Periapsis point

Periapsis Point is a VR asteroid shooter where you play as a lone space cowboy defending the solar system's most dangerous orbital corridor, the periapsis belt, where rocks are the target

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Inspiration

We wanted to ask a simple question: what if VR didn't cost a fortune? Most people will never own a Meta Quest. But almost everyone has a smartphone. We also wanted to build something that was just fun. No tutorial, no learning curve. A drunk space cowboy shooting asteroids. That's it.

What it does

Periapsis Point is a VR asteroid shooter built for hardware we made ourselves. You slot your phone into a custom headset, grab our phone-powered gun controller, and blast incoming asteroids as a wobbly, trigger-happy space cowboy. Survive as long as you can. Try not to miss. You're drunk, so no promises.

How we built it

  • VR Headset: Custom enclosure that mounts a smartphone as the display, using Google Cardboard-style lens optics for stereoscopic rendering
  • Gun Controller: A second phone acts as the motion-tracked controller, using the accelerometer and gyroscope to detect aiming and trigger pulls
  • Game: Mobile VR rendering, syncing both phones over local WiFi/Bluetooth for real-time input
  • Art: Asteroid sprites, environment design of space, and cactus.

Challenges we ran into

  • Getting two phones to communicate with low enough latency to feel like a real controller
  • Calibrating the gyroscope drift so that aiming stayed accurate over time
  • Tuning the "drunk" effect to feel funny rather than just frustrating

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Full VR experience running on two consumer smartphones
  • Creating VR headset
  • People picked it up in under 10 seconds. Zero instructions needed.

What we learned

Phone sensors are more capable than most people give them credit for. Latency is everything in VR; even 50ms of lag breaks immersion completely.

What's next for Periapsis Point

  • Multiplayer: two cowboys, one asteroid belt, one winner
  • A printed kit so anyone can build the hardware at home for under $30
  • More enemy types: comets, satellites, the occasional space cactus -Duel mode where you can fight another individual
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