Inspiration
I’ve always been fascinated by the feeling of building things with my hands. When I first experienced mixed reality on Meta Quest, I realized how natural it felt to reach into your own space and interact with virtual objects as if they were really there. Voxel art became the perfect medium, simple, tactile, instantly understandable, and welcoming to players of all ages and skill levels.
Pixel Builder grew from a simple idea: What if you could rebuild a voxel sculpture that exploded into your real environment, using only your hands? That moment of playful discovery is what inspired this entire experience.
What it does
Pixel Builder is a mixed-reality voxel building game designed for quick, satisfying, and accessible fun.
At the start of each level, a voxel model appears, pulses, and explodes into dozens of blocks that scatter around your real room. Using only hand-tracking:
- You find the blocks in your environment
- Point, pinch, and pull them toward your hand
- Snap them into the correct slot on the model
Players can relax and build at their own pace, or speedrun levels to beat their best completion time.
Pixel Builder currently features 14 handcrafted voxel models, each progressively more complex and requiring more spatial awareness, precision, and exploration. It is intentionally a casual, single-player, pickup-and-play game, designed for short bursts of fun.
You can play casually at your own pace, or challenge yourself by trying to beat your previous completion time. Finishing a build unlocks the next level. Pixel Builder currently includes 14 unique voxel models, each progressively more challenging. As the levels advance, the structures become more complex and require more time, precision, and spatial awareness to rebuild.
How we built it
Pixel Builder was built entirely in Unity (C#) with the Meta XR SDK, using:
✔ Hand-tracking for core gameplay Every interaction selecting blocks, grabbing them from across the room, rotating them, and snapping them is powered by Quest’s hands-first capabilities.
✔ Passthrough & spatial awareness The voxel world blends with the player’s real environment through passthrough, grounding every build inside the player’s actual room and enhancing immersion.
✔ Spatialized interactions The explosion system, block scattering, block detection, and snapping logic were custom-built to work across different room layouts, distances, and player positions. The goal was to create a natural, seamless interaction flow that feels intuitive even to someone who has never tried VR before.
Challenges we ran into
Two of the biggest challenges I faced were that this was my first time developing for the Meta Quest and also my first time building a full project in Unity.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Bringing Pixel Builder to Meta Quest as a fully rebuilt, native mixed-reality experience
- Achieving a smooth and stable hands-first interaction system with natural gestures
- Creating 14 complete voxel levels, each fully explorable and spatially interactive
- Building a game that is accessible, intuitive, and fun within seconds of picking it up
What we learned
I learned a tremendous amount during this month of development. I gained hands-on experience building VR and mixed-reality experiences on the Meta Quest using Unity, including integrating features like hand-tracking, spatial interactions, and passthrough. It was also eye-opening to understand the nuances of developing on a new platform and how it compares to the tools and ecosystems I’m more familiar with. Overall, learning to develop for the Meta Quest was both challenging and exciting, and it broadened my skills in meaningful ways.
What's next for Pixel Builder
Pixel Builder has a strong foundation, and I’m already expanding its possibilities:
🎮 Co-located Local Multiplayer Multiple players in the same room will be able to rebuild voxel models together or compete to place the most blocks.
🌍 Online Multiplayer Players will collaborate or race with friends across different locations.
🎁 Seasonal & Themed Level Packs Holiday packs, character skins, and specialty voxel sets will rotate throughout the year.
My long-term goal is to turn Pixel Builder into a collaborative creative platform where people build, share, and play voxel experiences together.
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