We're heading over to the Guildford Games Festival on Friday 20th of February. We'll have a stand (and some stickers!) so keep an eye out for us and say hello! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/guildfordg...

Skyskater - our 90's inspired chillout hoverboard toy is OUT NOW! Here it is in motion! Check it out on @itch.io upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater #indiegame #indiedev #itch

Skyskater - Our 90's inspired chillout hoverboard toy is OUT NOW! Check it out on #itch upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater Happy Hoverboarding! #indiegame #indiedev

We've been cheeky in Sky Skater, there is a rotation of obstacles and ramps that are based on what day you play. Here is one of our favourites. Sky Skater upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater - out 3rd Dec #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

Enjoying the view... Sky Skater upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater - out 3rd Dec #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

The Score Attack mode in Sky Skater really starts to pick up the challenge when you've shown you can handle it... Sky Skater upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater - out 3rd Dec #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

Watching your moves... Sky Skater upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater - out 3rd Dec #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

In Sky Skater, the optional score attack mode starts to ask more of you once you get further in... Sky Skater upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater - out 3rd Dec #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

The score attack mode starts out simple enough... Sky Skater upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater - out 3rd Dec #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

Just relaxing... Sky Skater upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater - out 3rd Dec #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

Once you feel you've mastered your hoverboard, you can opt into a simple time based score attack. Each pickup earns you more precious seconds, how long can you last? Sky Skater upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater - out 3rd Dec #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

In Sky Skater, you get to hover board overlooking a futuristic city. We designed this game to be chilled out, but still provide ways to feel cool and perfect your line. upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater - out 3rd Dec #gamedev #indiedev #indiegame

And here's some hashtags that will no doubt help! #indiegame #gamedev #indiedev

Launch date update! Wed December 3rd 2025! Sky Skater is a minimal, chillout hover skate toy with a score attack mode to stretch your skills. Think Back to the future 2 meets Chopper from 2000A.D (yes, we're old). Add it to your collection and be ready to soar! upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater

Here be some colour and remaining pieces of our core building blocks. Pop-popping blocks into exsistence is very satisfying, especially as they wobble and settle. #gamedev #procgen #gameart #indiedev

Tagging in on where Adam left off Paddy has started adding art to our real time mesh generator. Some snaggs here and there but a core set of pieces allow for some good feels Build, build...DESTROY, DESTROY....! #gamedev #procgen #gameart

Announcing our first 'Gem' - Sky Skater! - a minimal, chillout hover skate game. Think Back to the future 2 meets Chopper from 2000A.D. (are we showing our age?) Coming soon to itch! Add the title to your collection and be told when it's out! upstreamarcade.itch.io/sky-skater #indiedev #indiegame

We're excited to share an upcoming collection of *tiny* projects - Upstream Arcade GEMS. Each 'Gem' will feature a completely different idea that we've always wanted to try. It's fun to figure new things out, and even more fun to share them with you. Stay tuned! #indiedev #gamedev #indiegames

What's this little fella?? #gamedev #indiedev #prototype

First things first - that little 'blobby' feeling when adding and removing pieces. #gamedev #procgen #gamecode #indiedev

While Paddy is putting some visual love into Sky-Skater, Ad is starting on our second microgame. Let's get some simple real time mesh generation working... #gamedev #procgen #indiedev

Paddy has been living his best life, and fulfilling his dream of making low-poly flying cars for our Sky-Skater minigame. #cyberpunk #gamedev #gameart

Some good progress in the last day - transparent floor, visual effects and extra props are bringing it together! #gamedev #retrogame #indiegame

Our hoverboard-ey toy is coming on nicely! We've an updated player character, colour palette and some (massively faked) animation. #gamedev #indiedev

It's amazing what a difference some first pass art can make to a prototype. #gamedev #indiedev #gameart

We've added speed management to our little skate prototype - if you time your boosts right you can go pretty fast! #gamedev #indiedev

More exciting news! We are sharing a link to our new itch.io page where we will be posting some fun things to play in the future

Hello! In a major announcement that we expect to be the lead story on tonight's news and children to talk about in the school yard... our Upstream Arcade store page has gone live on Steam! Please head there to check out our games! store.steampowered.com/curator/4577...

Here's the core functionality of the Grid Mesh Generation code. You can add and remove cubes and the mesh dynamically generates based on their relationship to one another. We're using a very simple set of meshes to test, but stay tuned for some more fun! #gamedev #procgen #programming

Here's our mesh generation working in all 3 dimensions! Lots of rotation and mirroring are used to keep the number of meshes required down (around 20 meshes). It's getting there! #gamedev

Here's a little more progress on the mesh generation. It's all a bit cleaner, and now tiles can be rotated so that we get more usage out of each tile - very helpful for art. #gamedev

Ad's been working away on some fun mesh/level generation code - here is some early progress with simple 2d meshes. Each square placed is visually represented by other tiles around it - it's called an 'Offset Grid'. #gamedev

Some funky shader and tech art here from Adam. #gameart #gamedev

Some mocked up visuals to go with Adam's gameplay prototyping. Aiming for early 90s polygon arcade machine excitement with mixture of a few things going on here, brought together in Photoshop. #gamedev #gameart #conceptart

Anyone else getting mad Pingu vibes from Adam's latest additions? Noot Noot!

We're trying a few things out here at Upstream and we are keen to share some prototype shenanigans alongside our #echobreaker development. Below is something Adam has been squirreling away on:

VFX in game. Here are a number of concepts by Fran exlporing how #vfx might look within the game world. We were quite taken with how distortion might show the player character bending or shaping time and reality around them. #indiegame #gameart #conceptart #echobreaker

VFX on KillBoost. A possible game mechanic: as you destroy an enemy an area of Echo boost is generated. The player can then pass through and gain extra speed. The images explore how VFX help the player understand the success of utilising that boost. #indiegame #gameart #conceptart #vfx #echobreaker

Hi Everyone! We are heading down to Develop Brighton! If you're a publisher or friend who want to talk business and games, we'd love to catch up! #DevelopBrighton

VFX in motion. Here are some images by Fran exploring how Echo #vfx can be applied to our playable character to accentuate their actions. #indiegame #gameart #conceptart #echobreaker

"VFX in the Environment. Here Fran has dropped the echo VFX on the sword swoosh into the game world. A chance to see how it reads in game and how it may affect the background distortion wise. #indiegame #gameart #conceptart #vfx #echobreaker"

VFX on weapons. A chance here to see what how VFX maybe used on our sword while in motion #indiegame #gameart #conceptart #vfx #echobreaker

Being a small team, we collectively got to stretch our level design brain muscles to create spaces that can be tackled in multple ways. Well done team, exceptional work! #echobreaker #gamedev

VFX on weapons. Here are some lovely VFX try outs on weapons by our artist Fran - a chance to make our weapons look really unique #indiegame #gameart #conceptart #vfx #echobreaker

More breakdown from Adam on the utilities of Echos within #echobreaker

VFX work. We knew we wanted some in-game 'magic' that #echobreaker tech could harness to go faster, but to begin with we didn't quite know what it should be. Here are some very early explorations by Fran of what would become our Echos. #indiegame #gameart #conceptart #vfx

Looky here, there be secret corners and such to cut. #echobreaker

We found this encourages you to look at levels many different ways, upping the strategies available to get that faster run #echobreaker

Its hunting time. Here's a snapshot of a fast enemy we've implemented - something that can just about keep up with you #echobreaker

2D turret scribbles become 3D life threatening forms. From white box to final code, art, animation and VFX - lovely jubbly! #echobreaker