Twitch’s new sensation is a weird indie climbing game that's also quietly promoting NFTs
Only Up! is a game where «you have to get as high as possible.» And no, not like that—it's a low-budget indie platformer about climbing to the top of a weird, floating structure made of railway tracks, giant slices of fruit, floating islands, and things far weird than that. And right now, nearly 150,000 people are watching it on Twitch.
The top channel on the Only Up! category right now belongs to xQc (and yes, that xQc, the guy who got $100 million to stream on Twitch competitor Kick less than a week ago), who at the time of writing has 71,000 people watching him play. But as you can see from the category front page, he's far from alone:
The concept of Only Up! is simple: You are Jackie, desperately trying to escape the poverty of the slum in which you live. To do so, you embark upon a journey inspired by the tale of Jack and the Beanstalk, climbing ever upward into the unknown.
«The world has definitely gone crazy, though it has never been normal, but maybe now is the chance for you,» the Steam page states. «Crisis is a time for action and decisive steps… except it's scary, because every step can set you back far. »Sometimes it is difficult to choose the right path, but do not be afraid, you can always repeat, we learn from mistakes."
Mechanically, Only Up! is quite simple. It's played from the third-person perspective, you can walk, run, jump, or mantle onto things, and you can't die: Even if you fall from miles up in the sky, you'll lose progress but not your life when you land. Predictably, it's a little janky: There are some fairly obvious clipping errors, and the voice acting is repetitive and decidedly not great.
As suggested by the Steam store page, I could feel the game reaching for some level of profundity,
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