MIT Reality Hack · virtual reality
We Were Here — sharing presence across time
We Were Here is a shared VR experience across the dimension of time. Instead of requiring people to be present together, it lets one player leave paths, sounds, and gestures for the next person to discover.
- Timeframe
- 2023
- Role
- Experience design · Branding · Testing
Experience
Presence can be asynchronous.
The experience was designed for people who prefer—or can only access—more indirect forms of interaction. It explores whether a trace left by another person can create connection even when the players never meet at the same moment.
Three stages
A journey from self-exploration to co-creation.
- Instruction: respond to prompts with movement and learn the interaction language through guided self-exploration.
- Maze: see the paths and actions of previous players while spatial audio helps guide the search for a solution.
- Musical orbs: play notes and hear what other players created before, building music together without being in sync.
Build
Translate a shared idea into a working world.
We used Miro to brainstorm, Figma to settle the experience workflows, Unity and Fusion 360 to explore the 3D assets, Unreal Engine and C++/Blueprint to build the VR environment, and GarageBand to create the audio layer.
Reflection
The medium made time part of the interaction.
The hardest part was aligning the team around a shared interpretation of presence. The most rewarding part was getting the concept to work: people could learn from mistakes and successes they had never witnessed, then contribute something meaningful for someone else to find later.
- Potential applications include RealityHack events, inter-timezone communication, shared VR concerts, and asynchronous lectures.
- The project taught us to communicate the vision clearly and design the flow collaboratively.