MonoMon MR

What We Set Out to Build

The original pitch was ambitious: bring Yu-Gi-Oh-style card duels into mixed reality. But after digging into scope, tech limitations, and learning that an official VR product was in development, we pivoted — and embraced something more physical, social, and chaotic.

The final product became a full-body MR dodgeball game, where players face off across the room, blocking and throwing virtual projectiles in real-time.

Highlights

• Reverse-engineered Meta’s experimental colocation tools to enable cross-headset play in the same room
  
  

• Designed fast-paced projectile combat mechanics that adapt to real-world layouts and encourage movement
  
  

• Collaborated closely with my team on the design process and organized “brown box” playtest, prototyping with plushies, cards, and physical props to explore different game objectives — from card-based combat to resource capture, before landing on dodgeball as the most fun and readable format 

What I Took Away

Know your audience. Throughout development, we playtested constantly with new players — most experiencing the game for the first and only time. That shaped our design: we simplified mechanics, added tutorials, and I even built in a subtle system where projectiles nudge slightly toward the intended target to improve clarity and feedback.

At first, I worried we were sacrificing depth. But we were actually optimizing for accessibility and one-shot delight, which was perfect for the way the game would be demoed at ETC — to crowds of first-time players, one after another.