“The Upturned” is a horror/puzzle/platformer game created by Zeekers, the indie developer of “Lethal Company,” and is my favorite game of all time. Although I could write pages of praise for “The Upturned,” I will do my best to write mainly about the tangible content!
In “The Upturned,” you play as The Traveller, experiencing his journey through the afterlife. Eventually, he comes upon The Upturned Inn, a hotel run by Ikabod Kee (Ik), the most gleeful character I have ever had the pleasure of meeting.
Ik explains how The Traveller has a reservation (everybody does), and that his room is on floor 1,434. He then sends you to the elevator, which promptly loses power. The gameplay loop then continues as follows: find a power plug on the current floor, bring it back to the elevator, ascend several more floors before the elevator breaks again, and continue.
Every aspect of the gameplay centers around The Traveller’s only two abilities: grabbing and throwing items. As an example of this, the only way for The Traveller to fight back is by picking up objects and chucking them at oncoming attackers. Sometimes, the objects you will throw may even be the enemies themselves!
With the game containing a little over 30 floors, most levels will introduce either a new enemy type or a new gimmick that utilizes The Traveller’s abilities in some way. One of my personal favorites is the toy guns that shoot at enemies for some time before eventually overheating and blowing up in your hands.
“The Upturned” features 10-plus different enemy types, with each boasting its own gimmick, kryptonite, and amusing design. Chompers are essentially the blank slate enemy, pouncing on and biting The Traveller aggressively. Whenever you’re not standing in light, Lil’ Chucklers swarm The Traveller, ripping him to shreds.
My personal favorite enemy (and miniboss), the Fat Pajama Man, crashes through the ceiling at the end of certain floors and (canonically) spanks The Traveller to death if he catches up.
At various points throughout “The Upturned,” Ik (the founder) will call The Traveller, forcing him into dialogue. As soon as you hear the cellphone ringing, the entire game will freeze around (and including) your player. Ik often calls during extremely intense moments, and watching the enemies go rigid as he calls to have The Traveller take a friendship quiz is absolutely hilarious. Besides the timing of the calls, the dialogue itself is hysterical, as well.
After finishing the game, I found a community-made site with every dialogue tree to make sure I wouldn’t miss any gold. Sometimes, Ik’s dialogue will even provide information regarding the larger story (which becomes more prominent the farther you progress)! Occasionally, the dialogue choices you make will even take effect on the floors themselves.
One particularly anxiety-inducing encounter features a water slug that chases the player through sticky goo, requiring you to hop across furniture to escape it. During an intense chase near the end of the level, Ik will call you, freeze the chase, and ask if you would like to hear some of his new music. If you respond yes, he will play it through the floor’s speakers, and the intense bass will throw around the furniture escape route you so carefully assembled!
The narrative of “The Upturned” generally focuses on Ik learning how The Traveller perished, eventually evolving into the history of their entire world. Believe me when I say that I could genuinely discuss compliments and interesting pieces of trivia about this story (and Ik’s dialogue) for pages – it may even be my favorite part of the game. However, I refuse to spoil anything further in the hopes that you will play and get to experience it for yourself!
Once you finish “The Upturned,” you may be, as I was, left wanting more. Luckily, you can now discover bonus content! Certain floors contain chocolate bars, which, once collected, unlock special floors, all of which center themselves around a gimmick that would be too abstract to fit into the main game. With eight bonus floors in total, their objectives range from climbing to the top of a towering room to attempting to survive an onslaught of enemies for one minute.
My favorite (and most grueling) bonus floor, titled “HE LURKS,” borrows the gameplay from one of Zeekers’ other games, “It Steals.” Unlike the rest of “The Upturned,” the gameplay is set in first person as The Traveller sprints through a maze, all while avoiding The Fat Pajama man, who is hunting you down the whole time.
One final aspect of “The Upturned” I think is worth mentioning is its incredible soundtrack, which, canonically, was created by Ik himself, and is what I’m listening to as I write this very sentence! Ik’s theme, functionally titled “Ik”, which plays every time he calls The Traveller, is a super goofy tune and great amplifier of Ik’s already bubbly personality.
Another track, “The Place For Staying Still Very Quickly,” plays during a particularly stressful floor and switches between calming piano music and a chaotic cacophony of sounds, boosting the distress of the floor tenfold.
The last track I’ll mention, “Fat Pajama Man,” plays anytime the Fat Pajama Man hunts you down and utilizes an instrumental that mimics the noises of a person simultaneously screaming and laughing at you. Every track is completely unique and adds a great deal of personality to the floors and enemies on which they’re used.
An average playthrough of “The Upturned” runs four to six hours. Despite Steam only recognizing 16 of my hours in-game (from three playthroughs), that does not count the two playthroughs I had watched of my friends’, the time I spent reading over Ik’s dialogue tree, or the hours I spent building my Ik Halloween costume out of papier-mache (yes, I am that obsessed)! There is so much more I would love to say, but in fear of spoilers and this article becoming too long, I will cut myself off here. If you want to try “The Upturned” for yourself, it can be found on Steam for an extremely reasonable $9.99, and I cannot recommend it enough!
