Upheaval
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, Linux, and Android
TRY THE FREE DEMO! / WISHLIST ON STEAM
A text-based open world fantasy roguelike adventure
Master the secrets of a changing fantasy world over the course of many 30-90 minute adventures. Explore the wilds around a single village as you track down magical treasures, aid or disrupt encroaching factions, and match wits with an enigmatic Magician.
Thousands of possible endings!
Complete player freedom! Interact with the people and places you encounter however you choose. Change the balance of power and the fates of everyone you meet! Or don't. You can stay in the tavern, go fishing, or ignore everyone and just do your own thing. The choice is completely up to you.
Gameplay
Watch gameplay footage from Upheaval:
Current Features
- Incredibly replayable! Complete each adventure in 30-90 minutes. Play multiple times to learn more about the world and explore multiple endings.
- Big world! Over 50 unique locations to explore and discover.
- Dynamic! Non-player characters (both friends and enemies) are living, moving people for you to respond to and interact with, not just static encounters waiting for you to find them.
- Treasure! Over 15 magical and mundane treasures and items for you to find and use, each of which can be used in multiple different ways.
- So many endings! Over 5,000 unique endings, depending on your choices throughout the game. What mark will you leave on the world when your adventure is over?
- Mobile-friendly! Made to be easily played on your phone. Play for a few minutes or a few hours.
- Command line version! Play like it's 1980 with the command line version of Upheaval, no graphics required.
- Accessible! Complete support for text-to-speech and screen readers for blind and vision-impaired players, plus many other accessibility features. To activate text-to-speech, press Shift + T on a keyboard, Left stick button + Right stick button on a controller, or three finger triple tap on a touchscreen.
- Magic! In 30 days, the Magician will arrive. How will you spend your time until then?
- Relaxed Mode! Turn off the default time limit and explore the world at your own pace.
- Lore! A rich history surrounds your little village, its secrets hidden in the beautiful and treacherous landscape around it. Discover how magic has affected the land in generations past. How will your knowledge of the past influence your decisions today?
- Fantasy! Goblins, bandits, spells, curses, undead spirits, fairies, visions, true love, and more!
Planned Features
- Many brand new, replayable encounters
- Expanded use of magic spells throughout the game
- Configurable controls
- New optional in-game lore dumps, for those of us who like reading a whole lot
- New location: The mines, a procedurally generated maze that's different every time you play (can be bypassed with the right items if you don't like mazes)
- Big new magic item for the end game
Special Thanks
Thank you much to all Upheaval's playtesters: Julia Leone, David Leone, Caleb Olson, Andrew Donders, Vito Sauro, Cece Leone, Cody, Jonathan, Patrick, George, and others!
Demo
Download the demo below to play the first half of the game for free. :)
Early Access - Alpha
While Upheaval is in alpha, new content is added with every release. Buy the alpha today at a discount and own all future releases of Upheaval as well!
If the "Buy" links on this page don't work for you, use this link to buy Upheaval.
Upheaval is coming to Steam when it's finished. Wishlist it on Steam to get an email when the full game releases. :)
Join my mailing list or follow me here on itch.io to hear about future updates and progress.
Press
Community
Join our Discord to chat with the developer, to discuss ways to make Upheaval better, and to share your experiences with other players!
Please share Upheaval with your friends! Getting the word out helps a ton. :)
Purchase
In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $4.99 USD. You will get access to the following files:
Also available on
Download demo
Development log
- Small Bugfixes (Upheaval Alpha Version 0.0.23)Jan 31, 2025
- The Good Manners Update (Upheaval Alpha Version 0.0.22)Jan 30, 2025
- The Kitfox Update (Upheaval Alpha Version 0.0.21)Aug 21, 2024
- Critical Bugfix (Upheaval Alpha v0.0.20)Jun 13, 2024
- The Wild Badger Update (Upheaval Alpha Version 0.0.19)Jun 13, 2024
Comments
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Thank lovely game
You’re absolutely welcome, and thank you!! :)
Just played through the demo and it was honestly a magical experience!!
That’s amazing! Glad you had such a good time with the demo. Thanks so much for sharing!!! :D
dude, literally just stumbled upon your game. thought to myself, well this looks promising but its almost been a year since the update. Ill wait to see when it updates. You proceed to update it, ya got yourself a loyal fan
Thank you so much, that’s awesome! Thanks for joining the journey, and it’s great to have you along! :D
Lovely game, please don't abandon it.
Wouldn’t dream of it, and thank you for such kind words! :D
WOW i've been playing the demo and so far everything has been so cool and fun!!! the number of possible different endings being 5000+ is crazy, it was so far from my initial guess while playing 😅 and i absolutely love the replayability, though maybe i'm just not used to text-based adventure games lol, but even so i'm very glad this is one of my first ones because it was a such a captivating experience! i'm hooked!!
Thank you so much, this made my week! :D I really appreciate the kind words!
I just bought this game after following it for a long time. It's just so cool. I finally caved and bought it. I'm excited to see where it goes from here! Keep it up!
Thank you very much, this made my week! :D
Hi Alex, I would like to bring a problem with Upheaval to your attention. When the game launches on linux, it tries to get elevated privileges. This, aside from being a huge security risk, prevents the gui version from accepting keypresses on my desktop setup. As far as I can tell, the elevated privileges are used to run dmidecode, a program that decodes info in the bios of the computer to get hardware information, but the elevated privileges required are a huge problem. If you could fix this, it would be great. I can help with testing or anything else you might need! -Michael.
Hi Michael, thank you for bringing this to my attention! I had no idea the hardware information call would require elevated privileges. 😱 I removed it and just uploaded a new version 0.0.18. Could you try it and see if you’re still having the same problem? Thank you so much! 😄
I am happy to report thatelevated privileges are no longer requested. However, I still have an issue. I managed to turn on text to speech, but speech is not produced. I checked in the json settings file, and it is set to true. I wonder what speech subsystem you’re using on linux? I am pretty familiar with linux accessibility, being a blind user, so perhaps I can help debug this. Lmk!
Dang, sorry text-to-speech isn’t working on Linux! I’m using the Xamarin library to output speech, I’m not sure which subsystem it uses on Linux. What speech subsystem do you usually use on Linux? Thanks!
Also, that’s great to hear that the elevated privileges issue is gone! :D
The standard speech abstraction layer for linux is called speech dispatcher. It acts as a bridge to many different synthesizers available on linux. I know there are packages for dotnet that can use speech dispatcher, let me look it up and dget back to you. I know the developer of stardew access, a mod for stardew valley which uses dotnet either wrote or uses a speech plugin that supports mac windows and linux. No idea about android though. Again I’ll look it up and get back to you.
I found it, it’s called cross speak. You can find it at https://github.com/khanshoaib3/CrossSpeak hth!
Thank you so much for these messages, Michael! I just released version 0.0.19, which should (fingers crossed!) fix these issues on Linux. When you have a minute, could you give this a try again and let me know if you’re getting working text-to-speech on Linux? Thank you!! :D
Hey, which engine and what libraries did you use to make this game? I'm a game dev and I'm curious about it, bc I know the yarnspinner but I wanted to know what you used to make this game
Hey! 😄 I’m using MonoGame in C# to make Upheaval. Everything is kind of roll-your-own. All of the dialogue, descriptions, etc. are written in yaml files, which are parsed into objects, which are processed by a set of functions that look at the current state of the game and pick which lines to show based on that (and often based on some pseudo-random chance). The game logic is in a separate class project: then I have a command line project and a MonoGame project which both reference the class project, so that logic is shared.
I’m happy to answer more questions, I just don’t want to ramble aimlessly for too long! 😅 What other questions do you have? 😊
Thanks for the answer! I found it interesting to use yaml to write the dialogues. Another question, do you have all dialogues written in a single yaml file or multiple files?
The dialogues are in multiple files! There are over 50,000 words in the game so far, so having it all in one file would drive me a little mad! Here’s a preview of one of the files (all the tavernkeeper dialogue).
small request/suggestion
could you add more music to this?
Sure I can! Are you looking for music to play more often, or for more variety in the music that’s there, or for something else?
i actually want the game to have more ambiances, sfx and music.
as of right now, it feels more like
i enjoy games with more of that, as aposed to text-only games.
I’ll actually be adding a new music track to the next update! Also, if you want music to play all the time during the game, you can enable that in settings (available right now).
I have plans to expand on the SFX, but I want to finish more of the content first. All ideas are welcome at this (and any) point!
hi.
in the full game, i started an adventure with screen reader.
however, the comand-line version doesn't read properly.
after leaving the town, its very confusing, and the reading is not very clear i think.
Sorry you’re having issues with the screen reader in the command line version! Does it sound like the ends of some sentences are being cut off?
Some players have reported the screen reader works perfectly with Upheaval, and some report lots of issues with it. I think it might be a screen reader configuration problem, but I’m not really sure how to fix it yet.
You can check with other players on the AudioGames forum to see what configuration options have worked for them. Otherwise, I’m adding text-to-speech to the graphical version in the next update (no ETA yet), which will hopefully make for a more consistent experience between players.
sorry to be impatient, but this is still recieving updates right?
Yes, definitely! I’m still working on the next update. If you follow me here on itch.io, you’ll get an email as soon as it’s uploaded, so you don’t have to worry about when it will come out. :)
will this be on gog later
I would love for Upheaval to be on GOG later! Closer to release, I’ll reach out to GOG to see if I can sell Upheaval through their platform. 🙂
i am a little curious. i wanted to know how much of the game is finished?
btw, i just joined your discord!
I definitely don’t have an exact answer, but, if I had to use black magic to try and estimate, I’d say that the engine/polish is about 90% done, and the content is (hopefully) 50% done.
Thanks for joining the Discord! Please let me know if you have any other questions or ideas. 😄
hi.
you can check out the audiogames.net forum. they might be able to help you impliment accessibility in the gui version. after confirming your account, you'll have to go to the introductions topic and introduce yourself. Then, wait till an administrator unrestricts you.
Hey, I’m already on the AudioGames forum on this thread! My username there is @AlexLeone. If you respond on that thread, I’ll see it! 🙂
are your other games accessible?
That’s a great question! I just checked my other games on itch.io for blind accessibility, and unfortunately none of the video games seem to work with a screen reader (I’m testing with NVDA). I do have some tabletop RPG supplements (mainly for Dungeon World) that should work fine, since they’re just PDFs. Let me know if you have any other questions! 🙂
what about the game which requires a deck of 52 cards?
If you have a blind-accessible way to deal out a 52 card deck and recognize face-up cards on a table, then yes, Cat and Mouse is blind-accessible! The only accessibility tweak I’d make to the rules is to make it so the Mouse has to announce when/if they switch or move traps. Although maybe there’s some way to avoid this tweak that I’m not seeing right now. If you know of or figure out some way to play it blind-accessibly, comment on the Cat and Mouse project page to let me know! 😄 Thanks!
what's the difference between graphical and command line version? Also, will the final game also have command line? also, if this helps, if the graphical version is made in unity, there is an accessibility plugin for that ig.
The graphical version has visual maps, background images for each region (forest, mountains, etc.), and limitations on how many options can be shown at once (it uses MORE OPTIONS and PREVIOUS OPTIONS buttons to cycle through all the options if there are more than six at a time). There may be some other differences I’m forgetting. The command line version plays kind of like a 1980s text adventure game, but has numbered options like in Warsim: The Realm of Aslona.
Yes, the final game will have a command line version! I’m not using Unity; Upheaval is made with MonoGame. If you know of any similar tools for MonoGame, I’d love to hear about them!
does the command line version have music? sorry for so many questions?
Don’t be sorry, I love questions! 😄 Yes, the command line version has music. If you like, you can download the command line demo version and try it out and see if you like it. 🙂 I’m also very happy to answer any other questions you have! 😄
thanks alot!. for help with the graphic version, you could ask the forum ig.
is this game blind accessible?
Yes, the command line version is currently blind accessible because it is screen reader compatible (I use NVDA to test, but others have reported that Narrator and JAWS also work)! I’m working on adding text-to-speech to the graphical version, but it’s not done yet (as of version 0.0.15).
Here’s an AudioGames forum thread for more history and context about Upheaval’s blind accessibility. 🙂
ok, thanks! I use nvda. will the final version also support it?
The command line version of Upheaval will always support NVDA, but the graphical version unfortunately will not support any screen reader programs, even in the final version (I can’t for the life of me figure out how to support screen readers in MonoGame).
the people on the ag.net forum could help ig, but i don't know.
i have some questions. does/will this game have music or sfx? also, will this be a paid game later?
Hi darksand123, the current version of Upheaval (0.0.15) already has music and SFX! If you want, you can buy the early access alpha version right now here on itch.io, or you can wait until the game is fully released (I’ll increase the price after the full release). The free demo will always be available, and it should have more content the closer the game gets to release.
Let me know what other questions you have! 😄 Thanks!
Hi there! I have a problem with the mac version of your game. My laptop says, that the app is damaged and it cant be opened. Any ideas how to fix this? Good luck further with your project. I can't wait to play the full version when comes out.
😱 Thank you for the report! It looks like it’s a security issue that might have to do with how I’m signing the Mac application at the moment.
I found a workaround: you can open the Terminal and run this command on the
.appfile after you extract it:xattr -d com.apple.quarantine "Upheaval.app"I’ve tested this on my Mac computer and it seems to work for me (I found the same problem as you, actually). Let me know if this works for you, or if it doesn’t work (in which case we’ll try to find another workaround).
I would love to make a proper fix ASAP, but I’m also working on a number of other features right now, and I realistically won’t be able to work on the Mac signing until later this year, unfortunately. ☹️ Thank you so much for your patience, and please let me know if you notice any other issues! 😄
Hey WolfWarrior98, I just a new update that should (hopefully!) fix this (version 0.0.19). Could you download the latest version and see if the problem is gone or if it’s still there? Thank you so much for your report! :)
If you remember last time you told me to use an workaround.
I use that and since then, I encounter an error.
This error persist even in this version.
Thank you for the very helpful screenshot!! I released another update (0.0.20) that I’m hoping will address this new issue. If you have the time, could you download the latest version and try again? Thank you so much for your help! :D
Hello! You’re welcome.
hello! You’re welcome.
Sure. I will download the game again.
I hope you will have the best game ever at lounch.
Hello!
I am Jose Luis Benítez Díaz, a student in Translation and Interpreting at the Pablo de Olavide University, Seville (Spain). I am looking for a cool game to translate into Spanish for my thesis and I have come across your game "Upheaval". I have tried the demo and I think it is really cool and I wondered if you would find it interesting to translate it into Spanish. The whole localization process would be under the supervision of my tutor, a localization specialist.
Thank you so much in advance,
Jose B.
Thanks for the offer, Jose!
I already responded to you in the Discord, but for anyone else reading this and wondering: Upheaval is unfortunately either very very difficult or impossible to translate, and I think it will be years after the full release before I think about having any official translations. Of course, if anyone wants to attempt to translate it on their own, they’re more than welcome to! Thank you! 🙂
I tried the demo and it's quite a fun game. Though, I find myself overwhelmed trying to figure out where my character currently is, but that's probably something that can be fixed by playing more; I also haven't looked at the map so maybe that would improve the experience as well.
Thank you for playing! :D I agree, looking at the map will probably help, especially since it has an indicator showing where you are. Any suggestions for making it easier to look at the map, or do you think it’s fine as it is? Glad you had fun, at any rate! :D
The demo download for all types isnt working for me, please help I want to try it to see if I like the game
I’m so sorry! itch.io support has some posts about fixing downloading problems. See if one of these links helps, and let me know if they don’t?
Thank you, seems to work now
I like it, I enjoy the simplicity of the game and how it enables an incredible amount of freedom.
I hope an option to load community modules is on the to-do list.
Thank you! Player freedom is one of my goals. :)
I would love to have community modules; at this point, I don’t have any idea what they would look like.
What sort of content are you thinking could be added with community modules? And, are you interested in making community modules, or in having them to install?
I'm thinking mostly about added content and standalone adventures, just look at how much stuff people keep making for old games.
I personally don't expect I'll create much but I promise I'll try.
Thanks, I’ll keep it in mind! :) If I get a few more people expressing interest in creating community content for Upheaval, I’d be happy to support them and add the ability to make and load community modules!
In the meantime, the save files are all actually in plain text already, so you can edit them to your heart’s content. Technically you can even add new content to the game by editing the save files! Although it’s much easier to do things like change characters’ names and let yourself out of prison. XD
Hey Alex! Is the current version playable via console? If not, are you planning on making it so? I'm legally blind and prefer to play most text-only games via console/terminal if possible, but to me it looks like v0.0.4 can't be played that way as of yet.
No (sorry about that), and Yes! :D I’m releasing version 0.0.5 on Console tomorrow (Dec 12); I’m just doing some last minute testing over the weekend to make sure it’s ready before it goes out. I’ll post a devlog tomorrow when it comes out–if you’ve downloaded the demo or bought the full game, you should get an email when it’s ready to play.
Thanks for your support, man!
Awesome, thanks so much for the quick reply - and of course for being cool enough to make the game blind-accessible! Keep up the great work, I can't wait to see where this project'll go!
The full Windows Console version is out now! :)