🎮 Building a Unity VR Game for My University Exhibition – "Pew Pew Waves"

Shivakant Kurmi — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 20:12:16 +0000

A behind-the-scenes look at how I built a VR wave-based shooter for the PC + VR using Unity, and what I learned along the way.

🧠 Concept: Mixing Intensity with Immersion

For our university’s Project exhibition, I wanted to create something that wouldn't just be played—but experienced.

That's how Pew Pew Waves was born.

It’s a VR wave-based shooter developed in Unity, designed specifically for the Meta Quest 3, with a focus on fast-paced action, stylized low-poly visuals, and intense enemy combat. Think of it as a survival test—wave after wave of enemies with only your reflexes and precision to keep you alive.

The game features:

Three uniquely designed maps + Practice Area map
Advanced enemy AI
Procedural wave progression
VR Version (under Work ...)
A non-VR PC version for fallback or demo booths

🛠️ Technical Challenges & Learnings

Building for VR brought its own set of challenges that were both frustrating and incredibly rewarding.

🧭 NavMeshAgent Glitches :

One of the biggest headaches was handling NavMeshAgent errors. Enemies would often spawn without navigation data or ignore terrain boundaries altogether. I had to implement custom fallback logic for off-mesh behaviors and dynamically rebake certain areas to accommodate runtime level design changes.

🎯 VR Interaction Optimization :

Getting Meta Quest 3's controller inputs to sync with Unity’s new Input System wasn’t a plug-and-play situation. It took serious debugging, input remapping, and tweaking interaction profiles to make gunplay feel natural.

🔁 Procedural Waves :

Rather than spawning static enemies per level, I built a modular wave system that scales difficulty dynamically. This system also supports future updates like boss fights or special enemy types.

🧪 Playtesting & Player Engagement :

During early test sessions, I noticed how much player movement and head tracking influenced gameplay in VR. Small tweaks to enemy spawn locations and timing made a huge difference in how “fair” or “overwhelming” the game felt.

Based on feedback:

I balanced enemy speed
Added visual cues before each wave starts
Introduced minor health drops to keep longer sessions sustainable

Players responded really well. Most were instantly immersed. Some even ducked and rolled in real life to avoid enemy fire — a sure sign the immersion worked!

📸 Screenshots

🔗 Try the Game

You can download the PC version of Pew Pew Waves on Itch.io .

💡 Takeaways

This project taught me how to:

Develop for standalone VR hardware (available soon)
Tackle real-world AI and physics issues
Use player feedback to drive design choices

Most importantly, it helped me bring a playable, immersive shooter experience to life in just a few weeks — and watching others enjoy it made every late night worth it.

Follow me for more dev logs, experiments, and Unity deep-dives!

And if you played Pew Pew Waves, I’d love to hear what you think.

DEV Community: Shivakant Kurmi