Gorilla Tag is a social VR game where players hang out while parkouring in a variety of fun and unique environments. The game’s unique movement mechanics have made it and its fan games an industry worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Players move with their arms, pushing down their hands to propel their character forward. Movement is as immersive as possible because they use the same hand controls to grab, wall jump, and swing, as well as interact with the in-game UI.
Another Axiom Inc.’s movement system is openly available online, which has allowed many players to build their own fan experiences, so anyone has access to a refined movement system with minimal setup. Both first-time devs and experienced designers like myself have brought this style of gameplay to new genres using the movement controller. Read on to learn how to make a game like the sensation that’s earned Another Axiom over $100 million.
1. Download Unity
Download Unity through the Unity Hub available on their website. Only a few packages are required during installation. The Android OS is necessary because Meta Quest headsets run on it, and Meta is the unquestioned standard of VR at the present moment. The Unity XR (Extended Reality) packages are also necessary for developing with VR in Unity; their Open XR interface makes it possible to develop for Meta/Oculus, HTC Vive and Valve Index.
Unity is the solution Gorilla Tag originally used, which means you have to reinvent the wheel if working in another engine. If you use Unreal Engine or Godot, keep in mind that you need to find a custom solution for Gorilla Tag-like movement. The Fab marketplace has a Hand Walking VR template for Unreal, although I don’t have the experience to vouch for its effectiveness. Godot doesn’t have a hand-walking solution, but it does have VR headset support for creating a custom controller.
2. Download Locomotion
Download the Gorilla Locomotion from Another Axiom’s GitHub page. Clicking on the Unity package and installing it includes a basic scene and Gorilla Rig movement controller. The system is plug-and-play: with the XR package activated, you’re ready to start developing with it. The only caveat worth mentioning is that a render pipeline other than the default will ruin all the materials in the Gorilla Locomotion scene, but a fresh install of Unity doesn’t have this issue.
Using the Gorilla Tag controller comes with no disadvantages since you’re free to modify it as you wish. Creating a VR locomotion controller from scratch is challenging unless you’re an experienced tools developer. Making it feel just right requires extensive testing and knowledge of advanced math for tracking the player’s movement and making sure there aren’t issues with the physics, collision, gripping, and so on. Even modifying the original movement controller comes with caveats, as most players are too accustomed to the original movement. The fan game Capuchin received mixed reviews when it increased the force of movement in a major update to allow players to reach new heights. It didn’t feel like Gorilla Tag anymore.
3. Ensure your controller works in single-player
Ensure your controller works in single player to catch problems in the simplest possible environment. Isolating problems is a challenge when other factors like network lag are involved. Testing in this simple environment makes it possible to ensure there aren’t issues with the physics and identify problems with the level geometry. An early test lets you try the movement on multiple platforms, too, although most VR developers start with Meta Quest and then release on other platforms later on.
The basic issues to test for are the head, hands, and body clipping into objects. The Gorilla Tag creators spent a significant amount of time refining the controller to avoid these issues. In a custom level, there’s the possibility of body parts tunneling through objects, especially at high speed if it passes through an object before the engine updates. Setting collision detection to Continuous often fixes these issues.
An in-depth tutorial on all the possible modifications to movement is beyond the scope of this guide, but here’s a list of other movement types that are optional but popular additions to the base moveset.
- Grabbing Objects: Picking up a tool orients it in the hand correctly
- Throwing: Releasing objects lets the player launch them. The mechanic requires tweaking, as using default physics feels wrong, like trying to throw a feather or a piece of paper.
- Climbing: If you have ropes or ladders, test whether players are able to grip and release them properly using a button
- Swimming: Swimming was added to Gorilla Tag only after the movement was released on GitHub, but is a popular addition to fan games.
- Zero-gravity: If your game has zero-gravity environments, test the movement and other mechanics in a zero or low-gravity environment to make sure they work
- Combat: The ability to take damage and deal damage ought to be added and tested at this stage.
- Hit Detection: For combat, aim assist is difficult to implement with full 3D movement, so a system where farther players have larger hurtboxes is a simpler assist we implemented for Monkey Doo
Each of the major VR developers has more documentation available on their websites for building controls with Unity. Meta has the Immersive Debugger which streams data from Unity to an interface directly within the headset. Users have the ability to tweak inspector values and look at the console during gameplay. The HTC Vive and Windows VR have Unity-specific documentation available, and packages for these headsets are available in the Unity project settings.
4. Set up multiplayer movement
Set up multiplayer movement and make sure players and movable props update properly on all devices. Getting the multiplayer architecture working is a much bigger obstacle than getting the movement to work. A P2P (peer-to-peer) network connection is recommended because it’s simpler to get going immediately. Client-server hosts the game on a server and sends updates out to all the computers to give the developers centralized control of the process. Photon Fusion is an asset store item that works for implementing P2P or client-server architectures.
Client-server architecture is worth mentioning because it’s less susceptible to hacking. While it doesn’t receive extensive attention, there’s an underground Discord server dedicated to hacking Gorilla Tag fan games, interrupting the networking, and requesting cash and the game’s source code as ransom. On Monkey Doo, we switched from P2P to client-server architecture after they broke our networking. We were able to shut the hackers out, but solo devs ought to be wary of this happening to them. Capuchin had to shut down for a while because of the same problem.
Monkey Doo used Photon Fusion for networking, a popular option on the Asset Store for handling netcode. The package handles lag with tick-based simulation, client-side prediction, and snapshot interpolation for smooth-looking visuals. The asset ranges from free to $500/month, depending on the game size. Unity’s solution requires more setup, but it has some basic packages (Networking, Authentication, Lobby, and Relay), which are described in the Unity documentation.
Test to make sure that player movements and the effects of players on the environment update correctly on all devices. Making sure players are visible to each other is the first step, but their movement needs to look smooth, too. When players push a ball, pick up a weapon, or swing on a rope, interacting with each object needs to look like a fluid motion without jittering and stuttering.
5. Add voice chat
Add voice chat to the game to encourage socialization and teamwork. Gorilla Tag is primarily a social game, and many of its fan games follow its lead. Voice chat is a crucial part of making the players feel like they are embodied by their avatar and are present in the world. Socialization in VR feels much more genuine than in other games because voice and body language are able to work together.
Vivox is the default Unity solution for adding voice chat. The Unity Quick Start Guide includes advice for implementing Vivox, and the Unity forums have a dedicated Vivox forum. Clicking on Unity Services > Voice and Text Chat takes users to the right place for help. Vivox lets you implement cross-platform voice chat, text chat, and data collection on toxic players.
Photon offers a solution for voice chat as well in the form of Photon Voice. The package is available on the Asset Store, where it has a five-star rating. The package interfaces with other Photon software for lip syncing and voice command recognition, so it’s worth using if you went with Photon for the networking.
6. Design multiplayer tag gameplay
Design multiplayer tag gameplay by looking to popular multiplayer titles for inspiration. Gorilla Tag’s ruleset is simple, so the gameplay is a blank canvas for combat, gameplay, and progression systems. Common modifiers to the gameplay include adding the ability to give and receive damage or objective-based modes that change the way players approach the game.
Gorilla Tag’s base gameplay follows intuitive tag rules. An infected ape chases and infects other players by touching them, until all players are infected. The game builds on the basic ruleset with a variety of maps: caves, beaches, rope jungles, icy mountains, and forests. The creators have since added new modes like Super Infection, where players have access to the yo-yo (a grappling hook), stilts for tagging other players, and placeable platforms.
The tag game mode is often only a launching-off point and inspires entirely new experiences. Looking to other games for inspiration is the way many Gorilla Tag fan games set themselves apart from the original. Ideation often begins with thoughts like, What if I made a survival game/battle royale/sports game with Gorilla Tag movement? The rest of the process is figuring out how to design levels and add mechanics that fit the sub-genre. Yeeps: Hide & Seek and Animal Company are two games that have successfully combined mechanics from other games into a Gorilla Tag fan game. Yeeps has building mechanics similar to Fortnite or Minecraft, and the main game mode is, as the title suggests, Hide & Seek. Players throw down blocks to create fortresses, block routes, or just play around in social modes. Animal Company takes the chaotic co-op of Lethal Company and combines it with Gorilla Tag movement, adding resource management and exploration to the mix.
Progression systems and rewards keep players engaged in a simple ruleset. Gorilla Tag offers 100 shiny rocks every day you log in (shiny rocks being the premium currency for buying cosmetics). The incentive means any player has the ability to buy something from the store and encourages playing often. The game I worked on, Monkey Doo, included a progression system to give players reasons to refine their skills and make playing a part of their routine. Players received XP for engaging in matches, which leveled up their Battle Pass. Levels in the Battle Pass resulted in in-game currency, cosmetics, or even limited-time game modes. The Battle Pass tied mastery to tangible rewards. Rather than give up after playing the first few matches, players returned to improve their skills.
Keeping an eye on the modding and fan game community makes it easy to track what’s popular in the Gorilla Tag fandom. Market research is an important step for any successful game, as a game needs to find and attract an audience to be successful. Knowing in-depth details about similar games helps make sure you’re doing something distinct from everyone else. The official Gorilla Tag server and the Gorilla Tag Modding Group show what other developers are working on and what’s popular at the moment.
7. Design interactive elements
Design the game environment to fit the theme of the game. Monkey Doo includes swinging vines, lily pads, rotating ball bearings, and ziplines because those fit the jungle environment. Once you have an idea of which props and interactive elements to build into your game, you have the tools to begin creating engaging levels out of those pieces.
Adding unique surfaces to maps is a basic method to change the way players interact with the environment. Lava is an instantly recognizable hazard and adds stakes to the platforming challenge. Ice is a slippery surface that makes players lose control, and is great for creating slides. Volcano from Monkey Doo is an example of the former, and Mountains from Gorilla Tag an example of the latter. Each type of surface changes the kinds of routes players take through the level, what props exist in the environment, and which skills they need to use. A level with lava requires careful platforming, while fluid movement control is more important in an ice level.
Dynamic and interactive objects in the environment change the way players move or create new challenges. Gorilla Tag has numerous props that change locomotion. Ziplines in Beach, swinging ropes in Canyon, the glider in Clouds, and the boards in Hoverpark give players unique ways to move. In Monkey Doo, we included environmental hazards like lava geysers, which added a new challenge to navigating the Volcano map.
Having a series of obstacles and interactive map pieces helps guide the rest of the level design process. Once a series of mechanics is built, tested, and working, you’re able to focus on what makes the level fun mechanically and not just visually. A designer starts by thinking about how to create a fun level out of a combination of mechanics like ziplines and water, and they experiment with these to create a cohesive arena with clear routes and sightlines.
8. Design the level
Design the level by testing different routes and mechanics, then thoroughly testing each arrangement. Level design for a Gorilla Tag game is similar to any 3D level. Routes connect a series of points of interest (POIs). The routes in turn ask the player to perform interesting actions: wall jumping, swimming, gliding, or swinging.
Multiple routes connect each POI to encourage player choice and exploration. The level Clouds in Gorilla Tag has a few clear POIs: the small huts and village in the trees, the zipline, and the holes running through the trees. Players start at ground level but quickly pick up a glider, which takes them to any one of these locations. The route afterwards is up to the player: he/she has the option to use the glider directly to their destination, use the zipline once they are up there, or challenge themselves by diving through the narrow passages drilled through the trees.
Make sure the level routing fits the target experience. Gorilla Tag is a tag game, so the rules of tag guide the level design process. The game doesn’t have dead ends or corners. Levels have tons of verticality so skilled players are able to platform, climb, or wall jump their way out of any situation. A game like Animal Company belongs to the survival horror genre, so the level design priorities are the opposite. Animal Company is full of labyrinthine and narrow passages that restrict player movement as a result.
Iterating on the level design is a large part of the process. You’re unlikely to get the spacing, size, and frequency of obstacles right on the first try. Constant playtesting is a must for making sure all elements of the level work together smoothly, from using interactive objects to jumping between platforms or traveling through passages. The routes through the level ought to be clearly communicated, so this is an opportunity to remove unintended paths or take out roadblocks that cause players to avoid certain areas.
9. Design the visual theme
Design the visual theme after the levels and gameplay have been established. Thousands of Gorilla Tag fan games are out there. A strong visual aesthetic is the first thing players are going to notice. The audience for these types of games tends to be younger, so many fan games take a lighter and sillier tone or put an ironically dark twist on it. No More Rainbows falls somewhere in between, where the aesthetic is light, bright, and cartoonish, but the player is a demon whose goal is to tear it all down.
A strong visual theme doesn’t have to be carefully crafted or detailed, as Yeeps Hide and Seek shows. Striking silhouettes and a simple style make the game memorable and marketable. The flat colors and ragdoll look make Yeeps iconic figures. The addition of only one extra detail, the zipper on their chest, makes it easy to imagine them as plushies, so it’s no surprise that they sell plushie versions of the characters on their website.
10. Refine game mechanics to support the visual theme
Refine game mechanics to support the visual theme. A visual theme is often a source of fun and creative ideas. If you’re making a tag game but with ice, the next step is considering what fun and creative mechanics come from playing tag on a slippery surface. A designer in this scenario considers level elements like bottomless pits, breaking ice to trap players, or the ability to form and throw snowballs. The mechanics support the aesthetics of the game. In No More Rainbows, increasing speed by smashing more objects fits the themes and goals of being a monster, tearing down all that is good.
New maps and mechanics for Monkey Doo emerged the same way. We started off with the idea for a zero-gravity map, and the final result was a brand new game mode, the map Space. I was playing with the ball bearings and realized reskinned versions made for convincing asteroids. The zero-g environment also spawned the idea of rocket thrusters that players use to zip around the arena. Playing around with these ideas revealed that these new systems made for an engaging skill test. The rockets boost the player, but they must grab and release asteroids at the right time to redirect themselves. A new game mode emerged from a basic premise and some experimentation.
11. Build upon and make it your own
Build upon and make it your own through more unique mechanics, progression systems, content, and environments. Looking to other games for inspiration is one way to start. Orion Drift, the latest release from the creators of Gorilla Tag, takes soccer and combines it with hand-walking to create a new eSport. Rec Room and VR Chat, much like Roblox, let players create and play their own minigames.
Your Gorilla Tag fan game isn’t likely to be as big as the original, but it doesn’t have to be if it finds its niche audience. A small group of players is going to say to themselves, I like Gorilla Tag’s movement, but I wish it had X game mode or Y mechanic. Finding other experiences that the audience of Gorilla Tag likes is a helpful route to coming up with the premise for your own game.
