Waba started life as a simple physics toy, but evolved into a full on AI powered virtual pet experience adored by VR fans everywhere. In the early days of VR, I made a prototype of a soft, floating, virtual pet that you could touch, taking advantage of brand new hand tracking tech from Leap Motion. This simple prototype got incredible reactions from people, and I knew I was on to something.

After pitching the project around Los Angeles for 6 months, the project finally attracted the attention of Oculus, who gave me a grant to develop it into a full game for the upcoming Rift VR headset.

I used the money raised to hire a small team, and developed Waba over the course of three years. There were many ups and downs, setbacks and struggles. It turned into one of the most challenging projects of my life. Along the way I made lifelong friends, built a company, and was flown around the world to show the game and do talks.

Upon release, Waba went mega viral within the VR community, spawning YouTube videos galore.

Waba became the basis of Cuteness Technology, my company devote to making characters come to life with AI, VR, and AR.

‍_Credits

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^{Edwon - director, artist, engineer}

^{Macoubre - music}

^{Tahnee Gehm - animator}

^{Evan Hemsley - lead engineer}

^{Greg Batha - virtual pet consultant}

^{Tyler Hutchison - engineer}

^{Nobuko Hori - concept art, logo}

^{Eric Itomura - graphics engineer}

^{Renee Gittins - producer}

^{Tom Hart - product manager}

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