Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy

Getting over is more like getting involved in a certain kind of mindstate which is reasonably peculiar to casual gamers. High-budget games set the difficulty trend in gaming and they try to be easy, supporting, and motivating in many ways such as minimaps, waypoint indicators, and fast travel due to improving their accessibility to the masses. Getting over is the exact opposite of this approach. It constantly tries to break you with its tight level design, demotivational narration, and clearing your progress in the middle of your struggle to climb, leaving you nothing but frustration. It's like the harsh noise or black metal equivalent of a game design, it just assaults the player instead of being playful and fun. But not in a way that Syobon Action does, it's fair and balanced which makes every fault yours in your way to the top and presumably the bottom of the mountain.

As Foddy said, it's a game for certain people who I believe don't like to be taken by the hand to hurt them by exposing their capabilities to themselves, leaving a scar that can't be fixed by loading a game save. The situation that the player is in makes this game so unique as mentioned above, it particularly needs attention by game designers foremost. However, I wouldn't and I did not recommend this game to any of my friends nor family because not all of us are interested in taking lessons by hurting ourselves. Foddy abuses the psychological phenomenon to overcome obstacles through a video game and he's very upfront about his attitude and the game he made so there is no way for me to hate it but to embrace it as an art medium through play. It's always rewarding to overcome an obstacle whether it's physical or not. The abstraction of the theme satisfies this need by transforming the obstacles into yours. Instead of exploring the game's world, the player is left alone with his world and a bunch of familiar objects that constantly reminds him of the reality he's facing every day.

Game scholars should also watch this GDC talk about putting your name on the title like Sid Meier to understand what Foddy tries to manage by doing it. Without spoilers, the ending is built in a similar way to this approach. Human interaction is way easier within the technology we have but oddly enough we lack that most. Foddy suggests multiple solutions for it in this release so it's worth the struggle.

what sadistic fucker would make something like this? fucking hate this game bro

I would like to take this time to talk about the genius of the achievements of Getting Over it. There are only 3. Beating the game once, beating the game twice, and beating the game 50 times. That first achievement is the hardest one of them all. Getting Over It's unique control scheme forces anyone to flounder like a baby, having to relearn how to walk, and then throwing that baby straight into the Olympics. It takes so long. Everyone struggles at their own part. Once you do it, and you get that achievement, it's amazing. The high of beating the game the first time is something almost virtually unparalleled in all of gaming history. You go to see your achievement, and see "beat the game, again." and you think, "I could do that. I already beat the game. I won't do 50 times, but I could do it again." So you play the game again, and see that you know how to walk, heck, you might even learn to run. Maybe you aren't doing slide skip, or you can't do anvil jump consistently yet, but you do much much better than your first run. I personally saw my time drop from 4 hours and 33 minutes to a cool 43 minutes. And in that moment, of your second triumph over the mountain of trash, you realize it. You could beat the game 50 times. You don't even have to, but that feeling of knowing that you can is so insanely empowering. I have played this game roughly 500 times, and I can beat it in around two and a half minutes. It's only once you can beat it in 5 minutes that you really can appreciate the game.

people don't get this game.

I would like this game more if I was better at it. And not in like a way where I could get better at it if I practiced, I mean like in the initial playthrough. People who really like the game say their first clears were something like 6-15 hours, which is totally fair. I started save scumming starting at orange hell and it still took me 15 hours. Beating this legit for me might've taken more than 50 hours. Just saying the balance of this game is made for people who are at least somewhat initially partially decent at it. That's not even to say it's a problem with the game, it's just that the game only plays well for a certain kind of skilled player.

But idk, maybe my problem was I was mostly using a controller (I used both mouse and controller at different points, generally mouse for more precise sections and the controller for quick and consistent movements, though once I started save scumming I mostly just used a controller).

That being said, it's a fantastic original mechanic (or at least to me, Bennett does say it's originally from a 15 year old game, and upon playing that the mechanic are surprisingly almost identical just with worse physics and way buggier), the physics are great, it's hilarious, and a great game to converse and play with friends if you have those, and the philosophy in the voiceovers is insightful and interesting -- I was not expecting a postmodernist critique of video games and digital culture with this (a game about trash made from trash (though there's more to the philosophy than that)).

And it's great how the game fluctuates in and out through letting you be safe and letting you lose everything. Generally after a very difficult section, you get a rest period, and except for orange hell, very difficult sections don't punish you too hard for failing them. But of course true to the game's design, there's usually a small chance a mistake can send you all the way back to the beginning, even at the very end of the game (it's possible to throw yourself off the antenna at the end, slide down the mountain, and accidentally ride the snake to wind up back at the very start). It's the fact that it's possible, but only seldomly happens that makes it genius.

I'm being serious when I say this is genuinely one of the most heartfelt games I've ever played. There's no shitty narrative to pay attention to, no diegesis to speak of, it's just pure mechanics and a direct conversation, often literally, between the player and the author. It felt genuinely cathartic to finish this game; Bennett Foddy is a legit genius.

Also not to throw shade but another review here says the dialogue from Foddy is demotivating? That couldn't be further from the truth.