Giant Gorilla Game

A multiplayer browser game set in a city at golden hour. Each round one player, picked at random, is a giant gorilla standing on top of the tallest tower. Everyone else flies a fighter jet. The jets try to bring the gorilla down before the clock runs out; the gorilla tries to swat them out of the sky or knock them down with boulders.

Playing the gorilla

The gorilla is played with your own body. Prop up your laptop or phone, step back until the camera sees you from the waist up, and your arms become the gorilla's arms. The game runs a pose model in your browser and turns your shoulders, elbows and wrists into the direction of each of the gorilla's bones, so punching toward the screen punches into the city.

• Swat jets with your hands or forearms. A near miss with a fist still counts.
• Twist your shoulders to turn the gorilla to face jets coming from the side.
• Raise a hand above your head to grab a boulder, then swing it forward to throw. Throws lock on to a jet in front of you, and that pilot gets a warning, so they can still break away.
• Jump for real to leap off the tower at jets passing overhead.
• Beat your chest, left and right, to roar. Jets nearby lose control for a few seconds.
• No camera? Move a hand with the mouse or your finger, turn with A and D, press W to jump, press E (or the Throw button) to throw a boulder, and hold Space to beat your chest.

Flying a jet

Fly with WASD or the arrow keys (or the stick on a phone), fire the guns with Space or a click, fire rockets with R or a right click, boost with Shift and brake with B. Each jet carries four rockets, and they reload one at a time. The gorilla can swat them out of the air. Your guns hit hardest up close, so the best damage comes from risky passes within reach of the gorilla's fists. If you get swatted or crash, you're back in the air four seconds later.

Rounds and turns

Everyone gets a turn as the gorilla before anyone goes twice, picked at random each round. Bots fill the sky so there are always at least three jets, and you can play alone against bot jets or a bot gorilla. Share the room link, or have friends type the four-letter room code on their own phone or computer, to play together. There are no accounts.

Questions

Does the camera video leave my device?

No. The pose model runs in your browser. Only the gorilla's bone directions are sent to the other players, about twenty times a second.

What do I need to be the gorilla?

A webcam or phone camera and enough room to stand back about two metres. A laptop on a table works well.

Is it free?

Yes. It's a hobby project.

Credits

• Gorilla model: "Caesar | VGDC" by MooKorea, from Sketchfab, licensed CC BY 4.0. Clothing removed and recompressed.
• Jet model: "F-16 jet" by RickSlash, from Sketchfab, licensed CC BY 4.0. Materials split and recoloured for team colours, recompressed.
• Pose tracking: MediaPipe Pose Landmarker (Apache 2.0). Rendering: three.js (MIT).