Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy is out on Steam

The master of frustration is at it again with another infuriating game.

You may not recognise the name Bennett Foddy, but there’s a good chance you will have played one of his free online minigames, like cricket batting game Little Master or QWOP which went viral and featured in the US version of the Office. The NYU-based game design teacher has now released Getting Over It, a longer form game which went live on Steam earlier this month. It’s inspired by Jazzuo’s Sexy Hiking, and the subject is a man sitting in a cauldron, trying to climb a mountain using a sledgehammer.

Getting Over It is a physics-centred platformer, which Foddy chose to classify as ‘psychological horror’, and the game’s tagline gives a clue as to why:

“I created this game for a certain kind of person.

To hurt them.”

Despite the lack of any actual horrifying content, the psychological impact of this game is not for the faint-hearted: it’s just simply, beautifully, diabolically frustrating, with one small mistake often losing you many minutes of progress. The run-time is estimated at five hours, but could end up taking considerably longer.

Getting Over It has featured in videos by PewDiePie and others, and is guaranteed to have your insides boiling up in a stew of bubbling rage. In the words of one Youtuber, it “reaches into your childhood and punches your sweetest memories.” But persevere, and Foddy promises a ‘magical’ reward once you succeed in reaching the summit. The game features a soundtrack of jazz piano interspersed with poetic ‘philosophical observations’ on life, as well as simple but attractive visuals. The controls have been criticised by some reviewers, so you may want to play around with your mouse sensitivity. If incredibly annoying and frustrating games are your thing, also check out free-to-play minigame Slightly Annoying Traffic which we covered earlier this week.