Shoot'n'Pull

Shoot'n'Pull
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Information
Type	Room-scale, Standing
Required Devices	HTC Vive Motion Controller
Description	Tower Tag offers an intuitive method of movement which gives the game a very dynamic gaming experience without the risk to cause motion sickness. Despite the relatively small space requirements.
Pros	No VR sickness. Easy to handle. Intuitive. Feels rewarding.
Cons	Fits only to one movement concept.
Creator	VR-Nerds GmbH
Examples	Tower Tag

Shoot'n'Pull is a Locomotion Method used in the virtual reality multiplayer shooter Tower Tag, developed by the Hamburg studio VR Nerds. The player aims the in-game laser gun at the top of a tower, pulls the trigger to attach a line to it, and then makes a yanking motion to pull themselves across to that tower. Between jumps the player moves physically inside a small tracked area around the tower they occupy. The press and the game's current store page call the mechanic a lasso or a grappling hook.

The developers built the technique for VR arcades, where each player stands in a small physical play space. A 2019 press release said this "special way of locomotion" was meant to create immersion in a small physical space and to prevent virtual reality sickness.

Reviewed 27 September 2026. Checked the movement description, CeBIT 2017 details, 2017 developer site claims, 2019 award and press release, 2020 Early Access and 2026 Steam release facts, and Locomotion Vault ratings against the cited sources. About review dates.

How it works

Movement uses the same gun the player fires with, so no second controller is needed. In a hands-on report from CeBIT 2017, heise online wrote that instead of the teleport mechanics common in other VR titles, the player pulls themselves from pillar to pillar as if with a lasso. The player sights the tip of a pillar, pulls the trigger and then pulls themselves forward with a jerking motion. A description published by the Singapore operator VR World says a tower is captured by aiming at its top and squeezing and holding the trigger. Once the tower changes to the player's team color, the player pulls themselves over by yanking the cable towards themselves. Tokyo Joypolis, which runs the game as an attraction, describes the connecting line as "a wire-like tool" for swift movement between towers.

Travel therefore happens between fixed points. VR Legion described the result as restricted free movement around the central column plus a block-to-block teleport with the lasso, and noted that the game does not need free locomotion through touchpads or thumbpads. The writer expected this to lower the risk of motion sickness. VR Fitness Insider wrote that a player can move quickly to another tower with the grappling hook while the other hand is free to prepare shots. A 2019 press release for the game's North American launch said the whole game is based on a single button.

At a tower, the player's physical space is built around a central column. VR Legion estimated each player's field at 1.5 to 2 square meters, with an illuminated pillar in the middle that is tracked in the game, so it can be used as real cover. The developer sold this illuminated acrylic glass tower as an optional hardware upgrade, and also offered a construction manual for operators who wanted to build their own. heise online reported that the physical plexiglass pillar appears in the virtual world at exactly the right position.

Additional Information

A natural and rewarding locomotion concept

By shooting a fixed object and pulling oneself toward the object in a rapid motion with a laser leash, this locomotion method is designed to feel natural and intuitive; its developer says it causes no motion sickness.

The claim of no motion sickness comes from the developer. Its 2017 website described the movement as having no "risk to cause motion sickness" despite the small space requirements. The 2026 Steam listing repeats the claim under the heading "Adrenaline Without the Nausea" and says the grappling hook "makes rapid movement feel completely natural", letting players swing from tower to tower and "maintain your orientation". None of the sources cited here reports a controlled study of sickness for this particular technique.

Classification

Locomotion Vault is a database of more than 100 VR locomotion techniques from academia and industry, presented at the ACM CHI 2021 conference by Massimiliano Di Luca, Hasti Seifi, Simon Egan and Mar Gonzalez-Franco. It lists this kind of movement under the generic entry "Grappling Hook", with Windlands and Tower Tag as its examples. The entry describes the technique as projecting a hook in the pointing direction to attach to parts of the environment, with the rope allowing the player to swing to a different location, and notes that some implementations use a blink teleport to reduce nausea. The database's ratings for the entry are:

Attribute	Locomotion Vault rating
Group	grab
Hardware	controller tracking
Direction	pointing
Posture	any
Nausea	low
Vection	medium
Speed	medium
Energy	medium
Accessibility	high
Ease of learning	medium
Beyond ground	yes

Source: Locomotion Vault dataset.

History

VR Nerds showed Tower Tag at CeBIT 2017, with two play stations with pillars and two without at its stand in Hall 17. The developers then planned to offer the game only to VR arcades. At that time the game had a single mode for two or four players (1 vs 1 or 2 vs 2). The 2017 website listed a VR gun, a haptic vest and the acrylic tower as upgrades. Its FAQ said the company did not sell the HTC Vive or computers, and advised a cable-free setup, such as a backpack PC or a wireless transmitter, when the glass towers are used.

At the 2019 German Computer Game Awards (Deutscher Computerspielpreis), Tower Tag won the Best Game Design category and was also nominated for Best Innovation and Technology. In October 2019, SpringboardVR announced that it would distribute the game to VR arcades in North America and Europe, with a Virtual Athletics League tournament starting on 2 November.

A home version entered Early Access on Steam on 28 May 2020. At launch it supported the Valve Index, HTC Vive, Oculus Rift and Rift S, and Windows Mixed Reality headsets. VR Nerds also released free 3D-printable files for a gun mount. UploadVR described the game as using "a grappling hook mechanic to allow for quick and accurate movement" and said it had originally been available in more than 1,300 VR arcades across 40 countries. The full Steam release followed on 13 March 2026. The listing names Steinfatt GmbH as developer and publisher, gives "Standing or Room Scale" as the supported play modes, and says the design works in smaller play spaces ("Small Room Scale").

Date	Event
March 2017	Tower Tag shown at CeBIT 2017; heise online reports the lasso-style movement
2019	Best Game Design at the Deutscher Computerspielpreis
22 October 2019	North America and Europe distribution announced with SpringboardVR
28 May 2020	Steam Early Access release of the home version
13 March 2026	Full Steam release

Problems

The technique lets the player travel only between fixed anchor points. Free movement is limited to the small area around the current tower, so the player cannot walk or glide freely through the arena. In the arcade version, the physical tower is a real obstacle inside the play space, and the developer advised cable-free VR hardware for setups that use it.

Solutions

The design ties movement to gameplay: in the description published by VR World, a player must first capture a tower before pulling across to it. Because the tracked pillar exists both physically and in the game, it works as real cover, and players can duck and lean around it with their own bodies. Movement and firing share one weapon, and the 2019 press release said the entire game is based on a single button.

See also

• Teleportation
• Climbing
• ArmSwinger
• Locomotion
• VR arcade