Published by Flynn’s Arcade and developed by Silver978 and RAWR Lab, ‘Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling’ is a psychological RPG game. It was first released on PC in 2023, and is now available on Nintendo Switch.

Players take control of an unnamed female protagonist, a medical student, stressed about her upcoming exams. What starts off as any other morning; dreading studies, having breakfast and brushing teeth, soon turns ominous as a strange and uncomfortable presence looms. Despite living alone, she suspects there might be someone or something lurking in her home. Even though she’s already stressed enough having to put off her studies, she decides to try investigating these supernatural events.

The gameplay is a very straightforward point-and-click adventure with touchscreen features on the Switch version, that can be completed in about 30-60 minutes, or even quicker for those who want to do speedruns. The story is short but sweet and has more than one ending to discover.

Players can click on various parts of the screen as indicated, for the protagonist to comment or explain which could be relevant to the story. Overall, the game is focused primarily on the psychological story, which includes some horror elements.

The hand-drawn manga art style works really with the game’s tone. Even though it’s set mostly in the daytime, it still has that feeling of a dark atmosphere. Much like a manga, there is not a lot of colour and along with the slow heavy background music and simple sound effects, helps create that uneasy feeling of not knowing what might appear around the corner.

The story is the main feature of Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling. It does a great job of creating enough intrigue to keep players engaged and unlock all the endings. Playing from the perspective of a stressed out medical student, it really puts players in her shoes and some could even relate to her a lot. The dialogue is all in text form but is very descriptive and sets up the next scene.

After completing the game, players can explore the rooms freely to get a little more insight into the game’s lore, but it feels more like the protagonist just recounting the events that occurred, leaving everything up to speculation. While it’s not necessarily a bad thing to keep the mystery of the game as not everything needs to be explained, it’s still a little misleading saying more of the lore can be discovered, but there isn’t anything new to learn.

Being a very short story-driven game, there isn’t a lot of replay value after completion, but at AUD $4.50, the game is fine for what it is. Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling is a fun and intriguing interactive psychological story, enough to kill some time within an afternoon, that gives enough without giving too little.

Written by: Sammy Hanson