Development: 3 weeks
Team: 5 students, 4th semester HTW Berlin Game design
Software: Unity, Rider, Maya, ZBrush, Nomad Sculpt, Topogun
Plattform: PC-VR
Harvest Coast
Project Overview
My Contribution
My responsibilities included:
– Programming the fish simulation
– Creating the shaders, vfx and environment
– Creating the shaders, vfx and environment
– 3d modelling a couple of assets
About - Underwater experience
Harvest Coast is a relaxed VR experience that puts players inside a deep-sea capsule, controlling two colossal mechanical arms to keep an underwater factory alive.
Built in just three weeks during a game jam, the project blends playful mechanics with a striking ocean atmosphere. Schools of fish, swaying aquatic plants, and dynamic lighting create an immersive backdrop for hands-on resource management.
Players collect raw materials, process them into shapes, and combine colors to complete orders—before launching the finished products to the surface with a cannon.
The result is a mix of calm exploration and satisfying problem-solving, wrapped in a vibrant underwater setting.
Gameplay Unity View – Narrator: Cornelius
Screenshots
Development
From the start, we committed to a clear game concept and carried it through the entire three-week jam. This focus on a predefined vision let us spend more time on implementation and polish, rather than reworking ideas, while ensuring the core features were prioritized.
Development took place both on-site and remotely, with each team member contributing from different locations. Piece by piece, the project came together until we were able to present a complete, playable game at the end of the jam.
We had sort of assembly lines in mind first but gameplay vise a small floating plattform was suited better.
Fish swarm
Using Unity Dots, you can set up different swarm behaviour. Here we have a big fish swarm that has some leading fishes.
Smaller swarm but more spread out, like hunter types of fishes.
Also some agents swim completly alone.
Swarm video
Ambience
To handle the large number of fish without compromising performance, I developed a few tricks. For example, the outer regions of the scene are represented by just two noise domes, giving the convincing illusion of distant schools of fish.
For mid-range distances, I used a quickly created flipbook animation. This allowed me to depict smaller schools of fish and the shimmering surface highlights—without any noticeable performance impact.
Around 450 fish swim around the player, performing loops and exploring the environment. The number was carefully chosen to ensure smooth performance, although the system could have handled even more.
I kept the caustics deliberately subtle, since there’s already a lot happening in the scene. They’re created with a purely mathematical shader, projected onto all objects via world UVs, and work seamlessly even on the sculpted terrain on both eyes.
The wobble toon shader worked really well here, adding subtle motion that enhances the underwater feeling.
Small VFX elements help break up the scene, especially since the fog is set quite dense—otherwise, it would feel too eerie.
For the cubemap, I hand-painted an underwater scene, using a heavily overpainted reference photo.
3D Models
This time, I sculpted most of the assets directly on my phone using Nomad Sculpt, working entirely with my fingers. It worked surprisingly well and allowed me to make efficient use of my time on public transport to university. The Assets had an extremly low polycount since they are used quite a lot.
Presentation
During an internal event, students had the chance to try the VR game. It was especially entertaining to watch them attempt to grab objects floating in mid-air!
Coaches
This project was coached by Prof. Susanne Brandhorst and Prof. Thomas Bremer
Team
Our team consisted of five members: Janina, Jegor, Cornelius, Dalia and myself. Special thanks to Jegor for lending us his VR Hardware for the start of the project.
