Up or Lava! is a new indie game by Garden of Dreams, and it’s a parkour platformer game that has some deadly elements waiting for you. As you parkour your way up an obstacle course, there is a countdown to when lava will rise and will continue to rise to keep you on your feet. You don’t want to fall and get burnt to a crisp. Up or Lava! also supports multiplayer for 100 players, and every single player has the ability to kick and shove, so you could be a jumping master, landing perfectly, but it can all be taken away by a cheeky kick that sends you down to the lava below.

Players will be able to pick an avatar in the main menu, ranging from a sporty yoga lady to an army soldier decked out in battle gear. The skins don’t add any advantages, but rather, it’s a nice extra option to have available. There are other game modes available, like King of the Hill, where you will have to sit on the hill and boot other players out to keep the crown. Or, if you want to try your luck, there is a mode where you will have to guess which platform is real or fake as you jump to it, reminiscent of the glass bridge game in Squid Games.

The controls are very simple and easy to remember. In your first games, it will have a display that will teach you the gameplay mechanics, so you can quickly become a parkour legend. You can interact with certain panels during a match which will cause billboards to move.

These aren’t hard to miss, as they are lit up rather well and the panel really stands out, but be aware that in multiplayer, people may turn off the feature when you are trying to cross.

In terms of audio, gameplay is accompanied by a looping background track, and depending on objects around the play area, you may be able to hear things like the rotor of a helicopter, but mainly you will be listening to the grunt of the character jumping and landing.

The graphics are rather good for such a simple design. It does look like most of the game was built with Unity assets, but this isn’t meant to be the main appeal. It’s just a funny parkour madness with friends and other players. I do like that there are skins to pick from instead of just being locked to one style of character that the rest of the lobby would be set as.

There are a total of six levels to play, and each has an urban chaos theme, so many of the objects you will come across are city-themed. Each map also has a difficulty rating, with the lava possibly starting at a higher point compared to other maps. I suggest doing the city map first as it is graded as easy, but it still offers a good challenge to learn how things work.

Sadly, not a lot of people are actively playing. The most players I have been in a match with was three, so as much as I wanted to jump into the other game modes like King of the Hill, or the one where platforms fall from under you.

There were just no matches available to jump into, and no one joined when I hosted a game for it. I do hope that changes as it is a fun concept, and I would like to see the lobbies filling up because it would add more of a challenge to the game. I would even be happy with some form of bots to face off against to mix it up instead of just playing in a solo experience.

Up or Lava! offers a fun time with friends to see who can get the highest record. If you were a fan of the Only Up game, this is another way to play with others in the mix, adding more challenge than just avoiding the lava that’s hot on your tail.

With a reasonable number of maps to compete over, you can spend a lot of time trying to become the master of them, finding shortcuts that you can perfect and get an advantage, and because of this, there is a lot of replayability with Up or Lava!

Written by: Shane Walsh