An interactive experiment in natural conversation

Born out of a curiosity to see how detailed a branching conversation can be, Going Up is a small anecdote of two guys stuck in a very slow lift. As one of the guys, you get to choose how the conversation goes: do you acknowledge the other man, or studiously ignore him?

Going Up is a game with deliberately small scale: there’s only a single location (a lift) and two characters (you and a stranger). The concept was to explore whether game conversations could be deeper than the usual good/bad/neutral setup seen in most RPGs, such as the Mass Effect series.

The reality has been quite sobering: even trying to create a sophisticated, branching dialogue for a single scene is very nearly overwhelming. Frankly, it’s a miracle that RPGs give you as much conversational freedom as they do.

The blog

I’ve been blogging about the game’s development. Check out the posts here.

Play the beta

If you want to check out the on-going development of Going Up, head over to my Patreon. All patrons get access to the latest build – which may be very ugly, so you’ve been warned.