VR Hunter Safety Simulation
A fully immersive VR hunter safety training simulator built in Unity, shipped with over 2,500 downloads as of December 2025. Designed to enhance traditional classroom-based hunter education courses with easily replicatable and accurate practice where students can practice what they have learned.
Overview
The VR Hunter Safety Simulation is an immersive educational experience built in Unity designed to improve traditional hunter safety courses accross the nation. Players work through realistic hunting scenarios firearm handling, safe zones, environmental awareness in a fully interactive VR environment.
The project has achieved over 2,500 downloads and is used as a legitimate training tool by Fish and Game departments in numerous states such as Idaho, Oregon, and Texas.
My Role
- Lead Unity developer for firearm mechanics and inventory management
- Designed and implemented physics based bullet firing and reload system which utilized animation states to implement the realistic bolt action
- Handled 3D asset integration and optimization for VR performance within all scenes requiring working closely with the art team to ensure a smooth experience for Oculus Quest 3 Users.
- Implemented inventory management system so players must collect all required hunting gear to ensure a safe and legal hunt.
Key Features
- Realistic Firearm Handling: Players learn safe carry positions, muzzle discipline, and trigger safety in VR before handling real firearms
- Interactive Safety Scenarios: Guided walkthroughs of real-world hunting situations with pass/fail safety assessments
- Immersive Environment: Detailed outdoor environments built with realistic terrain including necessary safety aspects such as other hunters, buildings, and property lines.
Technical Highlights
Building for VR introduces unique constraints around performance and interaction fidelity. Key challenges included:
- Maintaining 72+ FPS consistently across target headsets through aggressive LOD tuning, terrain hitbox management, and utilization of billboard assets for far away items like trees/grass.
- Implementing physically-based gun mechanics using Unity’s XR Interaction Toolkit with custom grabbing, handling, and firing logic
- Designing modular scenario systems so new training modules can be added without reworking core systems including custom modular animal state machines to allow a streamlined process for creating new animal scenarios.
What I Learned
This project taught me a great deal about VR-specific UX design interactions that feel natural in a flat screen game often need to be completely rethought in VR. I also learned how to scope a project effectively for real-world deployment and the value of user testing with the actual target audience. Lastly, this project taught me more about working closely with stakeholders to understand what is needed for the project, especially if working with multiple state governments who have different rules and regulations.