I started playing Getting Over it With Bennett Foddy on October 7, 2017. The game is about a man in a pot who uses an axe to climb a mountain of random shit. It be like that sometimes.
The game wanted me to climb up to a boulder, then onto an oar, then onto a tree branch. First thing I did was pause the game to look for instruction, none. Then I went to the options menu to check button mapping, nothing there telling me how to jump, climb or rappel. I left the pause menu, put the controller down, stared at my avatar juxtaposed to the boulder and thought, "The developers are idiots for not telling me how to do this."
I tried to swing the axe onto the boulder, but it was too high up. The more I tried, the more frustrated I became. After twenty minutes of swinging the axe in anger, something happened. The axe made contact with the ground, I went airborne, and the axe lodged in the boulder on the upswing. I was on the boulder. I was hanging by the tip of my axe, but I was on the boulder.
My hands were shaking, I could feel my heart beating in my chest. I hadn't felt that good about anything I'd done in a very long time. I pressed pause and considered next steps. I decided that the game was about momentum, so if I simply swung downward, then rotated the axe three hundred and sixty degrees, then, of course, the axe would find the oar. I tried that, it didn't work, so I quit the game, and vowed never to play it again.
I started playing Getting Over it With Bennett Foddy on May 15, 2018. The game is about a man in a pot who uses an axe to climb a mountain of random shit. The game is not about momentum.
I figured out that the best way to keep progress is to find purchase on a ledge, then slowly raise yourself up to rest atop it. To get to objectives out of your reach, a jump can be achieved by setting the axe on the ground and pushing downward. With this earned knowledge through hours of fight and fall, I felt I had the game in hand.
Then I came to a parallel cliff face with two lamp-posts hanging in the tube. I saw none of the skills I had learned applying to this new hell. I paused the game, said to myself, out loud, "Well if the game isn't gonna be fair, it doesn't deserve to be played." I quit the game, feeling like I gave it all the time it deserved.
I started playing Getting Over it With Bennett Foddy on June 23, 2019. The game is about a man in a pot who uses an axe to climb a mountain of random shit. The game doesn't care if I beat it. Nobody cares if I beat it.
I read a review of the game that said, "The game is hard, but it should take a moderately skilled player six hours to get through the content." I had been playing this game for three years at that point. I sat atop a bar-b-q grill, staring into the aether. Below me is a pit, I know if I fall into that pit that I will keep falling until I am back at the base of the mountain. Above me is a stack of playground equipment, cardboard boxes, and inverted stairs that aren't my friend.
I could go down, I could go up, or I could go away. I decided this is as good a point as any to end the game on my own terms. No one in the world will know, or care, that I couldn't beat Getting Over it With Bennett Foddy, except me.
I started playing Getting Over it With Bennett Foddy on February 2, 2020. The game is about a man in a pot who uses an axe to climb a mountain of random shit. That's all the game is about. don't overthink it.
I'm staring at this orange on a dresser. There is a ledge on the other side of the dresser, I know where it goes. There are boulders above the dresser, I can't see further than the boulders, but I can imagine. I hear bells in the distance. I really, really, want to see what's up there, but I'm in no rush.
Bennett Foddy narrates the game. As you progress or regress, he provides motivational insight, inspirational quotes, or apropos music. After a time, even he goes away, and you are left with your thoughts, an axe, and the mountain.
Rip TC, Rip TB, Rip Tall-T. Love is wise, hatred is foolish. Get out there and do great things, we believe in you. Also Jobs.
The Protoculture Mixtape : Issue : People : Disreputable
