Hex VR: Three CU Boulder freshmen are taking on the world of zero-gravity virtual reality video games

Abhay Purohit, Jayed Khan and Yash Chapagain all came to the University of Colorado Boulder as freshmen this year excited for college life and to pursue their majors, and yet, they all ended up pursuing something of their own – a project called Hex VR, which is a zero-gravity virtual reality video game. As a part of the virtual reality (VR) community, Purohit, Khan and Chapagain saw an opportunity to break into the VR world themselves and create a game directly utilizing suggestions and ideas from the VR community on instant messaging sites like Discord. 

“At the start, it was very scary because we realized that we were going up against these people that have made money doing this and we haven’t made money doing this before, but the thing that we are able to compete with them with is our connection to the community. But I’ll come home at about 11:30 PM after the gym, and then from 11:30 PM to 1:30 AM in the morning, I will be up working on Hex VR, so the thing is, you need to find time in the day to do things like this. It’s a lot of cutthroat business that I’ve had to learn how to handle over these past few months,” Purohit said.

In addition to expansive graphics and almost 3,500 Discord members on the Hex VR server so far, Purohoit and his team managed to build the beta version of this game in only a few months, having begun at the beginning of the spring semester this past January.

Currently, the game is only available in beta form, but the team is hoping to release it fully to the public as soon as they can, but are shooting for a release in July 2023, as well as consistently updating the beta version and receiving feedback from players.

In arena mode, the current main mode of the game, two teams of four players go head to head while using a disc in an attempt to score on the opposing team.

“I think that in our case, customer intimacy is very, very key, especially because the VR industry is not as big as the console gaming industry,” Purohit stated. The VR gaming industry reached  $16.67 billion in 2022 and is projected to be at $227.34 billion by 2029, according to statistics from Global News Wire. 

This is only the beginning for Hex VR, and the students involved with it, with some developers even being in high school. When recruiting for their team, Purohit, Khan and Chapagain reached out to their communities on Discord and through other mutual connections, and tested them to see if they really had the skills they claimed to, like game coding and development.

In addition to Chief Operating Officer Purohit, key players include Chief Administrative Officer Khan, Chief Financial Officer Chapagain and Chief Executive Officer and founder of Hex VR Cade Gilbert. 

More members of their team include high school student Stefan Simonetti, head developer Blu and artwork developers Jade Stewart and Rowan Yarnell. 

Currently, the team is hard at work on finalizing the main player build for the game. They aspire to eventually have different “skins” for the players, kind of like Fortnite has done.

Compared to other VR games, Hex VR is also very affordable, at only $20 to download, while other VR games range from $10-60 on popular VR gaming download sites like Oculus. Hex VR does feature in-game purchases that are extra, but not necessary, like accessories, different player builds, banner colors, and more.

With many of the Hex VR team being involved in the VR community before the creation of their game, they know and understand the experience of being a consumer and member of the VR community, and as a result, want to always allow their company and games to include that aspect and to receive community feedback and involvement.

“Our vision for the future is to continue to create community games. So, if the community comes to us and says, we want this or we want that kind of game and we see that there’s a lot of interest in it, we would make it because we want to be very community-oriented,” Purohit said.

Link to Instagram: @playhexvr

Link to Discord: https://discord.gg/hex-vr