‘Only Up!,’ a Viral Indie Game Popular on Twitch, Removed From Steam

The creator of Only Up!, the indie game that became the surprise Twitch sensation of the summer, has permanently removed the game from Steam.

Only Up! tasks the player with slowly making their way through a seemingly endless spire of strange obstacles that ascend into the sky, and is known for high difficulty in the vein of prior Twitch hit Getting Over It with Bennet Foddy. The game's solo developer, SCKR Games, shared an update with fans through the game’s store page on Sept. 6 explaining that they are removing the game from the store due to personal stress.

“I'm a solo developer and this game is my first experience in [game development],” the post reads. “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.”

The game’s sudden absence comes as a surprise considering just how big of a hit it had become. Infamous for being absurdly difficult, featuring no checkpoints and hundreds of ways to lose progress, it garnered millions of viewers on streaming platforms, who flocked to see prominent streamers like IShowSpeed and Penguinz0 lose their cool in their futile attempts to beat it. The game reached an all-time peak of 279,642 simultaneous viewers on Twitch, according to SteamDB.

The game did stir up some controversy at the height of its popularity. On June 30, it was temporarily removed from Steam for using assets belonging to a 3D artist without permission. SCKR Games and the artist were able to resolve the issue amicably, and the game returned to Steam days later.

SCKR Games said that they would be focusing on “peace of mind and healing,” and will focus their energy on a new game they’re working on called “Kith.” 

“[Kith] will be a new experience and a new concept with realism, a completely different genre and setting, and the emphasis is on cinematography,” they wrote. “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.”

Much of what SCKR Games shared with fans echoes what Dong Nguyen, the independent game developer behind 2013’s Flappy Bird, said when he pulled the game from mobile app stores in 2014. After Nguyen’s game saw tremendous success on the iOS and Android app stores earlier that year, making some $50,000 a day in revenue according to The Verge, he decided to take the game down.

"My life has not been as comfortable as I was before," Nguyen said at the time. "I couldn’t sleep."