Echoes Online

Try it here! https://walkerdev.itch.io/echoes-online

(PCVR)

Inspiration

Echoes Online is inspired by media like Sword Art Online, Nier, Phantasy Star Online 2 — NGS, and the original PlayStation Home. Growing up spending a lot of time on PlayStation Home, I always dreamed of something that took the creative aspects of it and set it to the limit while offering more development freedom and ease compared to something like VRChat.

What it does

Echoes Online is the groundwork for what aims to be the GTA of VR — a sandbox where every player builds their own world. You are able to walk around the world and set objects as if it were second nature. Through sets (Inspired by legos), you can easily find the perfect one to match your theme. For those more creative, you can completely kitbash all your sets or even make your own!

The lobby flow, the social hub on a quiet beach inspired by Stella of the End, and the Architect Mode itself are all rendered in a custom PSO2 NGS-inspired toon shader that drops into any scene with a single component.

How we built it

Built in 36 hours on Unity URP with UltimateXR for VR input and locomotion. ScriptableObjects describe the Sets, a custom JSON save system handles Islands (terrain heightmap encoded as Base64 to dodge the float array bloat), and the toon shader reads global properties pushed every frame by a single drop-in MonoBehaviour. Editor tooling auto-generates piece icons, names, scales, and IDs from prefab references so authoring sets takes seconds, not minutes.

Figma was used throughout the process for creating assets and I got the help of two friends for models. Claude was also used in the development of the software, although it was used to refine the base I made in code (Create the engine, let AI create the pipes)

Challenges we ran into

The Oculus runtime fights URP's post-processing in a way that turns the headset screen black or forces shadows off; it also limited the visual fidelity (Which was already less to my liking due to a lack of HDRP). To solve this, I used Unity's VR
UIManager kept disabling itself when child panels were on the same GameObject so I wrote a watchdog and a setup validator once I realized it was taking too much time to fix.
Scene transitions silently failed when scenes weren't in the build settings or names didn't match.
I got 5 hours of accidental sleep at 3:30 AM with nothing wired in the Architect scene yet (This was SCARY)

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Shipping a complete VR demo loop in 36 hours is insane

The PSO2 NGS visual feel actually came together — toon shader, fog, ACES tonemapping, soft rim light, the recognizable look applied to any scene with a single component. The architecture is clean enough to keep building on after the hackathon, not a throwaway prototype. And the editor tools (icon generator, prefab-to-set bulk add, in-editor music player) made authoring content fast enough that we could focus on the experience.

What we learned

Scope is the only thing that matters at hackathon timelines — every feature you skip is a feature you finish. Editor tools pay for themselves within an hour if you're going to use them more than twice.
UltimateXR is genuinely fast to work with once you understand its conventions, but Oculus's runtime will fight you on rendering quality.
Worldbuilding needs real moments of stillness, not just stuff to do — the quiet beach hits harder than ten NPCs would have for some.
The visuals carry more of the pitch than any single feature.

What's next for Echoes Online

Game mode presets — fishing, FPS, racing, combat, exploration — turning Islands into actual playable experiences without writing code.
A character customization Salon with anime style character creation
The true Convergence, built to host hundreds of players in a single instance as a genuine MMORPG inspired off the Final Fantasy Remakes.
- A local LLM dev assistant that helps you build additively while keeping skills sharp instead of becoming a glorified autocorrect that does your work blindly.

But first, Echoes Online migrates home to Aether Engine — our open-source Godot fork built specifically for VR and AR.

Songs are from dova.jp or created by WalkerDev, 3D assets from Unity Asset store or created by Kennaness and Crow.

Thumbnail art by Kennaness