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Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy

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Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy is a platform game developed by the titular Bennett Foddy. The game was released as part of the October 2017 Humble Monthly, on October 6, 2017, where it went on to be played by over 2.7 million players.[1] A Steam version of the game was later released by Foddy on December 6, 2017,[2][3] with a release on iOS that same day.[4] The Android version was later released on April 25, 2018.[5] The Linux version was available for beta testing in August 2018 and received a stable release in the same year.[6]

Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy
Developer(s)Bennett Foddy
Designer(s)Bennett Foddy
EngineUnity
Platform(s)Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Linux
Release
  • Windows
  • October 6, 2017
  • macOS, iOS
  • December 6, 2017
  • Android
  • April 25, 2018
  • Linux
  • 2018
Genre(s)Platform
Mode(s)Single-player

Gameplay

 
The player-controlled character ascends a mountain using only a hammer.

Getting Over It revolves around the player-controlled character, residing in a large metal cauldron and named Diogenes in reference to the pot-dwelling philosopher. He wields a Yosemite hammer, which he can use to grip objects and move himself. Using the mouse or trackpad,[note 1] the player tries to move the man's upper body and sledge hammer in order to climb a steep mountain.[3]

The game is accompanied by voice-over commentary from Bennett Foddy discussing various philosophical topics. The commentary also provides quotations relating to disappointment and perseverance when significant progress is lost by the player,[7] as well as when the player reaches certain milestones in the game.

As the player progress up the mountain, they are at a constant risk of losing some or all of their progress; there are no checkpoints.[8] The game concludes when the player reaches the highest point of the map, entering space. Closing credits fade in, where at the conclusion, a message asks players if they are recording the gameplay. If the player indicates that they are not, the game provides access to a chatroom populated by other players who have recently completed the game.

Development

Foddy had been drawn to difficult games while growing up. Living in Australia in the 1980s and 1990s, he was limited to what was brought into the country through imports. Many of these games lacked any type of save mechanism and sent players back to the start of the game if their character died, such as Jet Set Willy. Into the 1990s, video game developers in the United States and Japan began adding checkpoints or means to save. Foddy said, "The flavor of being sent back gradually disappeared up to the point now where it's this boutique thing. People of a certain age still have that taste, or maybe everyone has it, but it's been written out of the design orthodoxy."[9] In 2018, Foddy stated that the main reason he put his name in the title of Getting Over It was due to a culture that does not generally "recognize the individuals who make games".[10]

Getting Over It was aimed towards "a certain kind of person, to hurt them" and took inspiration from Sexy Hiking, a similar game released by Czech video game designer 'Jazzuo' in 2002.[11] Foddy learned of Sexy Hiking around 2007 from a post by Derek Yu on TIGSource. According to Foddy, the game was 'somewhat of a meme among indie game developers', with Adam Saltsman having described Sexy Hiking as "the single worst game I have ever played".[10] While dismissing Sexy Hiking at the time, Foddy found the game memorable, and later showed the game to students of his class on game design at New York University Tisch School of the Arts, whereupon he "realized how timeless the design" of Sexy Hiking was.[10] Foddy stated that he is a fan of "messy, realtime physics puzzle games", and further expressed that they are "a huge area of inspiration in my own work".[10] In a now-deleted tweet from 2014, Foddy asked his followers "would it be wrong if I made a sequel to Sexy Hiking? Given that I am not actually Jazzuo (as far as you know)".[10][12]

More recently, Foddy had seen a return of difficult games such as through the Dark Souls series. In August 2017, he observed that, while there was outcry by players over the mechanism in Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice which reportedly erased the player's save file if they died, other players readily took to the challenge, showing renewed interest in games that were difficult by design. He said, "whenever you see something that disproves a strongly held design orthodoxy it's extremely exciting because it opens up new avenues for exploration", and considered Getting Over It as his exploration of this new development space.[9]

Reception

 
Foddy receiving the Nuovo Award for Getting Over It at the 2018 Independent Games Festival

Getting Over It's difficult gameplay was praised by reviewers, including PC Gamer writer Austin Wood.[11] Rock, Paper, Shotgun listed it as one of the best PC games of 2017,[13] and GameSpot said it might have been the "weirdest game" to come out of 2017.[14] Polygon ranked it 36th on their list of the 50 best games of 2017.[15]

An Easter egg appears in the game Just Cause 4. At a point on the game map, the player can guide the protagonist to where a cauldron and hammer are located. Activating them puts the game into a side-view mode, challenging the player to move about scattered obstacles as in Getting Over It, with Bennett Foddy narrating atop about the folly of the exercise and meta-humor of the Easter egg.[16] Diogenes was added as a playable character to the crossover fighting game Indie Pogo in May 2019.[17] Diogenes also appears as an assist character in the upcoming crossover fighting game Fraymakers.[18]

Awards
Year Award Category Result Ref.
2018 SXSW Gaming Awards Trending Game of the Year Nominated [19][20]
Mobile Game of the Year Nominated
Independent Games Festival Competition Awards Seumas McNally Grand Prize Nominated [21][22]
Excellence in Design Nominated
Nuovo Award Won

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Controllers are supported, but make the game considerably harder because of the lack of precision the joysticks provide.

References

  1. ^ Wood, Austin (December 6, 2017). "QWOP successor Getting Over It is now available on Steam". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on 29 December 2017. Retrieved 29 December 2017.
  2. ^ Hester, Blake (September 28, 2017). "'Getting Over It' is the Next Ultra-Hard Game From 'QWOP' Creator Bennett Foddy". Rolling Stone. Archived from the original on December 16, 2017. Retrieved October 9, 2017.
  3. ^ a b Rogers, Tim (October 6, 2017). "Getting Over It Is A Game About Using A Sledgehammer To Climb A Mountain". Kotaku. Archived from the original on July 8, 2018. Retrieved October 9, 2017.
  4. ^ Nelson, Jared (December 6, 2017). "'QWOP' Developer's New Game 'Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy' Arrives on iOS thanks in Part to Zach Gage | TouchArcade". Touch Arcade. Archived from the original on July 10, 2018. Retrieved December 8, 2017.
  5. ^ "Hardcore physics puzzler Getting Over It hits Android". April 26, 2018. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved April 28, 2018.
  6. ^ Dawe, Liam (August 13, 2018). "Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy now has a Linux build for testing". GamingOnLinux. Archived from the original on March 1, 2021. Retrieved June 16, 2020.
  7. ^ Purchese, Robert (2017-12-07). "The new game from the creator of QWOP is as brutal as it is brilliant". EuroGamer. Archived from the original on 2017-12-29. Retrieved 2017-12-28.
  8. ^ Frank, Allegra (2017-12-08). "Getting Over It is frustrating the hell out of streamers". Polygon. Archived from the original on 2017-12-26. Retrieved 2017-12-24.
  9. ^ a b Wiltshire, Alex (January 5, 2018). "Designer Interview: The aesthetics of frustration in Getting Over It". Gamasutra. Archived from the original on April 19, 2019. Retrieved January 6, 2018.
  10. ^ a b c d e Macgregor, Jody (April 11, 2018). "The creators of Spelunky and Getting Over It talk about Sexy Hiking and 'B-games'". PC Gamer. Future US. Archived from the original on September 19, 2020. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  11. ^ a b Wood, Austin (September 27, 2017). "Getting Over It is a brutal new game from the maker of QWOP". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on December 17, 2017. Retrieved October 14, 2017.
  12. ^ Foddy, Bennett [@bfod] (June 15, 2014). "would it be wrong if I made a sequel to Sexy Hiking? Given that I am not actually Jazzuo (as far as you know)" (Tweet). Archived from the original on April 14, 2018 – via Twitter.
  13. ^ RPS (25 December 2017). "Best PC games of 2017". Rock, Paper, Shotgun. Archived from the original on 3 January 2018. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  14. ^ Pereira, Chris (14 November 2017). "Naked Man In A Pot Climbs Mountain With Sledgehammer In What Might Be 2017's Weirdest Game". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 30 October 2022. Retrieved 2 January 2018.
  15. ^ Polygon staff (18 December 2017). "The 50 best games of 2017". Polygon. Archived from the original on 21 December 2017. Retrieved 12 February 2018.
  16. ^ Livingstone, Christopher (December 3, 2018). "Just Cause 4 Easter egg replaces Rico's grappling hook with instruments of sheer agony". PC Gamer. Archived from the original on October 30, 2022. Retrieved December 3, 2018.
  17. ^ "This May, Indie Pogo will see a huge major content update called the Heavy Metal Update, which introduces Bullet Kin from Enter the Gungeon, and newly announced Diogenes from Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy!pic.twitter.com/MOOAQ5LlGs". April 27, 2019. Archived from the original on October 30, 2022. Retrieved February 21, 2020.
  18. ^ "Here comes another #Fraymakers Content Spotlight! This time, we're taking a look at two more assists: Diogenes from @bfod's Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy and Nikandreos from @AlientrapGames's Apotheon! Read all about them here". November 26, 2020. Archived from the original on November 26, 2020. Retrieved December 12, 2020.
  19. ^ McNeill, Andrew (31 January 2018). "Here Are Your 2018 SXSW Gaming Awards Finalists!". SXSW. Archived from the original on 2 February 2018. Retrieved 2 February 2018.
  20. ^ IGN Studios (17 March 2018). "2018 SXSW Gaming Awards Winners Revealed". IGN. Archived from the original on 18 March 2018. Retrieved 18 March 2018.
  21. ^ Faller, Patrick (5 January 2018). "Independent Games Festival Awards Nominees Announced". GameSpot. Archived from the original on 7 January 2018. Retrieved 6 January 2018.
  22. ^ Whitney, Kayla (22 March 2018). "Complete list of 2018 Independent Games Festival Awards Winners". AXS. Archived from the original on 1 July 2018. Retrieved 22 March 2018.
 
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