Zup! 9 Reviews
Minimal physical puzzle with explosions
App ID | 1098340 |
App Type | GAME |
Developers | Quiet River |
Publishers | Quiet River |
Categories | Single-player, Steam Achievements, Steam Cloud, Steam Trading Cards |
Genres | Casual, Indie |
Release Date | 24 Jun, 2019 |
Platforms | Windows |
Supported Languages | English, Simplified Chinese, French, Italian, German, Spanish - Spain, Arabic, Bulgarian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Greek, Hungarian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese - Portugal, Portuguese - Brazil, Romanian, Russian, Spanish - Latin America, Swedish, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian, Vietnamese, Japanese |

1 780 Total Reviews
1 704 Positive Reviews
76 Negative Reviews
Very Positive Score
Zup! 9 has garnered a total of 1 780 reviews, with 1 704 positive reviews and 76 negative reviews, resulting in a ‘Very Positive’ overall score.
Reviews Chart
Chart above illustrates the trend of feedback for Zup! 9 over time, showcasing the dynamic changes in player opinions as new updates and features have been introduced. This visual representation helps to understand the game's reception and how it has evolved.
Recent Steam Reviews
This section displays the 10 most recent Steam reviews for the game, showcasing a mix of player experiences and sentiments. Each review summary includes the total playtime along with the number of thumbs-up and thumbs-down reactions, clearly indicating the community's feedback
Playtime:
1006 minutes
Zup....
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
297 minutes
thx dev for the zup series
👍 : 1 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
97 minutes
amammzing unique colorful achievement
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
174 minutes
Zup 9 introduces new physical element to the series (anti-gravity).
Not much achievements compared to the rest titles but it's still fun.
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
127 minutes
Fun little physics puzzle game completable in around 90 minutes, with loads of achievements. Trading cards take 2 hours + to drop though
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
115 minutes
This game gives you achievements for you to decorate your profile with and cards for you to sell, that's basically it.
If you're interested in making your profile look pretty, wait for a sale and buy it, otherwise just spend your time and money with something else
👍 : 0 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
1531 minutes
Zup! 9 is a deceptively simple yet surprisingly addictive puzzle game that continues the tradition of its predecessors by offering players a fresh, brain-teasing experience built around gravity manipulation and strategic thinking. Developed by Alexander Zadorozhny, the game focuses on guiding a small, spherical object through a variety of intricate levels filled with obstacles, switches, and hidden secrets. At first glance, Zup! 9 might seem straightforward, but it quickly reveals layers of complexity that challenge players to think several steps ahead and master its unique physics-based mechanics.
The core gameplay revolves around controlling the spherical protagonist by rotating entire environments or manipulating gravity to navigate through increasingly complex levels. This mechanic creates a satisfying sense of control and discovery, as players learn to anticipate how shifting perspectives and gravitational pulls will affect movement and interactions. The puzzles are cleverly designed to encourage experimentation, rewarding careful observation and precise timing. Each stage introduces new elements gradually, ensuring that the difficulty curve remains approachable while still providing challenging puzzles for veteran players.
One of the strengths of Zup! 9 lies in its level design. The game offers a broad array of environments that range from minimalist geometric spaces to more elaborate, thematic stages that keep the gameplay fresh. The puzzles often incorporate multiple pathways, hidden areas, and collectibles, encouraging exploration and replayability. This design philosophy ensures that even after completing a level, players are motivated to revisit it in search of missed secrets or to solve it using alternative strategies. The inclusion of optional objectives and time challenges adds an extra layer of depth, appealing to completionists and speedrunners alike.
Visually, Zup! 9 embraces a clean, colorful aesthetic that prioritizes clarity and player focus. The environments are rendered with simple shapes and bright colors, making it easy to track the ball and understand the layout of each puzzle. This minimalism works well in keeping distractions to a minimum and enhancing the game’s overall accessibility. The sound design is subtle but effective, with ambient music and sound effects that complement the contemplative mood of the game without overpowering the experience. Together, these elements create an atmosphere that feels both calming and intellectually stimulating.
The game’s controls are intuitive, with smooth and responsive input that makes rotating environments and adjusting gravity feel natural and satisfying. The learning curve is well-balanced, with early levels serving as tutorials that introduce core concepts before gradually ramping up in complexity. However, some later puzzles can become quite intricate, requiring players to combine multiple mechanics and plan several moves ahead. This escalation in difficulty feels rewarding rather than frustrating, as the game consistently provides the tools and hints needed to solve even its toughest challenges.
While Zup! 9 excels in many areas, there are minor drawbacks to consider. The minimalist presentation, while generally a strength, might not appeal to players looking for more visually rich or narrative-driven experiences. The absence of a traditional story or character development means the game relies solely on its puzzle design and atmosphere to engage players. Additionally, some of the more complex puzzles could benefit from additional in-game hints or an optional assist mode to help players who get stuck without diminishing the satisfaction of discovery.
Performance-wise, Zup! 9 is stable and runs smoothly on a wide range of hardware configurations. Load times are minimal, and the game’s simple graphics ensure that technical issues are rare. The developer’s ongoing support and responsiveness to community feedback have helped refine the gameplay and fix minor bugs, which contributes positively to the overall experience.
In conclusion, Zup! 9 is a well-crafted puzzle game that offers a thoughtful and engaging experience through its innovative gravity manipulation mechanics and clever level design. Its blend of accessible controls, gradual difficulty progression, and rewarding exploration makes it a standout title for fans of puzzle games and physics-based challenges. While it may not cater to those seeking rich narratives or flashy visuals, it excels as a calming yet stimulating mental exercise that encourages patience, creativity, and strategic thinking. For players looking to immerse themselves in a satisfying puzzle adventure that challenges the mind while providing moments of quiet satisfaction, Zup! 9 is an excellent choice.
Rating: 9/10
👍 : 3 |
😃 : 0
Positive
Playtime:
467 minutes
ZUP series is a simple arcade style puzzle game. The red balls and blocks are bombs. The goal is to help the blue ball pass and fall into the Green lawn in box like structure. Yellow blocks, balls help you achieve it pushing the blue ball. You need figure the sequence of which red bomb to blow when to trigger a series of events that push the blue ball to it's green goalpost. Most of it is easy simple taking seconds. Some may take more time couple of minutes to figure out. Some puzzles in later games may have moving objects you need time so your moving yellow, blue items don't hit obstructing moving blocks. Later they introduce teleporters and parallel locks that block your progress by sending balls across puzzle or blocking them. The locks and teleporters must be removed or activated as such in precise sequence of blowing kickstart bombs to pave way for the hero blue ball.
In this game some puzzles have reverse logic the green box lawn to collect the blue ball is upside down and acts like a magnet drawing the ball from under if the correct sequence is triggered. 80% game is easy taking few seconds to a minute. BUT some puzzles in last 30% proved a bit irritating as they would not follow correct order and pressure overshooting or falling short. This is the 9th game in the series and frankly by now its getting tediously boring. Same old patterns, puzzles, mechanics. Each game has 40-50 puzzles so by now playing played over 400 puzzles you can imagine. I really now wish these games had a Hentai like shortcut keys to auto solve move to next. Playing for easy achievements is fine, but I do not know if I can finish playing all 22 games I own. Game took less than 2 hours to finish. probably need 2.5 hours more to get all cards. This game has 770 achievements. In other games they can reach upto 3000. I may watch a video guide and try to end the formalities in the remaining 13 games. Its way too much. There are achievements for clicking everything on Menu including game title, question mark, any shape on screen in Menus and quitting game also. Decent time pass though later games with same repeat patterning will get boring. Most of ZUP-QOP have trading cards easy thousands of achievements buy whole pack having nearly 22 games I think, cheap at sale.
👍 : 6 |
😃 : 0
Positive