What goes up doesn’t necessarily come back down in “What Goes Up,” a “platformer without falling” developed by Lonebot for the 2018 GMTK game jam. We talk about what gives a puzzle game a good “Portal moment” in which everything suddenly clicks together, and how impressive it is that such a small game jam game manages to pull it off. The game prompts a discussion about how videogames try to integrate their “thematic genre” and “mechanical genre,” and how some mechanics can accommodate a greater range of stories than others. Oh, and we get a good laugh from this game’s ending.

You can play the game in-browser here: https://lonebot.itch.io/what-goes-up

And make sure to follow the creators on Twitter: @Mati_Ernst, @itamar_ernst, @patacorow