---
title: Phobos
kind: side-project
role: Solo build
years: 2025 – present
status: in-progress
summary: >-
  Unity 6 + Meta XR VR prototype for Quest 2. A small space-station hub room
  with an airlock and zero-g EVA above Mars.
links:
  - label: github.com/dpaola2/phobos
    url: 'https://github.com/dpaola2/phobos'
tags:
  - vr
  - unity
  - quest
  - hobby
order: 4
---

**The job:** Explore VR as a programmable medium. Not ship a game.

A Quest 2 prototype I'm building in stolen hours: a pressurized hub room, an airlock, and a zero-g exterior where the player can push off and float above Mars. Unity 6, Meta XR SDK, URP, additive scene loading, ASTC textures, OVR rig locomotion. Most of the time goes into perf budgeting for the standalone headset.

Same instinct that produced [RubyTalk](/portfolio/rubytalk) in 2013: explore a medium because the medium itself rewards it. VR is the most underrated programmable surface of the 2020s.