Stepping Into the Game
Working with Red Jelly and Woolworths, we created a fun and immersive VR experience for the Woolworths Summer Tradeshow. This project was focused on embracing the new innovative capabilities of Virtual Reality to create an accessible and enjoyable VR experience using only hand-tracking as the controller. As the target audience was widely made up of a tech-averse crowd, even the most basic of physical controller instructions would have been inhibiting. Therefore, the core design philosophy was to create an experience that literally anyone could pick up with virtually no instructions and be able to play.
Players begin inside a giant, neon-lit warehouse – the one and only environment – designed for maximum visual impact. Towers of Woolworths products loom in the space, balanced precariously atop platforms and surrounded by piles of cardboard boxes, all waiting to be knocked over.
Hands-On Gameplay
No controllers required. Using the Meta Quest’s hand-tracking technology, players interact directly with the game using their own hands. The slingshot itself is a chunky, sci-fi-inspired launcher with mechanical parts and pulsing energy cores. As players reach out and pull it back, a glowing trajectory path appears, helping them line up the perfect shot. It’s intuitive, responsive, and gives a real sense of power in the hands.
Product Chaos
The warehouse is stacked with towers of Woolworths products – crackers, chips, fizzy drinks, chocolates, even a shaver – all waiting to be blasted. While the products themselves don’t react with physics, they explode on impact in a burst of colour and fun. The real destruction comes from the dozens of cardboard boxes beneath, which tumble and scatter with satisfying physics, turning each successful shot into a small moment of chaos.
Score and Showdown
After a timed round of satisfying chaos, players are scored on their performance. How much did they knock down? How accurate were their shots? The game gives each participant a final rating based on how well they played, encouraging a little friendly competition at the event.
Tradeshow Fun with a Woolworths Twist
As a core focus was to create a completely mobile untethered room scale VR experience, we opted to use the latest in VR technology to allow the game to be completely wireless. Thus, a focal point was the optimisation of the VR scene in terms of both code and 3D modelling to ensure that it would run very smoothly on a wireless setup.
Every visual element was custom-designed to reflect Woolworths’ product range and branding, while the warehouse setting and energetic gameplay brought a summer tradeshow buzz to life in virtual form. The result: a fun, approachable experience that got people talking – and playing.
