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upstreamarcade.com
Upstream Arcade
@upstreamarcade.com
180 followers 1K following 100 posts
We make games!
Hellboy: Web of Wyrd | West of Dead | Deadbeat Heroes

upstreamarcade.com

https://upstreamarcade.itch.io/

Steam Page
https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45773240

Find out more or come say hi!
linktr.ee/upstreamarcade
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upstreamarcade.com
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
October 9, 2025 at 4:22 PM
upstreamarcade.com
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
October 7, 2025 at 4:00 PM
upstreamarcade.com
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
October 3, 2025 at 8:39 AM
upstreamarcade.com
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
October 2, 2025 at 5:13 PM
upstreamarcade.com
What's this little fella?? #gamedev #indiedev #prototype
September 25, 2025 at 8:54 AM
upstreamarcade.com
First things first - that little 'blobby' feeling when adding and removing pieces. #gamedev #procgen #gamecode #indiedev
September 24, 2025 at 4:24 PM
upstreamarcade.com
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
September 24, 2025 at 8:27 AM
upstreamarcade.com
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
September 23, 2025 at 4:23 PM
upstreamarcade.com
Some good progress in the last day - transparent floor, visual effects and extra props are bringing it together! #gamedev #retrogame #indiegame
September 19, 2025 at 11:40 AM
upstreamarcade.com
Our hoverboard-ey toy is coming on nicely! We've an updated player character, colour palette and some (massively faked) animation. #gamedev #indiedev
September 17, 2025 at 4:24 PM
upstreamarcade.com
It's amazing what a difference some first pass art can make to a prototype. #gamedev #indiedev #gameart
September 15, 2025 at 4:15 PM
upstreamarcade.com
We've added speed management to our little skate prototype - if you time your boosts right you can go pretty fast!

#gamedev
#indiedev
September 11, 2025 at 4:30 PM
upstreamarcade.com
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
September 9, 2025 at 4:23 PM
upstreamarcade.com
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
September 6, 2025 at 2:37 PM
upstreamarcade.com
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
September 6, 2025 at 10:17 AM
upstreamarcade.com
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
September 5, 2025 at 4:17 PM
upstreamarcade.com
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
Image shows a hoverboard rider on the roof tops of a neon wave cyberpunk skyscraper with a half pipe and ramps to ride. The image is made up of flat shaded colours, simple geometry and pixel UI
August 22, 2025 at 1:33 PM
upstreamarcade.com
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
June 25, 2025 at 11:30 AM
upstreamarcade.com
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
Image is created in photoshop featuring hand drawn sketches. There are four sketches in total all showing different stages of a Killboost gameplay mechanic we explored. The first is a white lined doodle of an enemy exploding - this is the cause. Sketch two is of the Echo area visual effect the destroyed enemy creates - its is a of a black circle with white outlines and a muiltcoloured shimmer. The third sketch shows the player character passog over or through a circular echo effect. The last sketch shows the result of the player character passing through the area of echo and how it creates a zoom effect that eminates from the player as they surge forward.
June 24, 2025 at 11:32 AM
upstreamarcade.com
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
Image is of a grey scale character jumping upwards and forwards. They emit frames of bridging poses in different colours from crouch to jump so the player can see all frames at the same time. Image is created in photoshop featuring hand drawn sketches. Image is created in photoshop featuring hand drawn sketches. It features two keyframe poses of a single character holding aloft an energy sword and then throwing the sword. Our artist has explored vfx on top of these poses that feature black and white reality rips paired with light bending mutlicoloured distortion effects.
June 23, 2025 at 11:30 AM
upstreamarcade.com
"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"
Image is of the in-engine art diorama environment for Echobreaker with previous sword echo vfx concepts dropped in to see how well they read in game.
June 20, 2025 at 2:13 PM
upstreamarcade.com
VFX on weapons. A chance here to see what how VFX maybe used on our sword while in motion

#indiegame #gameart #conceptart #vfx #echobreaker
Images features two images of a greyscale approximation of a character with sword. The first image shows the character swooshing the sword horizontally with a glitchy trail motif emitting from the swords blade. The second image shows the character running forward dragging the big sword behind and echo sparks emitting from the scrapped floor.
June 19, 2025 at 11:30 AM
upstreamarcade.com
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
Image is of 3 greyscale drawings of a sword with coloured vfx motifs applied to allow for comparison during discussion.
June 18, 2025 at 11:30 AM
upstreamarcade.com
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
Image shows 6 different VFX studies for what could be our Echo motif. Each image was done in photoshop and mimics a material ball so that direct comparisons for discussion are easier.
June 17, 2025 at 11:30 AM
upstreamarcade.com
Turret Enemy. These are the only sketches that exist. Quick iteration on a scribble paper pad and then into Blender and Engine to work out scale, readability, animation and colour.

#echobreaker #gameart #indiegame
Images shows about 8 pen on paper scribbles working out how much gun the turret should be made out of, how much armour, how much heft it should convey. Images shows about 8 pen on paper scribbles starting to narrow down the overall form and function of the turret. Some ideas allow for the barrel to tilt up and down. There is also a drawing of our target enemy that allows for a comparison between turret and target form.
June 5, 2025 at 11:30 AM