Skittish is the new virtual event space created from the lessons of the pandemic

Skittish may look like a much cuter version of video game social spaces like VRChat but it is built specifically to host online events. You attend events as a cute animal avatar and would be able to explore worlds created for you by clicking around with your mouse. You navigate with the WASD keys on your keyboard like you would in a video game.

XOXO Festival co-founder Andy Baio unveiled  the adorable virtual space on Tuesday.

While you explore a Skittish world, you can overhear something exciting going on because of the spatial audio, which enables sound to fade in and out depending on your proximity to the source.And if you are an event organizer on Skittish, the platform is designed to provide you tons of tools to craft a space that caters to your needs.

The project was inspired by Baio’s time attending virtual events during the pandemic saying such events “weren’t social in any way”- Baio said in his interview with The Verge.

The project is still in its early stages, with no set timeline when it will be available to the public. But there is a mailing list you can sign up for if you would like to help with beta testing or keep updated on the project.