HamsterVeRse is a PC exclusive Virtual Reality game using Unreal Engine 4.25.4

The game lets you assume control of a group of Hamsters and lead them in an adventure spanning several different environmental themes, solving puzzles, defeating adversaries, navigating treacherous landscapes, and more.

Here you can find a list of components/systems I developed for the game which highlight many of the skills I have attained through the process of making the game.


Key Components & Systems

Assembly Mode

Assembly mode allows you to place a collection of 'building blocks' within the game world in order to accomplish some task. For example, building a network of tubes to form a safe passage for Hamsters to pass through.

  • Customizable fans with adjustable power levels and rotation direction

  • Modular system allows snapping platforms to platforms, and tubes and fans to tubes

  • Fan powered tube networks propagate wind force realistically throughout the network

  • 'Velocity nets' that dampen the velocity of physics simulating objects passing through

Boid Swarms

Boid swarms use multi-threading to calculate the positions of a swarm of large numbers of entities over time with a minimal impact on game performance. Designers are able to tweak publicly exposed variables like attraction force, vertical deviation, etc. to create behavior appropriate for different types of entities, such as fish or birds.

  • Supports attracting and repelling volumes which can be either static or dynamic, randomly chosen, or even attached to other actors

  • Supports any kind of moveable actor, including instanced static mesh actors for even better performance

Buoyancy System

The buoyancy system supports standard static mesh and skeletal mesh actors that are simulating physics, as well as custom classes that implement the Buoyant interface.

  • Generates a static table of relative locations for each mesh used as buoyancy points for depth tests and force application

  • Calculates static density values by finding the volume and mass of each mesh

  • Buoyancy interface allows for developers to override standard behavior to create results for specific cases

  • Real-time updates on rigid body dampening based on amount of submergence

Galaxy Generator

The galaxy generator procedurally generates spiral arm, elliptical, and custom irregular shaped galaxies.

  • Generates galaxy shapes based on astronomically supported mathematical models with tweakable parameters such as spiral arm frequency, divergence, amplitudes, etc.

  • Tweakable nuclei effects

  • Customize colors, galaxy depth, star properties, and blending effects

Hamster Customization Suite

HamsterVeRse features a wide variety of ways to customize your Hamsters, including: tattoos, hair and fur styles, cosmetics, wardrobe, name & biography, favorite color, and more. Each of these has its own immersive way to apply them which take advantage of the Virtual Reality medium.

Hamster Movement

The majority of motion in HamsterVeRse is driven by the engine's built-in physics system, including controlling the Hamsters themselves. The Hamster Movement system was designed to work with the built-in physics system to emulate the physical motion of a four-legged creature using force application on a single rigid body.

  • Collision traces are used to determine which feet are in contact with the ground at any given time

  • Force is applied locally to each contact point on the rigid body

  • Detects obstacles and curvature on terrain in the direction of motion and adjusts force angles to compensate

  • In zero gravity / free-fall, includes option to apply torque to align the rigid body with a motion controller

  • Tracks acceleration (for damage, loss of consciousness etc.)

Material Properties (Conductivity & Magnetism)

Several of the puzzles, tools, and level features in HamsterVeRse rely on real world material properties like conductivity and magnetism. In the spirit of the sandbox, a fully interactive system to support the player's creativity was developed.

  • Players are able to connect conductive objects to power sources and other conductive objects to create circuits

  • True to life properties dynamically update in game such as voltage and power, series / parallel circuits

  • Magnetic materials react to each other with support for local space polarization distributions

HamsterVeRse is a growing and evolving experience! Check out these screenshots from each of the 8 stages included in the in game so far...

HamsterVeRse has been developed exclusively by myself and has been an ongoing source of enjoyment and a catalyst for learning new techniques and design principles.