Viral indie title ‘Only Up’ removed from Steam due to developer stress

With the modern advent of social media and video streaming services we have seen more and more unique indie titles blow up in popularity very quickly. One of the most recent success stories is the physics-based platformer Only Up. Unfortunately in this case, its sudden rise to fame has had adverse effects on the game’s sole developer – leading to them removing the title from Steam.

In an update posted to the game’s Steam page, the developer (indiesolodev), announced that they have taken down Only Up from Steam entirely, saying:

“I'm a solo developer and this game is my first experience in Gamedev, a game I did for creativity, to test myself, and where I made a lot of mistakes. The game has kept me under a lot of stress all these months. Now I want to put the game behind me. And yes. the game won't be available in the steam store soon, that's what I decided myself.”

They continued, “What I need now is peace of mind and healing. I plan to take a pause, and continue my education in game design and further with new experience and knowledge to direct my energies to my next game with the working title ‘Kith’ – it will be a new experience and a new concept with realism, a completely different genre and setting, and the emphasis is on cinematography.”

Indiesolodev concluded by saying “This time I hope the project will be created by a small team. This is a challenging project on which I want to significantly improve my skills in game design. Thank you for your understanding.”

This isn’t the first time that a developer has delisted their game due to its popularity, with perhaps the most analogous comparison being the 2013 mobile game Flappy Bird.

Game development is tough at the best of times, and so it is good to see indiesolodev recognising the importance of their own mental health.

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KitGuru says: What did you think of Only Up? Are you looking forward to their next game? Let us know down below.

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