VirtuaFOIL: Lakkurna Cove

Get in touch with your inner surfer. All the excitement and pleasure of Hydrofoiling without the drenched, cold embarrassment of falling-in.

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Inspiration

The project initially started in early November 2025 as a deep-dive into water simulation(specifically acceptably realistic water rendering that would still remain performant on the Quest 3). At some point during the second week of tweaking I realized I needed a cool way to traverse this now half a kilometer of rendered water and sea-bed. That's when my inner board-rider(skateboard) kicked-in and I thought about that cool pumping-board that Zuckerberg was always riding around on on Social Media. I knew what had to be done.

What it does

VirtuaFOIL offers the unique and incredible experience of hydro-foiling. Through beautifully crafted environments in perfect water conditions a user can chose to pump the hydrofoil physically (by bobbing, If they feel like getting some legwork in) or, they can ride the board in "e-foil mode" and simply cruise about, enjoying the atmosphere and scenery.

How we built it

It is built using Godot 4.4.1 with the Meta SDK as my uniquely personal side-test of Godot's VR capabilities and performance. At the time or writing there is only one person on the team(myself) in charge of art and development using Affinity Photo 2, Blender 4, Audacity and Logic Pro in combination with freesound.org CC0 for sound/sound design.

Challenges I ran into

While working solo, everything is challenge! I ran into one particular hiccup while texturing(over 500 meters), where the noise patterns used for generating the water were working as they should yet imported textures wouldn't on anything above Godot's compatibility render pipeline. I was faced with the decision to either drop down to GLes2 and lose a lot of the visual impression of the experience or figure out the scaling issue(which luckily, I did!)

Accomplishments I'm proud of

I am proud of taking a leap of faith in deciding to test a framework less(or least) talked about in the VR world and coming out with a product that most experienced people initially think must have been done within something like Unreal!

What I learned

Pursue the fun in any project as its own proof of purpose and you will come out with something that has a much higher chance of acceptance/persistence on the user end, because that excitement usually translates.

What's next for VirtuaFOIL: Lakkurna Cove

I hope to expand the VirtuaFOIL project and grow/build the team, particularly in the art department. Expect a new foiling location with each release with new artistic talent creating deep, rich visual experiences for every new location.

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