Everyone has played one of those addicting, never-ending, score attack games. From some of the new titles likes Temple Run on mobile devices to some of the classic games like Space Invaders. Those sorta games have been around for a long time and they are easy and fun to play to kill some time. There is another one. A 2D Score attack, action game called Upperz, created by Itch.io user AwkwardNaut.
In this game, your goal is to climb up a randomly generated, destructible tower and get to the highest point that you can get to before the lava that is coming after you catches up. You have several tools to help you scale this endless behemoth. You have your standard jump, which is basically just an explosion that propels you upwards. Using this gives you some good air, but it also destroys the platform that you were sitting on, so make sure you know exactly where you need to go, because you will usually not get a chance to go back. You have a dash action which sends you directly in whatever direction you are holding at the time. This is useful as you can go right through platforms that are in the way, but you do end up slicing through them and causing them to fall, so you need to be very smart with this as well. You also have a grab action, which lets you stick to wherever your character is at the time you hit it. If there are any nearby platforms that are falling, you will attract these to you and hold them in place as well giving you a spot you can jump off of. The last ability you have lets you slow down time. This will allow you to make those pin-point jumps and can help you jump from falling platform pieces to help you if you have made a mistake.
All of these abilities are very useful and require a lot of thinking to use properly to get you higher and higher on the tower. There are also environmental hazards that you need to look out for. At first, most of the platforms are gray and will not move, but once you get a bit higher you will start to see purple platforms. These act as a double-edged sword. If you touch them, they will propel you in the direction that you touch the platform in. This can help if you land on-top of the platforms, but once you touch it, you are unable to control yourself for a few seconds, which can cause you to get into some bad situations. Also, if you end up touching the bottom of these platforms… BOOM… and you are sent careening back down to the bottom, usually into the lava. As you continue further and further up, you will also come across moving platforms that will usually get in your way and creatures that will try to get in your way as well. You will have to plan to avoid these or use them get higher.
The gameplay is very fluid, the aesthetics are beautiful as every platform has a unique pattern of graffiti on it which really gives everything a dystopian look. I mean, you are destroying a tower to climb it trying to escape from a rising stream of lava. Chances are that the future isn’t doing so well.
Download the alpha demo on the game’s itch page.
Played it? We’d love to know what you thought about it.
