Finball VR

An Underwater Team Sport for Virtual Reality

Playtest with friends in version 1.0 — there were still many bugs, but it was already fun.

Overview

Finball VR is a team-based underwater sport designed for Virtual Reality.
Players swim using hand gestures, pass a living ball that swims on its own, and score goals in a lively aquatic arena.

Unlike flat-field sports, Finball adds a vertical dimension (movements in all directions), encouraging tactics, positioning, and teamwork.

Platform: VRChat (Unity + UdonSharp)
Genre: VR Team Sport / Exergame
Status: Playable Prototype
Tools:
Unity, UdonSharp, VRChat SDK, Cinema 4D, Blender, Quill VR, Adobe Substance
Duration:
4 months as a Master’s project (HEAD Genève 2025)
Games get pretty intense — it’s a solid workout

Concept & Inspiration

  • I grew up playing football, and I love the social energy of team sports.
  • During COVID, I discovered VRChat as a way to meet people worldwide and stay active.
  • Inspired by games like Echo VR and my own thesis research on VR exergames (The Exergame Vault), I wanted to design a sport native to VR, not a copy of an existing one, but something only VR could make possible.

Gameplay

Swimming Locomotion
Push water with your hands to move. Feedback includes bubbles, sounds, and resistance.
The Ball
Acts like a fish, when not held, it “swims” around unpredictably.
Goals
Glow and animate when scored, giving clear team feedback.
Teams
Players opt into zones to join Blue or Purple, then teleport to spawn points.
Social Play
Passing, positioning, and communication are essential (exhausting if you try to play solo.)

Hand-movement-based swimming locomotion

Development Process

  1. Physical Playtests: Started with paper-ball football in class to test the rules.

  2. VR Prototyping: Built a test world in VRChat using UdonSharp scripts.

  3. Iterations:

    • Swimming mechanics refined
    • Debugging tools (in-world log panel).
    • Ball networking + physics adjusted for “underwater” feel.
    • Opt-in team system & teleport spawns.

  4. Testing

    • Using VRChat to test mechanics and networking with users

Environment & Visuals

The arena is designed as a fictional aquatic biome inspired by lake studies, ocean caustics, and VR sculpting.

  • Caustics: Animated light patterns.
  • Plants & Rocks: Hand-sculpted in VR for a quirky, handmade aesthetic.
  • Particles: Bubbles and floating matter for immersion.

Technical Highlights

  • Custom Swimming Mechanics (VR & desktop modes).
  • GameManager System
    • Team creation, scoring, UI sync.
    • Networking for late joiners, balanced teams.
  • Ball System
    • Pick-up, throws slowed for “underwater” feel.
    • Autonomous swimming movement when free.
  • Optimisation for VRChat
    • Object pooling for team indicators.
    • Debugging with in-world log displays.

Try it now on VRChat !

Finball VR‚ an underwater team sport by newren
An underwater team sport game in which you have to swim to move
VRChatVRChat Inc.

Credits

Created by: Lauren Thiel

  • Master in Media Design, HEAD Genève
  • Design, coding, prototyping, environment art, research

Tutors: Douglas Edric Stanley