Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling Review

Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling, developed by silver978, is a very short adventure game about a young woman dealing with the stress of endless studying and investigating her attic. It was originally released back in 2023, but this year, it’s been ported to the Nintendo Switch. The title boasts three different endings and a deep psychological experience, despite its length, and I feel inclined to agree. Nonetheless, I can’t help but think the game is missing something.

The “game” part of Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling is fairly simple and in the same vein as point-and-click adventure games: there are various scenes to look at and you can select different squares on the screen to hear the protagonist’s thoughts on a given object, look closer at something, or move to a different room. Occasionally, you can even click on the same thing multiple times in a row to learn more! Otherwise, these interactions only change as you delve deeper and deeper into the story, which is a nice touch; I appreciate when a character’s thoughts on their surroundings change depending on what’s happening to them and, even though this game is rather short, I am very impressed that practically everything you can interact with will spark different dialogue depending on how far into the plot you are.

On the other hand, I will note that actually moving between the different selectable options is a tad finicky on the Switch. I imagine this is much more fluid on a computer, where your mouse can just hover over anything you’d like, but I often found myself having to move toward my desired square from multiple directions before I found a path that actually took me there, even when it seemed as though I should’ve been able to just point my analogue stick directly to get at something I wanted to click on. Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling is short enough that this issue never goes beyond minor and many of the tenser scenes don’t run into this problem since they don’t have as many interactable squares clogging up the screen, but I thought I should mention this issue. After all, it’s the only issue there is with the gameplay.

Admittedly, Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling doesn’t have much in the way of gameplay outside of exploring the protagonist’s thoughts on her surroundings. There is a fairly minor puzzle towards the start of the game where you make breakfast by selecting three specific objects in the kitchen in order, but it’s fairly low stakes and the only such puzzle throughout the experience. Additionally, even though there are three distinct endings, the majority of the plot is kinetic and unchanging.

That plot follows our nameless protagonist as she goes about her day in her house; she’d love to go outside, unpack boxes that have been around untouched for ages, get some groceries, or even just clean her dishes, but she knows she has to study anatomy, so that’s what she does. However, one day, various odd things happen around her home. The first of these occurrences sees her winding up in an odd space filled with mysteriously marked calendars and a strange boy who’s working hard on his own studies and marking the days with these calendars to an almost obsessive degree. Through it all, there lies a mysterious trap door leading into the house’s attic. I’d keep going and describe the plot from here, but if I say any more, I may as well go all the way to the ending. The story itself moves quickly, whether or not you stop at every screen to admire the hand-drawn art and interact with everything, as I do.

Speaking of “the ending”, eagle-eyed readers may have questioned why I referred to the plot’s three endings as just one single ending. That would be because, of the three endings, only one of them actually feels substantial enough to be an ending. There’s a good ending, a bad ending, and a secret ending. I’ll keep the specifics of the secret ending and how to find it a secret to those reading, but I will say that it’s incredibly short and doesn’t add much to the overall story. The bad ending, which can be achieved if you neglect to grab a specific item, is basically just the good ending but it ends earlier, bloodier, and quicker. Perhaps I’m just biased since I managed to reach the good ending first, but I was honestly expecting something with a similar amount of depth, where the story continues a little bit and you have a chance to learn a little more. The bad ending just feels like a game over screen instead of an actual ending. I understand that bad endings are usually not as narratively satisfying as good ones, but I still tend to expect a bit more from them. Thankfully, the good ending, while a bit on the short and understated side, feels satisfying and resonant.

Part of why the good ending works particularly well is because it’s then followed by an interactive epilogue, where you, as the protagonist, can return to your home and look around at everything again, both to muse on what all happened during the game and see how both she and the living space have changed after going through this nightmare. The art and how it can show the same rooms at all the different stages of the plot — whether that’s ordinary and perhaps stiflingly bland and stuffed, imposing and dangerous as though something’s waiting to get you just around the corner, or relaxing and welcoming like a home you’d want to stay in — is definitely a highlight, even though it only takes up the left half of the screen for nearly the entire runtime. Beyond that, the art does a fantastic job of making the ordinary seem unwelcome and frightening and I love how the epilogue is able to so easily remove that underlying tension, even just through light changes to the art.

The music and sound design are usually good at setting the mood as well. I don’t particularly recall any specific tracks that speak to me, but I can say I appreciated the slight “boom” sound effect that played with each group of text appearing. It adds to the tension and helps to solidify the game’s creepy ambience, especially in the darker and more psychological moments. Similar thump-like sounds can even be heard in the music in several scenes, which helps to heighten the tension. I do wish it was changed up a little more for the epilogue, because the sound effect still feels similar, even though all the danger is gone (thankfully, the music itself is fairly calm here), but on the whole, it’s a fantastic decision for the majority of the runtime.

All the same, Looking Up I See Only A Ceiling offers a short and quick story at a fairly low price at £3 in the UK and $3 in the US. It’s not exactly best experienced on the Switch with the controls being what they are and no one should be expecting much from two out of the three endings, but the art is solid and the attention to detail in the writing is excellent. Plus, if you’ve ever felt overwhelmed while working on a project for school or work, watching its protagonist struggle and come through okay can offer a great deal of catharsis. At most, it’ll take around two hours, but if you’re not me and you actually take a reasonable amount of time to play through videogames, it shouldn’t take longer than half an hour, I’d wager, and that’s definitely a short enough experience that it’s worth giving a shot if you’re interested at all.