Palp: same vibes, new friends

1 - Home
2 - Vibes
3 - Tags
4 - Search
5 - Match
6 - Rate

Inspiration

I got a little tired of trying to keep up with VR friends (and having to make new ones again and again), so I’ve built Palp where you can instantly match with people your vibes.

What it does

Set your vibe with 3 emojis that capture your mood, hobbies, and favorites. Then, pick trending tags to spotlight your current interests, whether it’s anime, tech, or today’s hottest topics. These details make it easy to connect with people who truly get you.

Jump into instant matches with people who share your energy. Start with a 2-minute chat to see if the connection flows. Feeling the spark? Add more time—extend your chat up to three times, adding 5, 10, and finally 15 minutes to keep the vibe alive. Not feeling it? Pop their bubble and discover someone new!

Wrap up each match with a 5-star rating to refine your future connections. Whether it’s a vibe check or your next bestie, your feedback helps create better matches.

Palp is all about fun, fast, and authentic connections.

How we built it

With Figma and Unity.

Challenges we ran into

Developing a mix of direct and indirect interactions using both hand tracking and controllers was challenging. On the design side, it took us a while to decide on the best approach for the avatar—whether to go with a full body, half body, or head-only design.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're super proud of our avatar, composed entirely of props, feels alive with its voice-reactive bubble that grows and glasses that light up, creating a dynamic presence that's both engaging and easy to connect with.

What we learned

We got a lot of feedback about keeping things quick—getting people from onboarding into a match as fast as possible to show value right away. We redesigned the panels at least 10 times (maybe more, haha), figuring out what really matters. We learned that without feedback, we were just guessing. Things started to come together naturally when we let people test and made changes based on what they said.

What's next for Palp: same vibes, new friends

We released the alpha and are organizing weekly testing sessions on our discord to see if there are enough people interested to move forward with a store release.