![]() Failing in a video game is safe, it won’t affect our lives, it is one of the most perfect stages to practice failing, getting back up, and trying again. This game is a guided meditation on difficulty and perseverance. Furthermore, that challenge is natural and meaningful. Far from it, as the player slowly and painstakingly progresses through the game Foddy’s narration (if we’re lucid enough to listen over our deafening rage) tells us that this game exists to help us remember that challenge is a good thing. Something that is very important is that he doesn’t apologize for this. True to his promises he knows he has made a game that will hurt, anger, and exhaust us. He makes it clear that the experience of the game we are playing is not going to be pleasant. ![]() He recommends only playing it when we’re feeling particularly calm or at least ready to practice some failure. Everything about this game, evident even in its cheeky name, was made to both test and bolster our resilience.įoddy starts the game with the very clear statement that this game could make a bad day worse. Resilience is our ability to stay relatively calm when we’ve endured loss, disappointment, or humiliation. It is our added understanding that falling isn’t going back to square one with nothing but that we have learned something important we can use when we get back to where we were. Resilience is our trust that when we fall we can get back up. What Do We Get From This Game? Practicing Resilience ![]() It is not a game about story or graphics, it is a game with one mission: to create an experience that helps us feel how awful failure is and remember why we need it. This game is for the curious and the steadfast in training. It is for those who want the opportunity to fail and those who want to practice how to withstand failure. This game reminds players that overcoming failure is intrinsically rewarding. This game is a love letter to failure and frustration, and to those of us who value both. If we intend to play this game to completion we might feel like masochists – why do we keep coming back for more punishment? We might ask, “Why was this torture machine created?” However, by the end of his in-game narration, Foddy makes it quite clear that he did not make this game as a sadist. Whether the calming jazz and quotes that Foddy included were truly meant to take the edge off or to add some a layer of taunt is unknown, but sometimes it feels like the latter. This game was specifically created to be as difficult as possible – to make you grimace and grunt with frustration. Getting Over It was created with complete self-awareness. When we fall and lose an hour of progress with a quiet clunk we might not hear the inspirational quotes Foddy reads for us over the ringing of frustration in our ears or, in some cases, our yelling. When we’re dangling off a corner over the abyss we can truly begin to sweat and fret. Despite there being no fall damage the stakes can truly feel very high. Getting Over It, by Bennett Foddy (the creator of the infamous QWOP), is a game that pushes us to the limits of human patience.
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