PreviewLabs

The MIT Reality Hack is one of the world’s largest extended reality hackathons, bringing together over 500 hackers, mentors, and judges across MIT’s campuses. Our founder Bernard and yours truly traveled to Boston to take on our biggest hackathon organization challenge yet!

Bernard and Jarne providing a workshop on the MIT campus, making a point about the use of state machines as a convenient way to organize source code when building a prototype under time pressure.

The MIT Reality Hack features 20+ tracks, each focused on a specific industry or technology. Each track comes with its own goals, sponsors, mentors, and judging criteria. Teams must choose one or more tracks to include in their hacking efforts.

This globally recognized event attracts leading tech companies, enabling them to see first hand how the hackers engage with their newest technologies – like Meta’s new AI Glasses and Snapchat’s Spectacles.

After eight successful editions, the need for a dedicated XR gaming track became clear. Maria Rice, Executive Director of the MIT Reality Hack, connected with our founder, Bernard, and recognized our hackathon roots (with the 2010 Global Game Jam coverage being the first post on this blog), inviting us to organize the track, which was a challenge we were excited to take on. And so, the Game Prototyping Track was born!

What Is the Game Prototyping Track?

The goal of the Game Prototyping Track is to help hackers hone the craft of XR game prototyping. This means that it’s not just about programming. It’s also about learning how to think as a prototyper by picking a focus and building around that.

We helped our participating teams by guiding them through a condensed version of our game prototyping pipeline: brainstorming, writing a Prototype Design Document, building the prototype, and concluding with Documentation reflecting on outcomes and deviations from their original plan.

We had much to say about our process, of course, so we decided to organize some workshops to help the hackers maximize their team’s chances of winning the track’s $1,500 grand prize.

Bernard and Jarne reviewing various entries during the MIT Reality Hack.

The Workshops

The Game Prototyping Track hosted three workshops. One was organized by our lovely track sponsor, Petricore, and two were organized by us.

Petricore’s workshop helped teams set up the foundation of their prototypes, covering the various Unity XR SDKs and sharing beginner tips and tricks for working with Unity. PreviewLabs organized the two other workshops: one focused on prototyping in Unity and another on the track’s expectations and how to approach the delivery.
Speaking at MIT and helping hackers was an awesome bucket list moment for us.

The EXPERIENTIAL Conference

Alongside the hackathon, Reality Hack also hosted the Experiential Conference, a professional gathering for mentors, judges, and industry leaders focused on the future of extended reality.

While I was mentoring hackers, Bernard gave a talk with PreviewLabs client and industry friend Jon Snoddy, CEO of Operative Games and former global head of R&D for Disney Imagineering, on keeping creativity at the center of teams with many stakeholders. They shared examples from projects of various scales and emphasized the importance of prototyping throughout the creative process.

Judging

The final piece of the puzzle was the judging process. We were fortunate to receive the help of five other game prototyping judges. After meeting to discuss what we all considered important in prototyping, we began our judging efforts.

An hour later, we were evacuated from campus due to an incoming snowstorm. After a fun and snowy walk back to the AirBnB, we continued our discussion and ultimately selected the winner of our track.

Jon Snoddy and Bernard sharing various views on managing creative projects.

Track Winners

Our track was sponsored by Petricore Games! They supported us during the workshops and mentoring sessions, and also offered a $1,500 prize for the first-place team.
The winner of the Game Prototyping Track 2026 is the group Reality Obscura, with their fast-paced, resource-management, but mainly fun, game Battle Fish.
It was amazing to see the young team’s reaction to winning. We wish them the best of luck in their potential future careers in game development.

Big kudos to our honorable mentions: OcanAI, ScribbleHero, and BOFUM.

In Conclusion

We want to once again thank everyone involved in the hackathon. The amazing volunteers, our great sponsor and friends at Petricore, and the hackers all made this event truly special. We’re grateful to have been part of it.
If you’d like to see more of our endeavors, be sure to follow us on our social media channels (YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok) to stay up to date with our latest mini-vlog series.

We’d also like to extend a big thank you to Alex from GamesBeat for the article covering the game track.

And as always, if you need a prototype, you can reach out to us through our contact form.