The best Google Cardboard apps

Google's Cardboard virtual reality platform has the most accessible VR experiences out there, with the optical viewers not only cheap to buy, but supported by a huge catalogue of virtual experiences, many of them free to download.

There's a dedicated Cardboard app itself, complete with a handful of beginner experiences, but here are five apps the critics have picked out for the Cardboard, all of them great for getting started with:

InMind

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InMind is a good game to begin with when using a Cardboard viewer – it's short, and a great demonstration of the potential of simple virtual reality devices. Players journey through a patient's brain in a rollercoaster-like pod, observing damaged neurons. The game is short and the gameplay is pretty basic – even on the more advanced headsets the game is available on there's not much to interact with – but it should provide a decent opening experience of what a virtual environment is like. It's free from the App store or Google Play store.

YouTube

YouTube is another great, no-cost addition for your Cardboard library. The site now hosts loads of 360 degree content for cardboard viewers, from the ordinary to the extraordinary. As well as the immersive 360 degree 3D content, YouTube's mobile apps now have a Cardboard setting for every video on the site. Rather than dropping you into a 360 degree environment, you can upscale videos through Cardboard as if you're viewing them on a large cinema screen.

Google Cardboard Camera

An Android exclusive for now, but coming to iOS eventually says Wareable, Cardboard Camera is a photography app that allows users to take 360 degree photos. These pictures are then displayed as virtual environments through the Cardboard viewer, complete with sounds so you can re-live the moment.

VRSE

VRSE is a hub for high quality virtual reality content produced by the likes of The New York Times, Vice, various entertainment shows and publications, and musicians. It hosts well developed short films, documentaries, and music videos, and is free to download. According to Re/Code, the app is like virtual reality's HBO.

End Space VR

Android Authority picks out End Space VR as one of its favourite games to play on a Cardboard viewer. It's a first person game in which you command a spaceship, and dogfight with other astronauts – enemies who get increasingly harder to beat as the game runs by. There's no ending in sight – it just keeps on running until you are defeated. IT is "definitely fun and one of the better games" on the Cardboard platform right now. Only available on android, it can be bought in the Google Play store for £1.