Circle UP

Circle UP is a challenging indie game where you must dodge obstacles to reach the finish line.

TL;DR at bottom.

Gameplay:

Circle UP features very simple gameplay, as it only utilizes the left mouse click to control your ball. The goal of the game is to bounce your ball to the top of the stage, dodging different obstacles as you go along. There are a couple different obstacles introduced as you progress to keep the game challenging and interesting. There is a good selection of levels to keep you entertained, and a variety of different game modes that take a slightly different take on the core gameplay to add some unique replayability. The game isn’t too difficult, and the levels are unique. Some are challenging enough to make you rethink your strategies after failing a few times, but they aren’t too difficult. It is a fun game to sit down and play for an hour or so.

7/10

Graphics:

The graphics in Circle UP are okay, and there isn’t really much to look at. The animations are smooth and look nice. However, when I played, the backgrounds were vomit inducing, with weird patterns and wildly spinning as you played. I normally don’t get motion sickness but this game really pushed me to my limit. The developer has informed me that the backgrounds were fixed, but I can’t exactly check that now. (More about that at the bottom.)

6/10

Music/Audio:

Circle UP has a decent selection of techno tracks to keep you entertained and excited as you play through the levels. The music matches up pretty well with the theme of the game, which is nice to have. The sound effects are sparse, but they are effective enough when the time comes. There isn’t much to say about the audio side of this game; it really isn’t that expansive, but it gets the job done.

7/10

Conclusion:

Circle UP is a fun experience to sit down with and play through in one or two sittings. At the price it is, I’m not sure if I can recommend it, but definitely get it on sale if you can find it. It provides enough variety to keep you entertained for a good amount of time, and has lots of different game modes to keep the gameplay fresh. The audio-visuals are not much to get excited about, but this game is simple enough to give it a pass. If only the game worked! (See below.)

Overall: 6.5/10 – Recommended

TL;DR

Pros:

+Fun gameplay

+Good variety of levels and gameplay

Cons:

-Motion sickness inducing backgrounds

-Limited replayability

(The game is currently unplayable, as Steam cannot locate the executable, and states that it has an invalid app configuration. The developer stated that they fixed the issue a few days ago, but I still cannot download and play the game. This caused some issues with the review writing process as I couldn’t exactly reference the game while writing this, but I could still write it just fine.)

Check out my gameplay of Circle UP below to get a better idea of the game.