# Rochester Abandoned Subway: Part 02 May 2, 2026 • Joshua DeWinter

Introduction to the community

What the project is

For my second contribution, I have continued working on the Rochester Abandoned Subway VR experience - a recreation of the Rochester Abandoned Subway in VR!

Rochester Abandoned Subway Picture

Why you picked it

I picked this project because VR is a big passion of mine, and I was put on this project for my DHSS Seminar with Jess

How Comm Arch showed this would be good to work with

It is a small project that I could really get into and work on in several capacities

What resources were already available

The project has been in development digitally since 2022, and in VR since 2024, with lots of photos and references for how the subway is layed out.

The issue

How I decided to pick the issue (and what it was)

Building off of getting the smooth locomotion working, the rest of the player controller (physical hands, climbing) and other interactions (pressing buttons) needed to be added for complete immersion.

The "Physical Playground" testing scene

How I pursued it

I started off by referring back to a project I worked on a couple years ago where I did something relatively similar in terms of the player controller. Replicating that was relatively simple, and then it was on to the interactions.

What happened during the process

The climbing remains a slight issue, with the area the player is able to grab to pull themself up being to large (with no current discernable cause). Even so, it worked well enough that it wasn’t the most notable and I proceeded to making the buttons.

What blocked the project

The buttons themselves caused me much grief. I wanted them to be physical, using some sort of spring physics to push themselves back up between two points, however what I had been looking into did not pan out and my physics button was placed on the backburner. Thus, a simple collider that triggers an animation of the button being pressed was vastly simpler to create and functioned well.

VR Buttons

How I succeeded in getting it accepted/merged

After a lot of messing around with SSH Keys, I was finally able to push my work to the repository as I am a primary contributor.

Conclusion

What did I learn

That making a physics based button in Godot was not as simple as I was thinking and it will take more time and effort to get it working how I want.

Will I contribute to this community again?

I will be contributing to the project continuously for the next calendar year if everything goes to plan.