The archive · Games & Play · Product decision · 2017
Getting Over It: a climbing game built to hurt the player — frustration as design
Bennett Foddy's 2017 climbing game has no checkpoints — one slip undoes hours — and he says he made it 'to hurt' players; it became a genre called Foddian.
Bennett Foddy
What it had to solve
After QWOP became a cult hit, Foddy wanted to design with frustration rather than against it. He built on Jazzuo's 2002 B-game Sexy Hiking, distilling play to a man in a pot climbing with one hammer — and no mercy.
How it works
Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy is a climbing game whose entire pitch is cruelty. The player controls a man in a pot who scales a mountain using only a hammer, dragged with the mouse; there are no checkpoints, and one bad swing can send him tumbling back near the bottom. Foddy's own site describes it as 'a game I made for a certain kind of person. To hurt them.'
It was a deliberate escalation of ideas from his earlier cult game QWOP and an homage to Jazzuo's 2002 B-game Sexy Hiking. In a GDC talk and interviews, Foddy argued that frustration is a legitimate palette for game design, that the history of games is full of frustrating experiences, and that players enjoy being 'griefed' — tested by obstacles that seem unfair until overcome.
The game became a streaming phenomenon: Foddy notes that nearly all of the biggest streamers played it, and their reactions — swearing, abandoning the climb, then returning — became the content. Its name spawned a genre label, 'Foddian' games, and its speedrun community treated the mountain as a route to be mastered rather than an insult.
Why it lands
- No checkpoints make every gain provisional, so the emotional stakes of each swing stay high for the entire run.
- Foddy's deadpan narration reframes failure as comedy, giving players and viewers a stance from which to laugh at their own suffering.
- One-mouse control is brutally simple, which makes the game instantly understandable and watchable for streaming audiences.
- The game is honest about its cruelty, so finishing it feels earned — the contract was to endure, not to be coddled.
What it did
Foddy's own site says it 'really caught fire with streamers,' that speedrunners embraced it, and that a genre of punishing physics games is now called 'Foddian.' Steam advertises '2 to ∞ hours' of play, with a median finish of 5 hours and a mean 'closer to ∞.'
What you can take
Design can target the emotion the audience actually wants — even frustration — if the contract is honest: promise to hurt, then let players choose to endure.
Since then
The term 'Foddian' became shorthand for a genre of unforgiving physics games that followed in its wake, and Getting Over It remains a staple of streaming marathons and speedrun events. Foddy continued to make games and to talk publicly about designing difficulty and frustration; his official page still documents the game's legacy across the streaming and speedrunning communities.
Sources
- Here's Why the Designer of 'QWOP' Likes Making People Mad
- Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy — official page
- Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy on Steam
spotted an error? The archive wants to know.
Your turn
You just read one. Describe the brief you are staring at, and see who has been given the same problem.
Free account · 3 free questions · no card