Eye of the Temple is a room-scale VR adventure developed almost entirely as a solo project by Rune Skovbo Johansen over five years before its SteamVR release in October 2021. Johansen quit his job to finish the game, and it did not initially recoup his development costs. That changed when Salmi Games ported it to Meta Quest in April 2023: the Quest version now accounts for 70% of total revenue. The game has since received Metacritic Universal Acclaim, a 92% positive Steam rating from 391 reviews, and a 4.7-star rating from 436 Meta Quest reviews.

The core mechanic is unique in VR: you navigate a vast temple entirely through physical movement. There is no teleportation, no thumbstick locomotion, no artificial movement of any kind. You step between moving stone blocks by physically stepping forward. You lean around corners by leaning your body. You duck under hazards by ducking. You reach for your whip by reaching. You are, physically, in the temple. The camera does not move unless you move. The required play space of 2m by 2m is the cost of this immersion — and for players with the space, it is considered completely worth it.

Your tools are simple: a torch and a whip. The torch illuminates the dark temple and activates mechanisms. The whip swings to hit switches, pull levers, and defend against hazards. The game's puzzle design derives from observing how blocks and mechanisms behave and using your tools in the right sequence. The whip gains an additional function approximately halfway through, which 6DOF Reviews noted meaningfully increases variety in the second half. The atmosphere throughout is Indiana Jones by way of ancient temple mythology, handled with restraint.

The classroom logistics do require planning. Each student needs a 2m by 2m cleared space. In a standard classroom this means one headset at a time with desks moved to the side. In a larger space — a sports hall, drama room, or library — multiple cleared zones could be set up simultaneously. The game's auto-save means students can pause mid-session. The average playtime for the full campaign is reported at 3-5 hours, meaning it spans multiple sessions.