Is Approximately Up Worth It? What 979 Steam Reviews Say
Very Positive — 922 positive and 57 negative out of 979 Steam reviews.
Source: Steam user reviews for app 3904850, all languages, all purchase types. Checked 2026-09-01.
This site does not score games. We have no way to verify a personal playthrough against the standard we hold every other page here to, so instead of inventing a number out of ten, the figure above is Steam's own aggregate with its sample size attached. No Metacritic or OpenCritic page exists for Approximately Up as of September 1, 2026 — normal for a solo-developed indie release. The only aggregate score available is the Steam user one above.
What players praise
- The physics actually teaches you. The community's most-viewed tutorials are about thruster placement and centre of mass, not about hidden systems — players who post about failing describe learning why they failed.
- The developer ships constantly. Twelve patches between August 6 and August 31, 2026, several of them same-day fixes for issues raised in the Steam discussions.
- Logic is deep enough to automate. Players build auto-hover, auto-landing and PID-controlled systems out of in-game gates; one community video demonstrates variable thrust for smooth landings built entirely from logic blocks.
What players complain about
- Interplanetary flights take real time. A Steam thread titled 'Interplanetary flights are BAD' and another arguing the design does not respect the player's time. The developer's answer was Fast Forward at 3x in patch 1.0.100, explicitly framed as a compromise for players without hours to spend.
- Ships used to break apart for no visible reason. Traced in patch 1.0.110 to a single unattached component colliding with others mid-flight and snowballing. The same patch added an exclamation mark in H mode on any unconnected part.
- Some objectives were unclear. Patches 1.0.005, 1.0.007 and 1.0.110 all rewrote mission hints — for Drop The Depth Diver, Trial By Thrust and Baobara Interference specifically.
The pattern worth noticing
Every complaint in the right-hand column has a patch attached to it. Players said interplanetary flights wasted their time; patch 1.0.100 added Fast Forward at 3x and the developer framed it, in the post itself, as a compromise for people with jobs and families. Players said ships broke apart for no reason; patch 1.0.110 traced it to unattached components and added a warning marker for them. That is a different signal from a high score — it says the negative reviews are being read.
Steam review totals checked:
Before buying, the two practical checks are the system requirements — the simulation is CPU-bound on big ships — and the live player count.