The virtual reality landscape has been evolving along with the hardware used to experience them. Whether that be hand or finger tracking, passthrough technology, eye tracking, or foveated rendering - there have never been more tools for an XR developer to work with. Using stable engines like Unity and Unreal allow us to experiment with the latest emerging technologies for creating innovative and engaging concepts from small to large-scale applications.
Invasion is a VR thriller first-person shooter developed in Unreal Engine 5. Utilizing the new breakthroughs in both Nanite and Lumen technology, the game places the player in the center of a dense city during an apocalyptic event and provides them with the challenge of escaping to safety.
This solo project was a test adapting to Unreal’s XR systems and workflows, coming over from my years of experience doing Unity XR development. Epic’s engine enabled me to push the limits of the VR landscape, using dynamic lighting, Niagara’s particle effects, Chaos destruction physics, and custom shaders to export the player into a new reality.
As the only developer on the project, I headed the VR development, asset collection and development, level scripting, enemy AI, shooting mechanics, UI design and implementation, audio design, source control, layout design, and more.
Working with UI Widgets was suprisingly reactive when linking to the HMD, which granted me the chance to achieve the aesthetic I desired for the user HUD. This was also crucial in allowing me to create a dynamically lit interactive main menu in order to immerse the player from the beginning.
Patient Zero places the player in the perspective of a scientist working in a lab to search for both causes and cures for various diseases and affected patients. The game is geared towards those with an introductory level understanding of biology with a purpose to educate players with laboratory-based techniques, terminologies, and concepts.
Built using Unity and VRTK, Patient Zero was a student-led research project at the University of California, Irvine. With the help of university funding, the team of 40+ student developers were able to iterate on innovative concepts throughout a turbulent transition to remote production.
As Game Design Producer, I helped guide a team of designers focused on creating puzzle mechanics that combine classic VR mechanics with innovative biology techniques. As Programming Lead, I created the lab and menu levels, implemented the puzzles using VRTK’s tools, and scripted the level flow for the main game. Other tasks included lighting setup and scripting, audio design, modeling, texturing, project builds, source control, and more.