Overview
Mazegunner VR was developed over the course of a weekend during the Semester Game Jam in the summer semester. The project was created for the jam theme Nightmare and the parallel VR challenge, in which teams were provided with Google Daydream VR headsets. The resulting concept was an asymmetrical multiplayer game in which one VR player defended a maze using turrets and traps, while four PC players attempted to escape in first-person.
I was responsible for the VR gameplay systems, including teleport-based movement above the maze, turret control, and trap placement. Although the Google Daydream hardware was workable, the supporting Unity plugin was still immature and introduced a number of technical challenges. As a result, a significant part of the work involved implementing practical workarounds to achieve a stable enough VR experience within the limited development time. Because our implementation was functioning reliably by the end of the jam, I also supported other teams participating in the VR challenge with their own setups.
Impressions
Conclusion
This project was a valuable exercise in VR interaction design, networked multiplayer prototyping, and rapid development under tight time constraints. It also highlighted the risks of combining experimental hardware, an ambitious concept, and a large team within a short game jam format.
While the final result remained a prototype and included several known limitations, the core concept was implemented successfully and provided useful practical experience with both VR-specific interaction patterns and technical problem solving under constrained conditions. Because the project depends on a networked setup and Google Daydream VR hardware, no public build is provided. The source code is available on GitHub.
