ZEN

ZEN MR By Haisong, Omar, Meghna, Andrea 

Trailer:

Main Concept

Through ZEN MR, we aim to create a calming, immersive mixed-reality (MR) experience that blends mindfulness with playful interaction, designed exclusively for Meta Quest 3.

Leaning into natural interaction and spatial presence, our game transforms your physical space into an interactive environment where sound and movement guide relaxation. Unlike traditional games, ZEN encourages both active engagement (through hand gestures and object creation) and moments of stillness (through guided breathing and observation).

We designed interactions to be intuitive yet magical—players shape their own space by summoning, playing mushrooms and fish with simple hand motions, reinforcing a sense of wonder and personal connection to the virtual elements.

What It Does

In ZEN MR, your surroundings become a canvas for a sound-based, visual and interactive meditative experience, composed of two key interactive elements: mushrooms and fish. 

• Every mushroom blossoms uniquely, created by forming a lotus gesture (pinching thumb to middle finger) with your left hand. When touched, each emits its own distinct percussive tone, transforming the environment into a living musical instrument.
• To summon fish, spread your fingers like opening a gateway - the longer you hold this portal, the more fish emerge. 

Players can rearrange and interact with their space by pinching and moving objects, fostering a sense of ownership over their virtual sanctuary. The right hand is used to grab and manipulate objects freely.

A breathing tutorial and voice narration introduces the experience, teaching players how to engage mindfully. An optional skip allows players to jump straight into interaction.

How we built it

ZEN MR is built in Unity (version Unity 6.0 6.0000.0.47f1), leveraging Meta’s Presence Platform for seamless mixed-reality integration:

Key Features & Tech

• Passthrough: Maintains a connection to the real world while layering virtual objects.
• Hand Tracking: Enables gesture-based interactions (lotus gesture for mushrooms, hand-spreading for fish).
• Plane Detection: Ensures virtual objects anchor naturally to surfaces.
• Spatial Audio: Mushrooms trigger unique sounds, enhancing immersion.

Interaction Design

• Lotus Gesture (Pinch) → Spawns mushrooms (left hand only).
• Hand Spread & Close → Summons a fish.
• Touching Mushrooms → Triggering different sounds.
• Pinch & Drag → Rearranges objects in the environment.
• Right Hand Grab → Allows free manipulation of items.

Meet the ZEN MR team

Haisong:  Game designer and art director who defined the game's core concept, interaction and visual identity, including the execution of the fish portal effect. Played a key role in tying everything together and keeping the team on track. 

Omar: Led development of core game systems including mushroom behaviors and audio integration, while establishing technical foundations for the project. Also, collaborated closely with developers to finetune or execute the interactions.

Meghna: Contributed to the project by refining animation, dynamic VFX, and impactful gameplay feedback, ensuring a visually cohesive and immersive experience–while also highlighting the game’s strengths through a gameplay showcase.

Andrea: Contributed to the project by crafting the game’s story while developing an instructional guide. Designed an intuitive player onboarding through in-game documentation and interactive guidance systems.

Playtest Feedback

Professor: 

 Alternative for the option UI: A simple interaction to generate mushrooms such as going to a specific spot and can harvest some automatically; For the ground : make it gradient from center to the corners (so that the corners and borders are invisible

Teri: 

Exciting Some bubbles to set the vibe ( don’t have to add interactions 

 Johnny: Whimsical Vibe: dreamlike Add some dynamic Interaction with mushrooms (like throw sth onto the mushrooms to make sounds 

 Danny: 

Onboard Instructions like sit down and breathe 

Mushrooms ( too big to grab Fish falling down to the ground Why the ground is yellow 

 Andy: 

Warm 

Love the fish portal; 

make it more ocean vibe

 Maddie: 

Like the concept

 Fish smaller 

Some mushrooms doesn’t make sounds 

 Vidhi:

 Playful not calming 

 Yvette: 

Love the music Instructions about all the interactions