Skip to content

Virtual reality studio · Zaragoza, Spain · Our own game

Escape the Urban Underground: the horror VR escape room we built

A murder in an abandoned subway station, three rooms and two ways to play, on Meta Quest and PC VR. Developed and self-published by OverFuture.

Tell us about your VR game Try the 60-minute clock

A horror escape room set around a crime scene. Requires a virtual reality headset.

The station robot on a foggy platform in the abandoned subway of Escape the Urban Underground (opens in a new tab)

Trailer · 1:26 No cookies until you press play

Available on Meta Quest Store (opens in a new tab) Available on Steam (opens in a new tab)

The case

The game, and the studio behind it

Escape the Urban Underground is a horror escape room for virtual reality. We're OverFuture, a studio in Zaragoza, Spain. We built it in Unity and published it ourselves, and it doubles as our end-to-end case study in VR game development.

Beneath a city that never goes quiet, a subway station has been closed for decades. A murder has just taken place on its platforms. Your job is to look around, piece together what happened and find the way out.

RAID · on arrival at the station“Hi, I'm Raid, your support unit for this investigation. Officer Cross, location secured. Reading vital signs. Negative. The subject is dead. Come on, follow me.”

It's single-player and VR only, available on the Meta Quest Store and on Steam (PC VR, Windows).

Got a virtual reality game in mind?

We reply within 24 business hours.

Virtual reality projects start at €4,500, excluding VAT. The final price depends on the number of scenes, the level of interaction, the target headsets and the 3D content.

A smoky platform with parked train cars in the abandoned station
Exhibit 01 · The station, closed for decades.
Genre
Horror escape room
Platforms
Meta Quest and PC VR
Engine
Unity and C#
PC VR
OpenXR with SteamVR
Modes
60-Minute Challenge or Relaxed Mode
Languages
Five (voice-over in English and Spanish)
Players
Single-player
Publisher
OverFuture, Zaragoza

Timeline

From the first attempt to the big update

  1. Launch on Meta Quest

    The trailer comes out and the game arrives on the Meta Quest Store.

  2. Launch on Steam

    The PC VR release. The full story is in our development write-up (opens in a new tab).

  3. The big update

    Relaxed Mode, Continue, interactive hints and three more languages. Full details in the update post (in Spanish) (opens in a new tab).

  4. Today

    Available on two stores

    Available on the Meta Quest Store and on Steam, with both modes and five languages.

Challenge 1 · The clock

60-Minute Challenge: a clock that talks, and only one attempt

The game started with one hard rule: a single 60-minute attempt, just like a real escape room. The clock is on the station walls, and RAID, your support unit, warns you out loud when 45, 30 and 15 minutes are left. At 00:00 the attempt is over.

In virtual reality that comes at a cost: a session can also end because you get tired or because someone calls you. So we added Relaxed Mode without touching the challenge: it has no clock and saves automatically at checkpoints the game chooses.

Try it yourself in the simulator. The clock runs fast and drops to real time whenever RAID speaks, so you hear each warning in full. Then close the app in each mode and see what is kept.

Result
A challenge with real tension and a mode for people who play in short bursts, in the same game and without duplicating content.
For your project
Before any art is made, we decide how long a session lasts and what happens if it is cut short: nothing changes the experience in a headset more. Tell us about your project

60:00

RAIDPress “Start the attempt”.

  1. Room 1Platform
  2. Room 2Terminals
  3. Room 3Train cars

One 60-minute attempt. If you close the app, the attempt is lost.

Simulation: here, an hour of play takes just over a minute and a half. The room names are approximate: no spoilers.

The clock warnings, exactly as they sound in the game

  • 45:00

    RAID · 45 minutes left“General Cross, the first 15 minutes are gone. We need to hurry. We can't afford to lose our pace.”

  • 30:00

    RAID · 30 minutes left“General Cross, we have exactly half an hour left. We must hurry. Time is running out and this is getting complicated.”

  • 15:00

    RAID · 15 minutes left“General Cross, only 15 minutes. Please, we have to hurry. Time is running out. We need to get out of here now.”

  • 00:00

    End-of-attempt sound · 24 secondsNot a RAID line: the clock hits zero and the game is over.

Challenge 2 · RAID

A voice assistant that helps without solving the puzzle

In an escape room, a hint at the wrong moment kills the puzzle, and a hint that never comes kills the game. The design document, written in Spanish, settled this from day one. Translated, it says RAID “will not help with any puzzle or objective, but it will give help with its voice when the player is very lost or is taking a long time”.

In the code, that comes down to 11 phases and two channels. The automatic channel only speaks once you have been stuck for a while: between 3 and 8 minutes depending on the phase, give or take 30 seconds so it doesn't feel like a timer. The manual channel answers when you walk up to RAID and press the button.

RAID stays quiet if it is already speaking, if a menu is open or if the player has switched voice hints off, and the visual hints carry on separately. Once you solve something, its hints are gone: RAID never explains what you have already done, not even after a Continue.

Result
38 hint lines in two languages, 11 phases, two channels and 40 automated tests in 5 files that check when RAID speaks and when it stays silent.
For your project
The help policy is decided before a single line is recorded: how long it waits, which channel it uses and how it switches itself off. It works for escape rooms, training, simulators and guided tours. Tell us about your project

Hint console “Locked box” phase

Time without progress 0:00 (the automatic hint comes at around 3:00)

RAIDPress “Start the phase”.

In the game, this phase waits 3 minutes, give or take 30 seconds; here, those 3 minutes take 9 seconds.

The four lines from this phase, one at a time

  • Automatic hint 1“General, a poster promoting fruit in an abandoned subway station? That is too out of place to be a coincidence.”

  • Automatic hint 2“There is something unusual about the graffiti on these walls. That fresh paint might be trying to tell us something about the murder, sir.”

  • Manual hint 1“General Cross, the victim belonged to the Alcon unit. They were trained to protect this maximum security box with their lives. The code can't be far. Perhaps the crime scene hides more details on this platform.”

  • Manual hint 2“An Alcon unit operative never memorises these pass codes without leaving a contingency trail. They must have noted the code down near where they fell, likely disguised as a riddle in the station.”

Challenge 3 · Puzzles

Clues in the environment, not in a list

A VR escape room has to put your hands to work. You restore power to transport terminals, solve geometric security panels and get through train cars full of obstacles.

The information is spread around the station. There is no separate task list: you have to look closely and touch things.

The hints live in the space too, and RAID comments on what you see in each room. When you get stuck, RAID points you to the next thread but never does the work for you. Listen to what it says in each room.

The tension comes from flickering lights, distorted audio and shadows. They support the puzzles without replacing them. We go into it in our post on designing immersive horror in VR (in Spanish) (opens in a new tab).

The player's hands holding a box with a keypad
Exhibit 02 · Objects you pick up with your hands.

  • Room 1 · Platform“The walls are covered in graffiti. I'm sure if we look closely, one of them will give us a clue.”

  • Room 1 · when you get it right“Unbelievable, you actually cracked the code. Great job.”

  • Room 2 · Terminals“Looks like they went through a lot of trouble to take over the station. Officer Cross, check out those panels. The numbering on them is really weird.”

  • Room 3 · Train cars“The train cars at the back seem to be hiding some secrets inside. We need to figure out how to get in.”

Challenge 4 · Quality

558 automated tests for a game that can't break mid-session

A bug in a checkpoint or in the clock ruins an hour-long session. That is why the project has 558 automated tests in 106 files, covering 93 scripts we wrote ourselves.

They cover Relaxed Mode, the checkpoints, gameplay after a restore, the hands and a broad QA pass. They run in the editor before every release.

The 60-minute clock is built with the headset in mind as well. It fires its warnings at specific minutes and draws its digits without allocating memory every frame, so there is no stutter.

What the 558 tests cover

  • Relaxed Mode No time limit, with checkpoints.
  • Checkpoints Saving and restoring the 42 pieces of state.
  • Continue Start-up with headset, controllers and height.
  • Hands Grabbing and interaction.
  • QA Full playthroughs in the editor.

The process

How we develop virtual reality games with Unity in Zaragoza

  1. The session comes first

    Before any art, we decide how long a session lasts and what happens if it is cut short.

    See the two modes

  2. A space that tells the story

    The clues and the story live in the environment, not in menus.

    See the puzzles

  3. Tested like software

    Automated tests for everything that must not break.

    See the tests

  4. Ship and listen

    Two stores, one big update and five languages.

    See the timeline

The technology

A VR escape room built with Unity

We are a virtual reality and software studio in Zaragoza, Spain. This is what the game runs on.

  • Unity and C#

    93 scripts of our own and 29,594 lines of code.

  • OpenXR and SteamVR

    PC VR on Windows x64, with headset recovery and suspend support.

  • Meta Quest

    A dedicated build for the standalone headset.

  • HurricaneVR

    Physics-based hands to grab and handle objects.

  • Our own checkpoints

    Versioned save schema and a Continue that checks before it restores.

  • Localisation

    Interface and subtitles in five languages, voice-over in English and Spanish.

VR game and escape room development

The result

What you'll find in the station today

  • The station robot next to the train cars, under the departure boards
    You are not alone in the station.

    RAID“Officer Cross, there is an extreme risk of death. You are not authorized to continue using my services. If you proceed, you're on your own. The defunct Falcon unit has been assigned to the conspiracy team. Objective reclassified. Evacuate.”

  • Subway platform with the 60:00 clock on the tiled wall
    The 60-minute clock, on the wall as well.

    RAID“Enjoy the show!”

Escape the Urban Underground is available on the Meta Quest Store and on Steam. It has two modes, built-in hints and five languages.

Tell us about your VR game Meta Quest Store (opens in a new tab) Steam (opens in a new tab)

How we built it: the development story (opens in a new tab) · See the project page (in Spanish) (opens in a new tab)

FAQ

What people ask us most about Escape the Urban Underground

Who developed Escape the Urban Underground?

OverFuture, a software and video game development company based in Zaragoza, Spain. We designed it, programmed it in Unity and published it ourselves on the Meta Quest Store and on Steam.

Which headsets does it run on?

On Meta Quest, from the Meta Quest Store, and on PC VR with Windows x64, from Steam. The PC version uses OpenXR with the SteamVR runtime and requires a headset.

How long does a playthrough take?

In the 60-Minute Challenge, a single attempt of up to 60 minutes. In Relaxed Mode there is no time limit, and you can quit and continue from the last checkpoint.

Which languages is it available in?

Five. English and Spanish (Spain) have full voice-over; French, German and Simplified Chinese have the interface and subtitles.

Do you develop escape rooms or VR games for clients?

Yes. We develop custom virtual reality games and apps with Unity, for Meta Quest and PC VR. What we solved here (timed sessions, checkpoint saves and an assistant that gives hints without solving the puzzle) also works for training, simulators and guided tours. Tell us your idea in the form and we will suggest how to get started.

How much does it cost to develop a virtual reality game?

It depends on the scope. Our virtual reality apps start at €4,500, excluding VAT. The final price depends on the number of scenes, the level of interaction, the target headsets and the 3D content.

Escape the Urban Underground logo with the station robot

Is your next game in VR?

Tell us about it, even if it's still a room sketched on paper. We'll suggest how to get it onto headsets and into the stores.

Tell us about your VR game

More of our work in video game development (in Spanish) (opens in a new tab).