Gorilla Tag

Gorilla Tag
"Monke."
Genre(s): Action, Casual Platform(s): Meta Quest Steam Release Date: February 12, 2021 (Steam) July 15, 2021 (Meta Quest) December 15, 2022 (Full Launch) Developer(s): Another Axiom Publisher(s): Another Axiom

Gorilla Tag is a multiplayer virtual reality game developed and published by Another Axiom LLC. Development first began in January 2020 and the game was finally released the following year on Steam on February 12, 2021, during its early access phase. It then expanded its availability to App Lab the subsequent month, ultimately reaching its official launch on the Meta Store on December 15, 2022.

Why It Rejects Humanity (In a Good Way), Becomes Monke, Climbs Well and Makes You Want To Play Minigames

1. A very good selection of maps, ranging from:
   • Forest
   • Caves
   • Canyons
   • Mountains
   • City
   • Clouds
   • Basement
   • Beach
   • Rotational
   • Metropolis
   • Attic (which was added as a test feature, based on player feedback, now inaccessible)
   • Arcade
2. There are some very good updates to the game, such as:
   • House
   • Summer Splash
   • Halloween 2022 & 2023
   • Christmas 2023
   • Nowruz
   • Spring Cleaning
   • Arcade and City revamp (arguably the best update of the entire game's history)
3. This game has a good share of pop-culture references, like references to King Kong, Pac-Man, and even Shrek!
4. While it is only limited to content creators, the Finger Painter badge is a really good cosmetic with a very important reason to be added to the game, and that is because the use of the Finger Painter badge is to attempt to reduce impersonation. However, the only way to get the Finger Painter without being a content creator is by hacking the game.
5. You can be any color in the game, using the RGB scale. The maximum value for each color is 9.
6. A good selection of cosmetics to choose from.
7. The community itself is quite respectful and friendly.
   • If a new player is unsure of how to play the game, then players educate the new player on mechanics, changing colors/names, buying/putting on cosmetics & showing them the different maps.
   • Players can be a bit annoying and foul-mouthed at times, but luckily, you can mute them if you want.
8. Nicely done moderation, to stop racism, cheating & toxicity.
   • The developers do a perfect job listening to criticism, even if they had made some flaws, since they know doing so would help them fix their mistakes and improve the game. This was the reason why the Attic map was added, as it was based on criticism rather than being a full-time map.
9. If you play the game every time, you get 100 shiny rocks every day, which is good for those who don't like the game's microtransactions.
10. A bit like Roblox, it has spawned some amazing and decent fangames. To make things even better, they are all free just like Gorilla Tag, whilst some fangames have unfortunately been delisted. Here are some examples:
    • Brick Tag (a Lego remake of Gorilla Tag, which was sadly delisted)
    • Cube Runners
    • Monkey Doo Doo
    • Capuchin
    • Scary Baboon
    • Fish Game
    • Penguin Paradise
    • Cebus
    • Yeeps Hide and Seek
11. Four game modes that are enjoyable, from Casual, Infection, Hunt & Paintbrawl. Unfortunately, Paintbrawl is now a limited time gamemode, where it will be swapped with Ambush sometimes.
12. Nicely done soundtrack. It even gets your ears kicked in!
13. Doug the Bug is a nice NPC. You can even hold him & make him go everywhere you go!
    • A similar NPC in the caves called Matt the Bat exists. Matt acts the same way as Doug does.
    • Aside from Matt the Bat and Doug the Bug, there is also a NPC called Mark the Shark who will swim around Beach (originally Caves)
14. You can join private codes where you can play casually by yourself or host events like fan lobbies, roleplays, or talent shows.
15. To make the game not just for kids, there are rumours revolving around ghosts being in the game, such as PBBV and Daisy09, which are the most recognizable ghosts in the game. There is an extremely rare chance that these ghosts will be real, as most of the ghosts are fake. You can spot the fake ghosts if their name is incorrectly spelled or if the quality of the sound is bad.
16. Some very good mods, including:
    • Custom maps
    • Ranked, which is a sub-game mode by Gorilla Tag COMP, which tracks skilled players' statistics in the game, from tags to MMR.
17. The developers accepted their apologies, and in compensation........ they brought back the original Caves map as a part of the rotational schedule! The aforementioned update is a MASSIVE love letter to those who played Gorilla Tag when it was in beta.
    • Gets better: Due to popular demand, the developers decided to keep the aforementioned map for longer.
18. To avoid ban evasion being too easy, the Steam version's cost was changed from free to USD 19.99. This is a really good way to stop more hackers going into the game.
19. You can have friendship bracelets in the game just by fist-bumping someone. You can have up to 10 players for each bracelet.
20. The Arcade and City revamp update. The whole update. (despite the high amount of glitches ranging from the "free disc", out of bounds and the Mark glitch)
21. Five words: "DO YOU WANNA PLAY MINIGAMES?"

Qualites That Get Tagged By The Lava Monke

1. There are too many glitches to get out of certain maps, to make it even worse, over 2000+ players were banned for doing this glitch which caused some players to quit the game or play on private servers to avoid this. Thankfully, all of those glitches have been patched as of now.
   • There worst offender of this is the "tag lag" glitch, where if you are a Lava or a Ghost Monke, if you touch a player, the player will not be tagged. Fortunately, it doesn't happen for too long.
2. Some updates seem forced and not that good, with Forest Lava and Pride Jam being the worst offenders of this.
3. Some maps look a bit rushed, mainly to fit the purpose of the rotational map, like with the Taiga map. Thankfully, it has been replaced.
4. Whilst one of the best updates to the game, the Summer Splash update temporarily makes the Caves map inaccessible, until July 28, 2023, when the map was revamped.
   • A similar thing happened with the Arcade and City revamp update, where it was full of glitches, as it was very common to see people glitch out the map in a public lobby.
   • The same thing happened with the Clouds map in the Hopping Spring update. Thankfully, it only lasted until the Flying Monkes update, 2 weeks after the Hopping Spring update.
5. The game, like any other, features microtransactions, where various amounts of Shiny Rocks can be bought for real money. Fortunately, you could use hacks to get as many Shiny Rocks as you can (although doing so might cost you some trouble with Lemming).
6. False advertising: A sneak peek posted on April 18, 2024, hinted at a remake of the original Caves from 2021-2023. However, it turned out to be a development version of Caves instead. At least the developers apologized.
   • The original Caves would later be added back into the game on May 17, 2024 (read WIRH(IaGW),BM,CWAMYWTPM#17 for more info)
   • Another example of false advertising is the July 18, 2024 patch, which fixed various bugs such as longer black screens, not being able to take off bracelets by pulling the string, and the Daily Tee being stuck at 00:00:00 & not updating. However, these were all fixed, except for the Daily Tee, which is nowhere to be found in the game, as it was likely to have been removed without any notice. However, when the Arcade and City revamp update launched, the Daily Tees were added back into the game, in a stall where 3 tees from the rotation were on offer, but were updated weekly.
7. After the patch update on March 29, 2024, Meta Quest users under the age of 13 are no longer able to use voice chat, join private codes, or buy Shiny Rocks, which is a bit disappointing, although it was somewhat understandable since some players can be annoying at times & the use of microtransactions.
8. There is a chance that private lobbies will be griefed.
9. Without hacking, some cosmetics are unobtainable nowadays, like:
   • the WeAreVR cosmetics
   • the Monke plush (which is technically a microtransaction because you had to buy the plush from Makeship & it was a limited time campaign)
   • the Early Access badge and other bundle cosmetics
   • and finally, the anniversary cosmetics.
10. The Attic map despite being a good map, was extremely prone to griefing, as players kept on ruining other people's builds. To make it more worse, it somewhat made the game go downhill along with the controversial Pride Jam update.
    • If the option to remove blocks would only be for the player, then the Attic would have been better.

Reception

The game received positive reception from critics. It is one of the best games for the Meta Quest, with the game itself being the most-rated game for the Meta Quest store. The game itself has an 8.2 rating on IMDb.

Trivia

• This game broke several Meta Quest records, including records for the highest rated game, the most best-selling game, the most played game, and the No. #1 game on the Meta Quest for several weeks. It was so popular that when the game launched on the Meta Quest store, sales for the Meta Quest began to skyrocket.
• In the removed Swamp map, a restroom with a bucket was part of the map. This might be a reference to the 2001 movie Shrek, although this has not been confirmed yet.
• The game has been made popular by the YouTuber IShowSpeed, who live-streamed the game, causing it to be an internet meme.
• There were rumors that Gorilla Tag was going to be ported into mobile in late February 2024, however, this turned out to be false, the "mobile port" is infested with ads, and to make it serious, Another Axiom was aware of the game's existence on mobile. Thankfully, the mobile game has been delisted from the App Store.

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