Therapet

March 2023 - Present

A mixed reality project I worked on as a research assistant at Abertay University, initially collaborating with one other programmer and later working independently. I created a realistic virtual pet that can be interacted with in an Augmented Reality passthrough and developed its AI, decision-making, and related functionalities. The project initially targeted Hololens 2, and subsequently, I ported the application to Meta Quest Pro, incorporating features such as voice commands, hand gesture commands, and eye-tracking capabilities.

Code base: private to university
Game download: private to university

We looked to create a therapeutic experience where the user can immerse themselves in interacting with a virtual pet, imitating how therapy dogs are used to reduce student stress during exam season.

Much like iterative game development, every aspect of the research application was subject to change, not only because it was ported to a different headset. User studies can always reveal previously unaccounted behaviours to adjust for. For instance, users are much more likely to spawn a room full of pets once they no longer have to use voice commands to summon dogs. Instead, they can spawn them with the click of a button on a floating menu.