Summary
Only Way is Down isn’t just a bad game—it’s a full-on waste of time and money. It takes everything that made Only Up! frustrating (but at least somewhat functional) and makes it even worse. The game doesn’t feel like it was designed to be played; it feels like it was designed to make you rage quit and forget to refund it before the time runs out. If you were considering playing this, don’t. The only things going down are your wallet and your sanity.
Developer – Jilted Generation Productions
Publisher – Jilted Generation Productions
Platforms – PC (Reviewed)
Review copy given by Developer
At first, I genuinely thought Only Way is Down was an April Fool’s joke. After all, it officially launches on April 1st, 2025, so surely this absolute catastrophe of a game was just some elaborate prank, right? Unfortunately, no. This game is 100% real, and it’s 100% trash. A cheap, poorly slapped-together knockoff of the Only Up! style of platformers, Only Way is Down is less of a game and more of a scam designed to rob you of your time, patience, and money.
From the moment you start, everything about Only Way is Down screams “unfinished.” Which is ironic, given the game takes place on an under-construction skyscraper. Maybe the developers thought it’d be funny to make a game that literally feels like it’s still in development, but trust me, it’s not funny—it’s just pathetic.
You play as a cat, which should have been an interesting twist, but instead, it just makes the experience even more of a disaster. The controls are an absolute joke—your “feline agility” is about as graceful as a brick being dropped off the side of a building. Half the time, the jumps don’t register properly, and the other half, you’ll slip right through the janky, half-baked platforms like they weren’t even there. It’s like the game itself is actively trying to make you fail, and not in a “challenging but rewarding” way—more like a “we couldn’t be bothered to fix our broken physics” way.
Then there’s the world design. The game promises a “purr-fectly crafted cityscape.” More like a pile of garbage held together with duct tape. The level design is a cluttered mess of steel beams, scaffolding, and random objects that feel like they were just tossed in at the last second to pad out the playtime. The so-called “dazzling skyline” is nothing but a smoggy, low-resolution backdrop that barely changes no matter how far you descend. And let’s not forget the fantastic hit detection, where clipping through objects and falling to your doom because of an invisible barrier is just part of the “experience.”
The customization options? Oh, you mean the cheap gimmick they threw in to distract players from how bad the game is? Sure, you can dress up your cat, but guess what? It doesn’t matter when you’re too busy screaming at the screen because your “adorable feline explorer” just slid off a beam for the 50th time due to the game’s awful mechanics.
At the end of the day, Only Way is Down isn’t just a bad game—it’s a full-on waste of time and money. It takes everything that made Only Up! frustrating (but at least somewhat functional) and makes it even worse. The game doesn’t feel like it was designed to be played; it feels like it was designed to make you rage quit and forget to refund it before the time runs out. If you were considering playing this, don’t. The only things going down are your wallet and your sanity.
