Crafting Crimes on Meta Quest: The Complete Guide

What is Crafting Crimes?

Most true crime podcasts ask you to listen. Crafting Crimes asks you to build. Each 20-minute episode drops you into a real criminal case. A narrator walks you through the story while you construct a miniature diorama of the crime scene on your table: walls, furniture, evidence, all placed with your bare hands using Meta Quest's hand tracking.

Once the scene is complete, you shrink down and step inside it. Suddenly the miniature becomes life-sized. You can walk through rooms, examine evidence up close, and see details of the miniature models. It's part podcast, part diorama, part crime scene investigation.

The experience was created by TARGO, a four-time Emmy-nominated immersive studio, and hosted by Carol K. Ras, a professional miniaturist who previously built crime scene models for BuzzFeed's popular series.

How the gameplay works

There are no controllers. You use your hands to pinch, grab, and place every object in the scene. The narrator guides you through the story, and as you place each piece, new fragments of evidence and narrative are revealed: voiceover, archival photos, subtle animations that bring the past back to life.

You're carefully assembling a model while absorbing the details of a real case. It feels closer to building a model kit while listening to a podcast than playing a traditional VR game.

Each episode takes about 20 minutes. There's no graphic violence: the tone is investigative, not sensational. It's designed to be accessible to anyone, including people who don't normally play VR games.

The three episodes

Episode 1 covers the Lizzie Borden axe murders of 1892 in Fall River, Massachusetts. Someone killed Andrew and Abby Borden with a hatchet in their own home. Lizzie, their daughter, was tried and acquitted, but the case was never solved. You reconstruct the Borden house room by room and examine the evidence yourself. This episode is completely free.

Episode 2 takes you to Wonderland Avenue in Los Angeles, 1981. Four people were found dead in a drug-connected house in the Hollywood Hills. The investigation led to porn star John Holmes and one of LA's most notorious unsolved cases. You rebuild the apartment and trace the evidence.

Episode 3 is the Mona Lisa heist of 1911. Vincenzo Peruggia walked out of the Louvre with the most famous painting in the world under his coat. You reconstruct the gallery, the hidden closet where he spent the night, and the escape route. This episode is premiering at SXSW 2026.

Why true crime fans should try it

If you listen to podcasts like Serial, My Favorite Murder, or Casefile, Crafting Crimes gives you something those can't: a physical connection to the story. Instead of imagining the crime scene while someone describes it, you build it yourself. You place the furniture where it was found. You position the evidence. The story stops being abstract and becomes spatial.

The hand tracking makes it feel surprisingly tactile for VR. There's no learning curve with controllers, you just reach out and grab things. People who have never used a headset before pick it up immediately.

And because each episode is only 20 minutes, it fits into your schedule the same way a podcast episode does.

What players are saying

Crafting Crimes has a 4.6 out of 5 rating on the Meta Quest Store. Players consistently highlight the storytelling, the hand tracking, and the novelty of building something while listening to a true crime narrative. Several reviews mention showing it to friends and family who had never tried VR before and watching them get immediately absorbed.

Vote on the next case

After the current three episodes, the Crafting Crimes team is letting the community decide what comes next. The current options are the Murder of Sharon Tate (1969), the Kim Kardashian Paris robbery (2016), and the Amanda Knox case (2007). You can vote directly on the Crafting Crimes website.

How to get started

You need a Meta Quest 3 or Quest 3S. Search for "Crafting Crimes" on the Meta Quest Store, or visit the store page directly. Episode 1, the Lizzie Borden case, is free. No purchase required, no subscription. Just download and start building.