Rise High

Rise High, developed and published by eiloware, is a fast-paced arcade action game that builds its entire identity around a simple but effective idea: juggling construction and survival under constant pressure. It draws clear inspiration from classic arcade titles, focusing on reflex-driven gameplay, escalating difficulty, and short, intense sessions rather than long-form progression or narrative depth. From the beginning, it establishes itself as a score-chasing experience where efficiency and quick thinking are far more important than long-term planning.

The central gameplay loop revolves around managing construction workers while defending them from waves of hostile enemies. Players must pick up workers and deliver them to buildings under construction, allowing structures to grow taller and score to increase. At the same time, enemies continuously attack, forcing players to split their attention between supporting progress and eliminating threats. This dual responsibility creates a constant sense of urgency, as neglecting either task can quickly lead to failure. The balance between building and combat becomes the defining challenge, requiring players to develop a rhythm that keeps both aspects under control.

As the game progresses, the pace intensifies with the introduction of new enemy types and environmental hazards. These additions demand faster reactions and more precise movement, pushing players to adapt rather than rely on a single strategy. Power-ups occasionally appear, offering temporary advantages that can help stabilize chaotic situations or boost performance during critical moments. Boss encounters further break up the flow, presenting focused challenges that test a player’s ability to manage pressure while maintaining control over the core mechanics.

One of the more engaging elements of Rise High is its support for multiplayer modes. In cooperative play, two players share the responsibility of managing workers and defending against enemies, creating a dynamic where coordination becomes essential. This mode enhances the experience significantly, as communication and teamwork can turn chaotic situations into manageable ones. There is also a competitive mode that shifts the focus toward direct confrontation, offering a different kind of intensity that complements the main gameplay. While the game is fully playable solo, these multiplayer options add variety and make it more appealing in a social setting.

Visually, the game embraces a retro-inspired pixel aesthetic that aligns with its arcade roots. The design is simple and clean, ensuring that players can easily track movement and react quickly to threats. While the graphics do not aim for high detail or realism, they serve their purpose effectively by keeping the action readable and consistent. The overall presentation feels functional, reinforcing the gameplay without drawing attention away from it.

Despite its strengths, the game’s limited scope becomes more apparent over time. The core mechanics remain largely unchanged from start to finish, and while increasing difficulty adds challenge, it does not significantly expand the gameplay. This can lead to repetition, especially for players who engage with the game for extended periods. Without deeper progression systems or additional layers of complexity, the experience relies heavily on its initial appeal and the player’s willingness to improve their performance.

Another limitation is the absence of long-term goals beyond completing levels and achieving higher scores. There are few incentives to continue playing once the main content has been experienced, aside from personal mastery or multiplayer enjoyment. This reinforces the idea that Rise High is designed for short bursts of play rather than sustained engagement, functioning more as an arcade-style challenge than a fully developed game with lasting progression.

Even with these constraints, the game succeeds in delivering a focused and enjoyable experience. Its mechanics are easy to understand but challenging to master, creating moments of tension and satisfaction that capture the essence of classic arcade design. The combination of multitasking, fast reactions, and escalating difficulty provides a solid foundation that remains engaging, particularly in shorter sessions.

In the end, Rise High stands as a well-crafted but modest arcade title that prioritizes simplicity and intensity over depth. It offers a satisfying gameplay loop that works best in quick sessions, especially when shared with others. While it does not provide the variety or progression needed for long-term appeal, it remains a strong example of how straightforward mechanics can still deliver compelling and energetic gameplay.

Rating: 7/10

I am 32 years old.

My ex-wife and I have a daughter together, and we adopted our son together. Both are now 4 years old.

When we were going through our separation, I felt lost and unhappy. I was self-destructive. One day, I was so angry with everything spiraling out of control that I punched a concrete wall in a moment of overwhelming emotion. This resulted in breaking my fifth metacarpal in my right hand—the hand I worked with, played games with, and used to carry my children to bed—the hand I desperately needed to ensure I could continue providing.

Upon learning the severity of the self-inflicted damage, I became almost suicidal. Keep in mind that just a few months before this, I was the happiest man, with no history of depression or anxiety. I had never experienced anger outbursts, nor was I the type to break down and cry, but I was in a tough situation that truly prevented me from seeing the light on the other side.

With nothing better to do, I looked for a game I could play WITH ONE HAND while recovering. Somehow, I stumbled upon this game and read some of the comments. I decided it was worth a try... I must admit I didn't beat the game, nor did I play as much as some of you. In fact, I may have played this game for only a day or two. That being said, after doing so, I had a new joy and hope for life. I managed to leave behind the pain and suffering that had been thrust upon me. I could experience the joy and happiness of other people. I relaxed for 5 ♥♥♥♥ minutes listening to this music, long enough to realize that I would be okay.

After realizing this, I turned off the game and went back to work. My hand hurt a lot, but I was motivated. I stopped feeling so sorry for myself and became the father I needed to be at that moment, not the weak boy I was behaving like.

Today, I am close friends with the mother of my children. We don't fight, argue, or say hurtful things to each other. We are parents and friends.

Now I have 3 children. My third child is, wait, ALSO 4 YEARS OLD. The woman I am with was going through a very similar situation at the time of my separation, and we just unexpectedly stumbled into each other's lives. We have been dating for a year and are very happy together.

Moral of the story: you never know what life has in store for you, and if I had given up when all odds were against me, I wouldn't be where I am today. This silly little game helped me realize that.

Thank you.

Rise High is a simple Java app that has a very basic arcade like Java game, an action shooter, but there's a slightly tactical element as you need to pick up workers on the ground, drop them on top of buildings, and protect them from UFOs that try to abduct them. It's still a very shallow experience, matched by a very shallow technical implementation.

From a technical perspective, the game doesn't meet basic minimum requirements that most PC gamers expect as standard.

A choice was made to use obsolete, decades old retro pixel "art" as a substitute for contemporary PC graphics. It's unclear if this is due to lack of budget or talent, regardless, the overall visual quality of the game is extremely low as a result.

There's no option to change the resolution and no useful graphics tweaks. There's no way to ensure this is running at the native resolution of your display. There's no guarantee this game will look right on any PC as a result of this hamfisted design decision.

The controls can't be customised, which will be an annoyance for many, but it can also render the game unplayable for differently-abled gamers, or gamers using AZERTY or other international keyboard layouts.

PC gamers will be insulted by the presence of console peasant children's toy controller prompts, despite this being on PC. Developers should try to be aware which platform they're developing for.

Comically, the game was written in Java (I'm not making this up). Talk about not using the right tools for the job. Might as well try to bake a cake with a screwdriver. The extremely poor choice of game engine here is a major contributing factor to the defects with the game.

The very poor quality of this game puts it squarely on-par with ancient 1990's Flash/Java games (and it is made with Java), and given it's 2023 (and this was released not so far back in 2017), gamers and the industry expect and deserve better than this kind of low effort shovelware.

These technical defects push this game below acceptable standards for any modern PC game.

You don't have to take my word about how bad the game is, we can measure the interest in a game by how much people bothered to play it. Rise High has achievements, and they show us a very clear picture that the game absolutely failed to capture any interest from gamers. The most commonly and easily attained achievement is for building a single building (there's multiple on each level), trivial to achieve, but less than 1 percent of players bothered to get that far before uninstalling the game. That's a tiny, tiny proportion of gamers who even bothered with this. Ouch.

Reviewing SteamDB to check how popular this game was with players reveals a surprise... there's a very healthy spike in player counts for the game. But this isn't consistent with the achievement stats, that show less than 1 percent of players bothered playing the game for any reasonable amount of time. How is it possible for this game to have so many concurrent players who weren't even playing the game? Trading cards. Players will use card idling software to collect the cards and sell them, but this won't trigger any achievements in-game. That tells us people only really bought this game for trading cards, and that's a damning indictment of the woeful quality. A closer look at the numbers shows the game just has a couple of players every week running up the game and idling it for cards, then deleting it. We must ask how it benefits gamers for there to be so many games like this, with no merit as a serious game, that only generate sales from people idling and selling the trading cards.

Rise High is relatively cheap at $3 USD, but it's not worth it. Given the defects and quality issues with the game, coupled with the unrealistic price, this is impossible to recommend.