Endure.

01Brief

Survival skills are learned by doing, and doing them for real is dangerous.

Starting a fire, building a shelter, finding your way out of unfamiliar terrain, clearing an airway: people rarely get to practice these before the moment they matter. Training in person takes time, instructors, travel and real risk. I wanted to know whether VR could close that gap.

Framing question

How might we

…design immersive VR experiences that equip people with essential survival skills for diverse and unpredictable real-world scenarios?

I came to design after 22 years in the U.S. Navy as an air traffic controller, a job built on rehearsing high-stakes decisions until they're automatic. That background shaped this project from the first sketch.

“I was always taught to train how you fight.”

02Discover

What people would need before they'd trust a headset to teach them.

I ran two rounds of research: a first round of interviews and a competitive review in 2024, then a second round of interviews and a heuristic review of professional VR training tools when I revisited the project in 2025.

Research questions

Q1How can VR outperform traditional methods in teaching essential survival skills?
Q2What unique advantages does VR offer for building survival readiness?
Q3In what ways does immersion improve skill retention and decision-making in survival scenarios?
Q4What cost-related barriers might keep you from accessing VR survival training?
Q5How important is cultural representation in VR survival scenarios, and what would you like to see included?
Q6What challenges do you face, or expect, when setting up and using VR hardware for training?

Interviews

Portrait of Christopher Sarmiento — Christopher Sarmiento

Portrait of Angell Robinson — Angell Robinson

2025 follow-up interviews with Ronesha Nation (real estate broker) and Wendy Zuñiga (executive manager) echoed the first round: “Training feels safer in VR because there’s less real-world risk.”

Competitive review

Survival games are fun. Training tools are useful. Few are both.

In 2024 I mapped three survival games on a value-versus-effort matrix. In 2025 I added a heuristic review of two professional VR training platforms, to learn how serious training software handles guidance and errors.

Heuristic	PIXO VR · workplace safety & first responders	ETC Simulation · disaster & incident command
Recognition over recall	Marketplace modules and visual menus let users browse and pick scenarios without memorizing them.	Visual libraries, templates and scenario icons help users recognize functions quickly.
Aesthetic & minimalist design	Clear, functional interface keeps focus on the training content.	Realism over minimalism: utilitarian screens with many instructor controls.
Help & documentation	Strong onboarding, guides and compliance resources for trainers and learners.	Instructor tools, training support and detailed documentation for complex scenarios.
Flexibility & efficiency	Customizable modules fit different industries and skill levels.	Instructors customize environments, variables and events; can overwhelm new users.
Error recovery	Immediate, actionable feedback turns mistakes into learning.	Real-time feedback and replay show what went wrong and why.

Green Hell VR · Quest 2

Closest to my concept: jungle survival with crafting, health and hunger systems.

The Last of Us · PC

Strong storytelling and immersion, but survival is a backdrop, not a skill being taught.

Keep the Fire · Switch

Portable and approachable; basic tools, enemies and a defense system.

All three shared the same “easy wins”: navigation, status updates, assigned tasks, guides and how-tos. Secondary research (Survivorman VR, the American Red Cross lifeguard simulator, survival instructor Creek Stewart’s TEDx talk) confirmed that realistic scenarios are what make VR training stick.

What I learned

Realism drives retentionHands-on, realistic simulations help people remember and respond better under stress.
Safe to failVR is a safe, repeatable and cheaper alternative to traditional survival training.
Cost and setup block accessExpensive equipment, limited space and a lack of trained instructors are the main barriers.
Everyone should see themselvesParticipants asked for representation across languages, ages and user profiles.
Skills fade without practiceContinuous training and onboarding prevent expertise walking out the door.

03Define

Two people at opposite ends of the same need.

A parent who wants her family ready for the outdoors, and a professional whose job depends on staying sharp. Designing for both kept the product from becoming either a toy or a simulator only experts could use.

Diana Martinez

Environmental scientist

34 · Austin, TX · married, two children

“I want my kids to love and respect nature as I do, but also to know how to stay safe in it.”

Needs

Affordable, accessible VR equipment
Flexible, family-friendly training at her own pace
Scenarios useful both personally and professionally

Frustrations

Limited time
High cost of equipment
Little cultural representation

Point of viewDiana needs flexible, self-paced, family-oriented survival training, because between family and work she has limited time to train.

Jason Caldwell

Urban search & rescue specialist

29 · Denver, CO · single

“In every disaster, there’s a moment when the right choice can save a life. My mission is to be ready for that moment, every time.”

Needs

Responsive, immersive practice under stress, fatigue and low visibility
Realistic equipment, navigation and teamwork
After-action reports on his decisions

Frustrations

Laggy or inaccurate simulations
Few professional-grade VR options
Expensive hardware with heavy setup

Point of viewJason needs real-time collaborative VR simulations, because disaster missions involve unpredictable teamwork and practicing coordination under pressure can mean the difference between life and death.

Journey map

Bars show relative sentiment at each stage.

	Awareness	Consideration	Onboarding	Engagement	Reflection
Diana	Sees an ad for “Family VR Survival Skills” on social media	Reads reviews, checks affordability	Downloads the app, sets up a family profile	Trains with her kids in the forest level	Shares results, feels more confident outdoors
Jason	Hears about advanced VR rescue training from a colleague	Researches tech specs and realism	Tests a demo simulation for SAR missions	Completes a realistic mountain-rescue simulation	Uses feedback reports to improve teamwork

04Ideate

Eight ideas in eight minutes, and the one that made the rest believable.

A crazy-eights round produced the building blocks of the game: fire, navigation, shelter, a health tracker, tools, terrain levels, multiplayer and resources.

Eight hand-drawn concept sketches: fire, compass, shelter, health tracker, tools, levels, multiplayer, resources — Crazy eights · pencil on paper

Chosen concept · sketch 8, Resources

Showing people how to gather real resources (water, food, firewood) gives the game its credibility and makes the skills feel familiar once they’re outside.

Train how you fight.

Terrain levels, easiest to hardest

Forest
Desert
Rain forest
Mountains
Island

Scenarios

Anchor & climb

Jason uses current rigging to set an anchor, attach the rope and check it before climbing a cliff.

Outcome: he sets the anchor correctly and climbs safely.

Choking friend

A friend is choking. Jason assesses the situation and starts CPR.

Outcome: he clears the airway and keeps going until breathing returns.

Lost in the forest

Jason uses his compass and map to navigate back to safety.

Outcome: he reaches camp in time, proving his navigation skills.

Task flows

Diana starts a forest session

Open app
Players
Choose profile
Back
Levels
Forest
Back
Start

Jason finds his way out

Open app
Resources
Compass & map
Navigate to safety

Jason finds the right gear

Open app
Resources
Search “rope”
Select rope, complete task

Storyboard

05Prototype

From pencil to a clickable menu in four passes.

I sketched the home and level screens, rebuilt them as greyscale wireframes for testing, then applied a visual identity drawn from a sunset over a mountain lake.

Hand-drawn wireframes of the home screen and level map — Wireframe sketches · “Selecting a level”

Greyscale mid-fidelity home screen with a tap marker on Players — Mid-fidelity wireframe, used for paper-prototype testing

Paper prototype testers

Three participants walked through Diana’s flow on the paper prototype.

Ronesha NationLamar TyusTeneisha Tyus

Mood & palette

Mood board of forests, deserts, beaches, mountains, maps and VR interfaces — Mood board · the five terrains, analog maps and VR interfaces

Bark#886255

Ember#DA8C66

Sand#EBDDC1

Moss#827864

Stone#665F5E

Clay#9F8370

Clickable prototype · 2024 · 0:24

Diana’s flow, end to end

From the headset home screen into Endure, then Players (one player, female, CPU), Levels (Forest) and back home to Start.

06Refine · 2025

A year later: fewer choices between Diana and the forest.

I came back to Endure with a second round of research and rebuilt the high-fidelity screens. The goal was a menu that is calmer, more readable in a headset and faster to get through.

Home

Six options become five: Chats and Saved Games are gone, so Start stands out.
All-caps labels become title-case serif, easier to read at a distance.
Back and Next become round chevrons at the screen edges.

Players

A 5 × 5 grid of toggles becomes a list of saved profiles.
Returning players pick themselves in one tap; new ones use Add player.

2024 level map with five circular terrain buttons

Levels

The bubble map becomes a single column that matches the Players screen.
Four terrains in this build; Rain Forest is set aside for now.

Getting in

iPad lock screen with Face ID — Face ID unlock

iPad home screen with the Endure app icon — Endure on the home screen

Endure splash screen with the compass rose — Splash

Components

Levels button in slate, steel and glacier tints

Every button ships in three tints of one hue, so interaction states read clearly without adding new colors. The 2025 palette pulls the slate, terracotta and cream straight from the compass-rose logo.

Slate#3B4D51

Steel#729DA2

Glacier#9ACBD0

Sage#A9AC99

Terracotta#DD8A5E

Cream#F5E5C3

07Reflect

Simplicity is a survival skill too.

This project taught me how to turn research into a concept that balances clarity, meaning and visual harmony. The biggest lesson came from the redesign: every option I removed brought people closer to the thing they came to do.

Colors and shapes carry a lot of emotional weight. The compass rose became the whole identity, from the app icon to the button palette, because it says “find your way” before anyone reads a word.

Next steps

Test the 2025 flowRun Diana’s task with new participants and compare time-to-Start against 2024.
Design the Resources screensBuild Jason’s compass, map and gear-search flows in high fidelity.
Add motion and feedbackExplore interactive elements and after-action reports inside the headset.
Test across platformsSee how the navigation-themed visuals hold up on different headsets and screens.