Yeeps: Hide and Seek has just launched on the main Quest store. But, even before that, the game racked up some 20,000 reviews on App Lab in just a few months. More than a clone, Yeeps understands what’s special about Gorilla Tag and how to add meaningfully new elements to the experience.
There are those who have dismissed Gorilla Tag as a ‘meme game’ and some kind of viral fluke. And there are those who see something special about the game that’s worth understanding. Given Gorilla Tag’s recent milestone of $100 million in revenue, it’s fair to say the second group has the right idea.
Developer Trass Games certainly sees the value in understanding what makes Gorilla Tag special. With Yeeps: Hide and Seek, launched on Quest App Lab just a few months ago, the studio has successfully emulated the essential arm-based locomotion and social aspect of the game, while fusing it with building elements along the lines of Fortnite and Minecraft.
The game doesn’t merely copy Gorilla Tag’s essential elements, but pushes them further. The social aspect is amplified with in-game items and creation, allowing players to make their own structures, mini-games, and activities. And arm-based locomotion is supplemented with even more free-form movement like gliding, grappling, and launchpads.
And it’s working.
In just four months on App Lab, Yeeps amassed more than 20,000 reviews. And the game has still doesn’t launch on the main Quest store until July 18th—where it’s likely to grow even more rapidly.
Gorilla Tag itself followed a similar trajectory. Initially launched on App Lab, the game spent nearly a year there while it spread rapidly through word-of-mouth alone, eventually surpassing Beat Saber as the most reviewed game on Quest—even though it hadn’t launched on the main Quest store by that point.
Since hitting the main Quest store in late 2022, Gorilla Tag has grown further still, now sitting at more than 117,000 reviews—the most of any game on Quest. The game also recently broke $100 million in revenue and 1 million daily active players.
While Gorilla Tag has spawned countless clones, games like Yeeps and others are taking the parts of the game that work best and turning them into something new. The result has been a new genre of VR games emerging right before our eyes.
Update (July 1st, 2024): A previous version of this article stated that Yeeps had just launched onto the main Quest store. In fact it won’t launch until July 18th; this has been corrected.