Steam has only reached the next level! Pulled for good so the devs can find the ‘cure’

Only up! Is a brutal and crazy platform game that blew up on Steam earlier this summer after becoming a hit with Twitch viewers. A number of controversies later, its creator deleted the game from Valve’s digital storefront, seemingly forever, saying it had made a lot of mistakes and needed time to heal before making its next one. game.

“The game has put me under a lot of stress all these months,” the game’s developer, Indiesolodev, wrote in what appears to be the final update For Only up! (via PCGamesN). “Now I want to put the game behind me. And yes. the game will not be available on the Steam store soon, that’s what I decided myself. The game now appears as “unavailable” on its store page, although players who have already purchased it will still have access to it.

A parkour game about constantly reaching new heights, Only up! released in May and became popular in June with over 10,000 concurrent players and 90,000 viewers on Twitch. Reviews of the actual quality of the game were mixed, however, with some players praising the surreal and temperamental 3D platforming while others criticized its problematic physics and hasty design full of what seemed like cheap asset flips.

A hit among Twitch streamers who found that viewers were drawn to this film as a kind of voyeuristic failure porn, Only up! was nevertheless briefly removed from Steam for a day in July after being accused of stealing another developer’s copyrighted 3D anime model. As Gamer on PC underlines at the time, the game also seemed to be loosely affiliated with NFTs, from images of Goblintown tokens appearing in levels to the title itself, which is a common rallying cry among crypto scammers.

“What I need now is peace of mind and healing,” Indiesolodev wrote in today’s update. “I plan to take a break and continue my studies in game design and gain new experiences and knowledge to direct my energies towards my next game.” Their second project is currently called “Kith”, which means friends or acquaintances, although it is also the name of a popular streetwear brand. Indiesolodev describes it as completely different from Only up! with an emphasis on “cinematography”.

“This time I hope the project will be created by a small team,” they wrote. “This is a challenging project on which I want to significantly improve my game design skills.”

Some players are already in mourning Only up!, wondering why Indiesolodev didn’t just decide to give it away for free. But most of the comments on their update only praise them for creating a viral game out of nowhere. “You did a fantastic job with this game and you should be nothing but proud of yourself”, wrote the_drummernator. “I’ve had a great experience so far, and finally getting to the top after many setbacks has been very rewarding.”