Gears & Goo Reimagines Tower Defense For Hand & Eye Tracking On Apple Vision Pro

Gears & Goo is out now on Apple Arcade for Vision Pro and it’s a must-play for subscribers and strategy fans. Read on for our full overview.

I spent the better part of two 7-hour train rides over Christmas break locked into Gears & Goo from Resolution Games on Apple Vision Pro. As I reached the later missions, I found myself repeating the same couple of maps for nearly an hour each, steadily improving my performance each time gathering resources, combining powers and fending off the increasingly challenging waves of enemies progressing down multiple paths to my base.

The new strategy game is on Apple Arcade now and a must-play for fans of the tower defense and strategy genres. It’s also worth checking out for mixed reality developers who can learn from Resolution’s thoughtful use of eye and hand tracking here.

If you don’t have a headset, check out the video below to see how I quickly and precisely resize the map to its ideal placement relative to my current position in a chair, just by pinching my middle finger and thumb on each hand and stretching the space between them. The same gesture is present in Demeo, also from Resolution. I’d be curious to use it to position multiple spatial apps next to one another around me using the gesture.

The map lays out in front of you and relies entirely on Apple Vision Pro’s look-and-pinch eye tracking interface for base management, unit construction, pathing and upgrades. Rapidly moving and resizing the map means you can choose whether to physically get up and move around the map or quickly reposition it for easier controls. I’ve only played the game seated, and found myself repositioning the map occasionally to better eyeball various structures and units. Generally, each character and structure needs to be unobstructed by others for you to select it with your gaze.

Most maps introduce a new gameplay element to consider, building steadily over the course of levels to an onslaught near the end just as you achieve mastery of your arsenal, with voice work that’s both cute and funny. The story is about corporate greed and soda, which is about all you need as a backdrop for these bubbly characters spewing cold and hot projectiles at one another. Players earn up to three stars per level by completing certain tasks, like beating the level without losing a structure or within a certain amount of time, so there’s some replayability if you want to keep going for all the stars.

Our longer video on YouTube shows the first few levels of the game played against the backdrop of my office wall, after I had played most of the game already. While I breeze through the levels, it’s that smooth because Gears & Goo is such a great use of Apple’s eye and pinch interface.

While you’re not going to find the weapon or map variety as seen in titles like Bloons Tower Defense 6+, which adds a 3D shelf to its minimally modified spatial interface on Vision Pro, you are going to get a much better use of hand and eye tracking here in Gears & Goo.

Resolution Games neither supports multitasking nor fully immersive VR mode for the launch version of Gears & Goo. For the main story, I would have liked to tune out the physical world and go to one of Apple’s home environments like the moon. Instead, I played the game against the backdrop of my wall and the back seats of train cars. There’s also a mode that lets you place your units on a physical table, but it’s not fun and I would have instead preferred to overlay a virtual environment as a backdrop to the main game.

Gears & Goo: More Please

Not as many people are likely to play Gears & Goo on Apple Vision Pro as might Resolution Games’ other titles, like Spatial Ops on Quest or even Demeo on any headset, but the title kicks off 2025 showing thoughtful new spatial design for visionOS. Gears & Goo delivers hours of entertainment on Apple Vision Pro with easy-to-use controls, and we hope this work from Resolution grows in the future as I would readily play a sequel or expansion. I’d also be curious to see more done with the middle finger pinch gesture from both Resolution Games and others.

You can find Gears & Goo on Apple Arcade through Apple’s App Store.