Balloon Blast: Co-located multipalyer MR game

Introducing Balloon Blast

Balloon Blast is a fast-paced, co-located Mixed Reality multiplayer game, where you and your friends compete to pop as many balloons as possible using fun tools like thumb pins, needles, and blades — all triggered by intuitive pinch gestures.

The game is simple yet engaging: once the timer starts, players race to pop the most balloons within the time limit. The project leverages Meta’s latest Co-location Discovery and Group Sharing APIs to sync multiple headsets in the same space using Spatial Anchors, delivering a truly shared and immersive MR experience.

Key Features

  • Co-located Experience: Utilizes Meta’s Spatial Anchors and Group Sharing APIs to sync game elements across headsets for a seamless local multiplayer experience.
  • Hand Gesture Interaction: Pinch to switch tools and pop balloons — making the gameplay intuitive, immersive, and physically engaging.
  • Multiplayer Gameplay: Built with Unity’s Netcode for GameObjects for stable multiplayer support. Playing together in MR takes the fun to a whole new level.
Step 1: Connect all headsets to the same LAN and wait in the lobby screen until one player starts the game.
Step 2: Choose your popping tool with a pinch gesture — even switch during the match! You can also see your friends’ tools in real time.
Step 3: Pop more balloons than your friends before time runs out. Run around, aim, pinch, and win!


Behind the Build

Balloon Blast began as an experimental project to explore Co-location Discovery, Group Sharing, and Unity’s Netcode for GameObjects. The goal was to combine learning with fun — and the result turned out to be a complete multiplayer MR game.

Since this was built with learning in mind, I’ve made the project open source on GitHub (link) and also shared a detailed development playlist for others to follow along (YouTube playlist link).

Balloon string physics built using Unity’s Animation Rigging for realistic motion in Unity3D.
Pinch gesture loop system enables quick and fun tool switching mid-game.
Player and tool positions synced across devices using Netcode for GameObjects.
Capturing behind-the-scenes gameplay moments while testing and having fun!

Future Development

Now that the multiplayer foundation is solid, there’s room for exciting improvements:

  1. Add unique balloon types with different behaviors
  2. Introduce power-ups and penalties for more dynamic gameplay
  3. Extend play across larger or multi-room environments in MR

Aman Bohra

Hi there! I'm Aman Bohra, the developer behind Balloon Blast. I'm passionate about creating innovative mixed reality experiences that push the boundaries of what's possible in interactive technology.