jumping-sxsw/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  35. ↑ 35.0 35.1 35.2 Henry Stockdale (2025-07-17). "Venice Immersive Announces 2025 Competition Line-Up". UploadVR. https://www.uploadvr.com/venice-immersive-2025-competition/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  36. ↑ 36.0 36.1 36.2 36.3 Emily Cerf (2026-05-11). "Extended reality experience invites people to act as the hands of AI in the real world". UC Santa Cruz News. https://news.ucsc.edu/2026/05/bodyproxy/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  37. ↑ "Body Proxy". Tender Claws. https://tenderclaws.com/bodyproxy. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  38. ↑ "Tender Claws Presents". Tender Claws. https://tenderclaws.com/tender-claws-presents. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  39. ↑ "Game by Tender Claws studio recognized as finalist for Emmy Award". Northeastern University College of Arts, Media and Design. 2020-08-24. https://camd.northeastern.edu/news/game-by-tender-claws-studio-recognized-as-finalist-for-emmy-award/. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  40. ↑ "Unity Awards 2020". Unity Technologies. 2020. https://unity.com/awards/2020. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
  41. ↑ TJ Denzer (2021-01-26). "The D.I.C.E. Awards 2021 categories & nominees". Shacknews. https://www.shacknews.com/article/122394/the-dice-awards-2021-categories-nominees. Retrieved 2026-10-15.
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