Overview

For the XR module in my final year, I worked in a team of 3 to create a Virtul Reality pirate game following a breif from the National Maritime Museum. I was the mechanics programmer in Blackbeard's Cannon Clash, creating the spyglass and cannons, as well as leading the VR interactions in the game using Unity's XR Interaction Toolkit.

Post-Coursework project management

We carried on with the development process after completing the XR module, working with staff from the National Maritime Museum to ensure the game is ready to be shown to and played by the public at the museum's Pirates Exhibition. Find out more about the exhibit here: National Maritime Museum - Pirates.
After meetings with the team from the NMM and completing paperwork, myself and the rest of the group are working with the museum as freelance game devs to fix bugs, improve on feedback, and showcase the game.

Struggles and Overcoming

This project taught me the importance of optimisation - not just because games should run well, but also due to the need for a stable fps in VR games. If the game doesn't run well as a standalone Android build, it can cause the player to feel VR sickness.

The game is able to run at a smooth frame rate on Quest 2 and 3 devices with the implementation of optimisation methods like object pooling, occlusion culling, and baked lighting, as well as replacing the rope rigging on the ship with line renderers rather than the original 3D modelled ship rigging.