I’m certain of it: The future is now. Last week, I soared across the prairie through the eyes of an eagle, explored through a psychedelic planet and head-butted rubber duckies – all within a half hour. These digital adventures were possible thanks to the young programmers learning to cultivate the new landscape of virtual reality gaming.

Virtual reality game development is being offered for the first time this spring through the College of Computing and Digital Media. The course was developed and is currently taught by Brian Schrank, an animated and energetic assistant professor who has worked extensively on various virtual and augmented reality games. Last year, he and his students developed “Dumpy: Going Elephants!”, a game in which players see the world through the eyes of a bumbling elephant exploring a topsy-turvy animated landscape.

Students in Schrank’s course learn to develop games for the head-mounted virtual reality device called the Oculus Rift. The device boasts a 90-degree horizontal field of vision, which occupies the user’s direct and peripheral vision. With even a subtle turn of the head in any direction, the screen fluidly shifts without blurring, effectively mimicking how the eye detects three-dimensional space.

The Oculus Rift was initially backed by a rapidly funded Kickstarter campaign in 2012, which financed the production of a developer kit. Though still not available to consumers, the initial developer kit – and its recently announced successor – has allowed for game developers to begin working with device and adapting it to existing platforms.

For their first project, students divided into teams to create “virtual reality toys,” designed to give the user a uniquely non-human experience. Within their team each student takes on a specific role to mimic a professional studio, such as programmer, designer and artist.

Victoria McCreary says she decided to take the course because she saw it as an opportunity to work with the Oculus Rift for the first time. Just three weeks into the course, she has contributed art and animations to her team’s first completed VR game called “Samson the Space Salmon.”

“In the game industry, technology is constantly changing and it’s absolutely necessary to stay on top of it,” she said. “Virtual reality could be a significant part of the game industry in the future so getting a head start with it is invaluable.”

Though different hardware for creating virtual reality has been attempted in the past, McCreary says that the Oculus Rift is the first time it has warranted widespread popularity among developers.

“New technology is always exciting and there’s so many things, even outside of video games, that can be done with the Rift,” McCreary said.

The device could soon be used by clinicians to treat post-traumatic stress disorder by replicating war zones for veterans. The hyper-realistic possibilities afforded by the Rift make its use feel natural, but also disorienting. Shortly after stepping into the classroom, I strapped on the visor and was immersed in my first student-developed toy, in which a tilt of the head moved a large bumper to push bits of space junk into a clamping mouth fixed to the ceiling.

Immediately, I became nauseated.

Despite its lightweight design and natural feel, the Oculus Rift cannot completely mimic all of the physical factors of reality. Like a digitally induced vertigo, virtual reality sickness is a common side effect for many first-time users.

“Humans have fluid in their inner ear which we use to detect motion and maintain balance,” Schrank said. “When we see movement but do not feel it in our ears and bodies, we can feel discomfort and nausea.”

One of the challenges with designing games for the Oculus Rift is overcoming some of these physical limitations that exist because of the newness of the technology. Though the phenomenon of VR sickness often passes with a few uses -something thankfully true in my case – developers must account for the challenges and opportunities afforded by both the Oculus Rift and virtual reality as a whole.

“(The Oculus Rift) may just be a new display, but it really takes virtual environments to a mind-blowing level,” Ryan Reynolds, a student in Schrank’s class, said. “Like any good studio critique class, this one is all about answering this question: How do I specifically use this medium to be the best it can be, or to say things only it can say?”

Reynolds’ team developed a toy called “Prey,” which sought to mimic the experiences of the hunter and hunted. The user begins on the prowl by soaring above a plains landscape as an eagle, accompanied by metal music, seeking a worm or rabbit, only to see the world through the eyes of its prey once he or she finds the animals.

Oculus VR recently sold the Oculus Rift to Facebook for $2 billion. The buyout caused Minecraft’s creator to cancel their Oculus deal, and many of the initial Kickstarter backers voiced their disappointment that the company would partner with the social media giant.

Last month, Sony unveiled its own virtual reality headset prototype, Project Morpheus, which the company says will eventually sync with PlayStation 4. Schrank says that the foreseeable competition between Facebook and Sony will push the development of high-quality hardware for consumers.

“The more open these platforms are, the easier it is for indie developers to publish to them – the faster the development of interesting and compelling VR games and experiences will be,” Schrank said.

For Schrank and his students, the possibility of advancing this new technology and exploring its potential is fascinating, but exploring and creating these new and weird worlds is, after all, about playtime.

“Getting a university grade to make fantastical environments you can walk around in is damn fun,” Reynolds said. “I know it’s a new technology, likely to change, maybe to fail, but it’s new and exciting. In this class, we have the opportunity to produce some genre-defining stuff while still being incredibly personal about it.”