kerestell smith

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‘Gorilla Tag’ Creator Hints at ‘Echo VR’ Spiritual Successor as Next Project

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Another Axiom, the indie studio behind wildly successful VR game Gorilla Tag, hinted that it’s now pursuing a project inspired by Echo VR.

Kerestell ‘LemmingVR’ Smith, the lead creator of Gorilla Tag, originally started working on the game thanks to his love of Echo VR, the zero-g sports game created by the Meta-owned studio Ready at Dawn.

Late last month though, Meta announced it will be shutting down Echo VR this summer as the team pursues other projects. As you’d imagine, this didn’t sit right with the small but dedicated playerbase, Smith included.

And Smith isn’t just any fan; he’s competed in and won several Echo VR competitions with his team ‘ec.lip.se’, making the loss of the game decidedly more personal.

In a recent tweet, Smith hinted that a new project is on the horizon which will be a zero-g sports game of sorts—undoubtedly a response to Meta pulling the plug on Echo VR.

we won’t let there be zero zero-g vr sports games

more news about our new project soon™

— LemmingVR (@LemmingVR) February 17, 2023

Another Axion hasn’t tipped their hats beyond Smith’s tweet, so we’ll just have to wait and see what’s in store from the creator of Quest’s most-rated game, which has surpassed even the Meta-owned rhythm game Beat Saber in the number of user reviews it’s garnered.

In fact, the game has been so successful it generated $26 million in revenue from in-app purchases. The gorilla-themed game of tag has also reported a staggering (for VR) peak monthly active user count of 2.3 million in December 2022, further stating that over 760,000 users played on Christmas Day.

Thanks to Sven Viking for pointing us to the news.

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Indie VR Hit ‘Gorilla Tag’ is the Most-rated Quest Game Ever, and Only Just Coming to the Main Store

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Indie VR hit Gorilla Tag has been staggeringly popular despite only being available thus far on Quest’s App Lab. Now set for release on the main Quest store on December 15th, it will launch as the most-rated game on the entire store, even surpassing Beat Saber, one of VR’s best known apps.

App Lab is Meta’s ‘unlisted’ app store for Quest, which allows developers a way onto the platform but precludes them from being promoted or easily found through the main Quest store that most customers see.

Still, we’ve seen apps find success on App Lab, and none more so than Gorilla Tag, a simple game of multiplayer tag with unique hand-based locomotion and charmingly low-fi visuals, which has succeeded in finding an audience despite not being visible in the main Quest store.

Having only been on App Lab since March 2021, Gorilla Tag has already amassed 46,000 reviews; that’s more than any other Quest app—even those on the main store—including Beat Saber’s 45,000 reviews, which is perhaps VR’s most well known game to date. Compared to Beat Saber, Gorilla Tag of course has the advantage of being free, but the game also has the most reviews among free apps too—even those on the main store—pulling ahead of the top free app, Rec Room, which sits at 22,000 reviews.

And now the game is finally headed to the main Quest store, where it’s destined to only become more popular. Developer Kerestell Smith has announced a Gorilla Tag release date of December 15th on the main Quest store. Gorilla Tag is also available on PC VR.

Smith began Gorilla Tag as a one-man project under the studio name Another Axiom. With the game’s explosive popularity, Smith has grown the studio to 15 people, according to Meta.

Gorilla Tag’s popularity isn’t only measured in reviews though; Smith said earlier this year that the game had reached a staggering 4.5 million players.

And where has the app found such traction, despite being ‘unlisted’ in the Quest store? Smith tells Road to VR that TikTok has been a huge driver, with the hashtag #gorillatag seeing 4.4 billion views to date—purely organic, according to the developer.

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