[C15] Tiny Quests

Inspiration

We were inspired by childhood treasure hunts and the joy of discovering small secrets in familiar places. Mixed reality gave us the perfect medium to re-enchant everyday spaces. We wanted to create a game that feels magical without needing heavy UI, where your living room itself becomes the stage.

What it does

Tiny Quests is a playful mixed reality game for Meta Quest 3. Players follow acoustic cues to locate tiny hidden creatures and complete tiny missions. At the start, passthrough is greyscale; each quest unlocks a new color. By the end, the player’s room is transformed into a vibrant, colorful world.

How we built it

Unity + Meta XR SDK v77 for passthrough and interaction logic.
Custom LUT textures to progressively unlock colors from greyscale → full rainbow.
Spatial audio cues to guide players intuitively without on-screen arrows.
Poly Pizza low-poly avatars as our tiny creatures, providing a whimsical and consistent visual style.

Challenges we ran into

Getting LUTs to render consistently between Unity editor and device builds.
Balancing creature placement so quests felt hidden but not frustrating.
Handling real-world object detections to place our tiny quests.
Designing feedback loops that felt magical but stayed technically feasible within the hackathon timeframe.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Building a fully playable MR experience in a short time.
Creating a progression mechanic (color unlocks) that is both simple and emotionally powerful.
Blending audio, passthrough visuals, and playful assets into one cohesive experience.
Designing something that makes players look at their own room with fresh eyes.

What we learned

How to integrate LUT-driven passthrough changes dynamically in Unity.
That small, well-designed interactions often feel more magical than complex systems in XR.
The importance of spatial audio design in guiding players naturally.
That low-poly assets with bold shapes/colors read best against passthrough.