We recently went to PAX Aus 2024 and got the opportunity to talk to Nick Cellini Game Designer and Developer of Which Way Up: Galaxy Games a fun multiplayer game where you Compete in acrobatic gravity events at the Galaxy Games!
Kyle
Hey, what’s going on guys? We’re here at PAX Aus 2024. We just got done playing Which Way Up. It’s changed. The name’s changed. It used to be called Which Way Is Up Space Olympics. Now it’s called Galaxy Games.
Nick
Yes, that’s right. We just, you know, trademark, uh, situation. It was a bit of a silly decision to be honest, to call it Space Olympics.
But we’re going for the vibe of like, you know, Commonwealth Games, Olympic Games, but hopefully Galaxy Games still gets a lot of the vibe across.
Kyle
I think it works. I think it’s better. It’s even better to be honest. So you want to just give us a little bit of a rundown of the game? where, how it came about, the vibe, the inspiration.
Nick
Yeah, for sure. Well, um, it’s obviously inspired by Super Mario Galaxy, but I also say it’s kind of like Mario Party plus Mario Galaxy. So I started the game trying to recreate the fun kind of floaty feeling of jumping from the top of a planet, orbiting around and landing on the underside of Mario Galaxy.
And I wanted to recreate that feeling, but in a little bit more of an accessible way. So our game is hopefully more accessible ’cause it’s 2D. We tried to design the controls to be super easy to pick a. You just point where you want to go, and then you jump along the way. Um, and there are 12 minigames.
And I think we tried to create as much variety as we could, so there should be something for everyone. Not everyone will thrive on every minigame, but you should be able to beat your friends in at least one of the minigames, I think. Yeah.
Kyle
Yeah, cool. You guys recently just announced, uh, that you are going to Kickstarter.
Do you want to talk about the decision behind that, and what you hope to achieve by going through Kickstarter?
Nick
Yeah, so we, um, are trying to basically finish off the game, add a bit of polish to some elements. We’d like to give it a bit of a marketing push. one of our stretch goals is online.
That’s pretty high on the stretch goal, List, but if we can get enough funding, we’d love to implement online, but it’s just something that’s not on the cards anymore, basically because of budgeting scope, things like that. Um, but yeah, we, we just kind of need a little bit extra get over the line.
We thought it would be cute. We started creating little crochet characters, which are over there by the I should grab on later, but, we created those. Maybe try this like test to see if people are into these kinds of things. So it’s a little bit of a test as well to see, you know, how it goes and people respond to it. That kind of thing.
Kyle
Yeah. Cool. So now a personal question. What got you into game development?
Uh, wow. Okay. That takes me back. Uh, well, I don’t know. Programming. First of all, I’m always been a huge Nintendo fan boy. I’ve just played a lot of games, obviously. I mean, all developers, game developers would have, but yeah, I started programming little Lego robots.
When I was really young in school to play soccer against each other. And so I’ve always been into programming. Um, and so it kind of just evolved from that. I made mobile apps after that. I made like some mobile app games just as a fun passion project. Um, but then, yeah, I guess getting more into the game dev scene and my local community got me excited about the possibility of making games and it’s been a long learning process because there’s just so much involved in game dev.
You have to learn about sound programming, UI and UX, you know, 3d animation, modeling, all of that. It’s, it’s a huge thing, but it’s really fun and, you know, you’re very, um, rewarding.
Kyle
Okay, last question, because I know you’re busy, a lot’s going on. If there was one piece of advice you could give to any, like, blossoming game developer, somebody that wants to come to PAX, showcase their game, what would it be?
Nick
Um, I mean, just get started somewhere, I think. Uh, maybe realize that it’s probably a long road, filled with lots of failures or experimentations. Just try stuff, but also, uh, be open to collaborating. The biggest learning thing, or change that I had, My previous game I basically just made on my own, It was a really small mobile puzzle game, And I think that it didn’t really do very well, Because I didn’t excel at everything that’s required in a game, Um, but with this game I’ve collaborated with artists, With composers, with different people who are great at the things that they do, Like our concept artist did the design for this t shirt, I absolutely love it, and I couldn’t have done this art, And did this character design, so, yeah, just, Find local game jams I would say, talk to people, make stuff, um, and then you just have to stay motivated I think because it’s a very long journey.
Kyle
Awesome, well thank you for your time ladies and gentlemen. Which way up? Head over. Wishlist it on Steam, it’s on Kickstarter, go show it some love. Thank you for your time and have a good PAX man.
Nick
Thanks for having me.
1-Up Games 
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