The Upper Hand

Played some of the introductory levels of The Upper Hand; I came away with these thoughts: -The mechanics of grabbing and leaning are pretty interesting, and having cards with different poses and effects seems really cool. -The music is pretty banging! -Great that there are restart buttons and a way to reorient your angle, but (unless I missed it in the tutorial) these aren't explicitly noted within the tutorial itself. -It began to make sense when I got to Learning the Ropes, but I didn't like that looking at the map is also counted in the time to complete a stage (also another function that I'm not sure is noted in the tutorial) Overall, it's a fun game; maybe it won't feel like this in the future, but it sometimes feels like I'm arbitrarily choosing poses to hop with to land with the end pose I want. One thing that could be cool is an advanced tutorial or a beginning world that goes into some of the more effective techniques and how the card effects work (or even what they do), as well as deciding what poses would suit particular situations best; this could be an entirely optional thing in the case that players want to figure things out themselves instead. Overall, a very fun game that I feel that can be accentuated in laying out more of how the player can optimally interact with the game and its goals.

Playing the game felt kind of launching a new grounds game back in the 2000s. The music, atmosphere and game play were cute and fair for the price. I would recommend the game for someone looking for a different take on the platforming genre.

Jumping and flipping through the levels on each hold is super fun and interesting. The types of maneuvers and extraordinary powers that you have access to really allows you to fully customize how you traverse through the level in a satisfying way. Each world has it's own unique theme and introduces new hold types and challenges to overcome. Overall, a fun experience!!

Game is very challenging and addictive! the art and music was very good too.

Great music, great art, and great gameplay. Fun and unique !

I was a little confused at first but once I got the hang of it it was pretty fun. The mechanics are interesting and it's fun to hunt all the challenges. I think it would be even better if there were leaderboards for each level. The game seems to take a lot of inspiration from bouldering and is sort of like a platformer but also with a deckbuilding element which is cool. The physics of the game feel natural and result in a lot of interesting interactions happening that give you new ideas on how to solve levels. While some of the levels feel kind of same-y, there are also some unique levels that stand out, and the progression of new mechanics in each world flows nicely.