Onward and Upward! DX

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"Onward and Upward! DX" is an extremely badly made 2D retro pixel platformer, one of literally thousands of these infesting Steam and lowering the average quality of games everywhere. This one seems to be a game jam reject, and the developer apparently wasn't informed that PC's have different kinds of monitors, once 4:3, now almost always 16:9, and never, ever 1:1. It doesn't matter if some other platform had a 1:1 display aspect ratio. PC is [b]not that platform[/b]. This features really godawful, lazy pixelcrap "art" instead of real graphics. It's hard to say if this was because the developer didn't have the skill to do the job of creating 3D visuals, or couldn't afford to hire someone who does, but it also doesn't matter. What matters is that this looks bad because of that decision, and that's a major deterrent to gamers. Games like Terraria and Stardew Valley succeeded [i]despite[/i] the bad graphics, not because of them. Not every "free" game really is. There's often MTX, or content locked behind DLC, or donations being requested, or any other number of things that could mislead gamers, but in this case I'm glad to say this really does appear to be a fully free game.…

Cute platformer. The soundtrack slapped WAY harder than it should have. If you wanna collab on some future game add me on steam Travis!

Onward and Upward is a retro-styled platformer that has you following a girl on her adventure to the moon with various obstacles along the way. Simple enough, but what this game delivers in is a tried-and-true experience with by cozy graphics and a well-done soundtrack. A book always has more to offer under its cover, and I certainly wouldn't call this "low-quality". I'm not typically a platformer enjoyer, but for a short game it was enjoyable and kept me on my toes while remaining well paced and not too frustrating. The game is a constant stream with no cutscenes and minimal loading. It feels as if some platformers lean towards making the player agitated with obstacles begging perfectionism, but the jumping and movement feels nice and obstacles could be viewed as minor puzzles. As for the difficulty, overall I'd call it balanced, I definitely had to pay attention and focus on my accuracy at certain parts, but even on the hardest obstacles, it became just a matter of knowledge and some reaction speed. The game starts off pretty easy while it demonstrates core concepts, but the difficulty curve is pretty smooth and introduces new strategies throughout each level. The mechanics are…

I'm glad to say that I enjoyed my time with this game overall. It's not a GAME OF THE YEAR SUPER ULTRA MASTERPIECE OF ART TO BLOW YOUR MIND or anything but I don't demand or expect that from every game(especially not one made for free). Sometimes it's just nice to play something that a group of people put their effort and talent into and shared with the world. The game surprised me with how solidly made it was, but that's not to say it doesn't still suffer from some jank and the feeling that it needed a bit more refinement and one or two more layers of polish. When diving into some of the challenges sometimes the game may ask more from you than what I would say is reasonable(Needing to beat the game without dying is more frustrating when you have to close and reopen the entire game to restart and you occasionally die to invisible spikes). The game has more movement options than it appears the devs realized and it can be fun executing wall climbs to try and skip sections to cut on time. I thought the reward for getting a perfect run was good and the game has a lot to explore and do if you wish to invest some extra time into it. I also like the games presentation, it does a good job …

Really fun game, and very well made!! me likey. the moon is infact, cheese. i forgot to say the soundtrack slaps like ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥