$9.99The Upturned A funny, scary climb through the afterlife
A hotel for the dead, an elevator that keeps dying, and a storm outside that wants you personally. The Upturned is a funny, scary climb through a strange afterlife where your only skills are hopping and throwing furniture. Chat with the inn's founder, dodge monsters with their own agendas, and try to reach your room.
Is The Upturned worth it?
The Upturned is worth it if…
- you want a horror game that makes you laugh between the scares
- you're new to horror and want a gentle way in
- you like simple controls stretched into surprising puzzles
- you enjoy stories that get weird and stay weird
- you're fine with a game that repeats its loop a little on the way up
Screenshots
A hotel where every floor fights back
You just want to get to your room. The elevator has other plans: the storm outside keeps knocking the power out, so you climb floor by floor, find what the lift needs, and ride up a little further before it dies again. Each floor is its own small world, from a glass pane factory to an aquarium, an abandoned shopping mall and a wild west town. The inn's monstrous residents don't all come at you swinging. Each one has its own personality, intentions and strategy, so you learn what a creature wants before you decide whether to run, hide or fight back the only way you can: by picking things up and chucking them.
Hopping and chucking furniture
Your entire moveset is jumping and throwing, and the game builds everything around those two verbs. Furniture is ammunition, and so are the birds: you can throw furniture at birds, or throw birds at birds, which is exactly as stupid as it sounds. Combat is improvised. You grab a chair, line up a shot at something lunging at you, and hope the physics cooperate. Between the slapstick, the puzzles and the platforming, the chaos is the point: plans fall apart, objects go flying, and the mess you leave behind is half the fun. A full original soundtrack, composed by the developer, keeps it all moving.
How long does it take to finish?
How long does The Upturned take to finish?
A first run takes roughly five to seven hours, with bonus levels if you don't want it to end. The loop is the same on every floor, so some players like to take it in shorter sessions rather than one long sitting.
Is it too scary for someone who avoids horror games?
The comedy and the horror share the screen the whole way through, and the jokes give you room to breathe between the tense parts. Plenty of people who normally skip horror got through this one and were glad they did. There are jump scares, but the dread is mixed with enough silliness that it never gets overwhelming.
Do you need to be good at platformers?
No. You only ever jump and throw things, and the controls stay simple from start to finish. The challenge comes from what each floor does with those two abilities, not from demanding inputs, so clumsy players do just fine.
What is the story about?
You play a traveller with a reservation at a grand hotel for the dead, and your room is very, very high up. Along the way you talk with Ik, the inn's founder, and together you unravel a cosmic horror as it comes to pass. What you say to him can matter for more than small talk.
