Escape Humber VR Experience

A collaborative VR puzzle experience for a space-themed escape room

Year: 2026
Context: VR subsystem for the Return to the Nebula Dawn educational escape room at Humber Polytechnic
Role: Development, game design, and sound design
Duration: Approximately three months
Tools: Unity, FMOD, Cursor
Collaborators: Ryan Boyd and Rob Blain

Escape Humber VR Experience is a VR-based puzzle developed for Return to the Nebula Dawn, a spaceship-themed educational escape room at Humber Polytechnic. The larger project combines physical and digital puzzles to introduce visitors to emerging technologies through collaborative problem-solving.

The VR drone sequence was designed as the final climactic puzzle within this larger experience. Near the end of the escape room sequence, one participant enters VR to pilot a drone outside the ship, while teammates remain in the physical environment and provide navigational support.

Spaceship-themed escape-room interior with blue and purple lighting, control consoles, and a countdown timer, seen through an octagonal portal — Looking into the physical Return to the Nebula Dawn escape room.

Dimly lit escape-room corridor with blue neon panels, labeled Subspace Relay Station controls, and dials — Interior view of the shuttle.

Asymmetrical Co-op Design

The drone sequence uses asymmetrical cooperative play: participants occupy different roles, receive different information, and must communicate to succeed. The VR pilot directly controls the drone and sees the external environment from inside the headset, while the navigators remain outside VR and interpret a radar interface. Neither role has access to the complete solution, making communication and teamwork central to the experience.

Pilot and Navigator Interfaces

The pilot interface emphasizes spatial navigation and direct interaction within the virtual environment. The navigator interface presents a different representation of the same mission, allowing the navigator to track information and guide the pilot from outside VR.

First-person VR cockpit view of an asteroid field with cyan HUD readouts for nearest mineral, speed, and roll — VR pilot view

Escape Humber navigator screen — Navigator interface

User-Testing and Public Demonstration

The system underwent structured user testing, giving the team opportunities to observe participants in the headset, monitor the navigator telemetry in real time, and gather feedback on communication and playability. It was later demonstrated at VRTO’s 2026 Summer Showcase and Doors Open Toronto, where it received encouraging informal feedback from visitors.

A participant wears a Meta Quest headset during a playtest while developers monitor the session and review radar-style telemetry on a wall-mounted display — User testing session: a participant pilots the drone in VR while the team monitors the session and navigator telemetry.

A participant in a VR headset faces a large monitor mirroring a first-person space scene with asteroid debris — Public demonstration of the Escape Humber VR Experience, with the VR view mirrored on a display.

Development and Iteration

The experience was created in collaboration with Ryan Boyd and Rob Blain over approximately three months. I contributed to development, game design, sound design, and user-testing. This project was my first experience working with VR hardware and software and I hope to work more with this technology in the future.

Two collaborators discuss hardware at a lab table with a VR headset, laptop, cables, and notes written on the table surface — Ryan and I hard at work in the TMU Collaboratory.

One collaborator wears a VR headset while another reviews a laptop in a workshop development space — Me testing the propulsion system in VR while Ryan adjusts parameters.

Photography: Viola Hernandez and Bethany Minor

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