This might just be my new favourite party game, and it’s one you can play with the whole family!
Which Way Up: Galaxy Games launched on Steam and Switch this week and I had the absolute pleasure of diving into the game. I fired up the Switch for this one and got the whole family involved, and let’s just say it was a wild time.
Which Way Up is a party game to a tee. It consists of 12 different mini games, each featuring different game mechanics, objectives, and ways to cause chaos.
You’ve got seven adorable characters to choose from, and in my house it was definitely a fight over some of the characters, as they each have their own colour scheme and personality. The characters don’t actually make any difference to the gameplay, they’re simply different in aesthetics, so no matter which one you choose, it’ll be completely your fault if you suck.
The game has a few different game modes to choose from including a single player mode, party mode, and single game mode. The party mode was what we used as it allowed us to try a bunch of the different games, it does seem to be randomly generated though, so you will get doubles, and depending on what you set your win condition to, you will absolutely be playing multiples of the same mini-game.
The Steam page for the game has a really great overview of all of the games, so I won’t repeat it here. You can check it out here if you’re interested. I will say that there were a few family favourites though.
Bumper Stars was a big hit for my younger kids; you’ll race around a track getting closer and closer to a black hole. You’ve got three lives and you need to try and survive longer than the other players to win. This plays very similar to dodgem cars, allowing you to bounce other players off the track, and is a lot of fun!
Constellation Catch was another favourite. This one sees you try and ‘catch’ constellations, holding them for a certain number of seconds to secure them. You’ll race around the map catching as many as you can, and trying to prevent other players from stealing the one’s you’ve caught. This was a hit with my older primary age kids, and was a super fast paced pick.
The last one that was a particularly big hit for us was Overload. This one sees one player holding a ‘bomb’ and that player needs to get rid of it before the timer runs out by passing it to another player. This one saw some real strategy come out and the limited lives meant it ended with two players facing off in very dramatic fashion and was a ton of fun.
There wasn’t a single game that wasn’t liked in our time playing, as each are fun and challenging in their own way. Most of them were very suitable for primary school aged kids, but if they’re on the younger side they may need a little extra help from Mum or Dad.
The main controls and mechanics do carry across most games, so you still have the same movement, jumping, and charging functions, but the effect of gravity differs in each of the games, mixing up that movement completely. The controls feel really fluid, and are easy to pick up, but there is definitely a level of finesse that you can master if you play for long enough.
The design of Which Way Up is vibrant and fun, but also brings a cozy-ish element in the adorable character designs. It’s so colourful, adding so much life to the game, but the space theme is very clear and comes across in both the mechanics and the visuals.
Overall Which Way Up brought out our competitiveness, made us laugh so much, and got us a little heated at times – the perfect mix of emotions for a party game. My kids were very impressed, and have played it nearly every day since release, both in single player mode, or by roping each other into playing together.
This is a game that will definitely be a staple family game in our house, adding so much fun in a space fueled way, and has a real timelessness about it so I know we’ll still be playing it in the years to come.
Which Way Up: Galaxy Games is available now on Nintendo Switch and Steam. It does have Steam Remote Play for multiplayer or you can play splitscreen on Steam too.
A big thanks to the Turtle Flip team and IndiExp for the review key 🥳
Until Next Time, Stay Caffeinated.
