Love is Hell
"Deny the pain. Feed the rage. Doubt your feelings. Accept decay."
Philophobia: The Fear of Love is a precision platformer created by solo developer Tim Ruswick and released on Steam on February 10th, 2020. Philophobia is based on the five stages of grief, where love is literal Hell, and the game world is made entirely out of hearts. It employs a unique shadow mechanic which hides any part of the level not directly in the the character's line of sight from the player. The game's story and themes were inspired by Ruswick's own experience with heartbreak, and Ruswick livestreamed much of the game's five year development.
Philophobia provides examples of:
- Always a Bigger Fish: The boss of Chapter 2 is suddenly taken down by the boss of Chapter 3.
- Boss Rush: Played with. The climax of the game pits you against all four Demons of Grief, but they are used as stage obstacles and are not re-fought in their entirety.
- Cardiovascular Love: Played with. The hearts are used in the first cutscene to represent Stuart's love, but shortly after his big gold heart is ripped in two (heartbreak). Then in the game proper, all the heart creatures are trying to, and will, kill you.
- Defend Command: "Denying the pain"; where you press the 'shift' on keyboard or 'left shoulder' on a controller to shield yourself from heart bullets.
- Driven to Suicide: Implied for Stuart, in the opening sequence. The narration says he chose to 'turn the world black', with the silhouette of a noose fading into the scene.
- Our Demons Are Different: The Four Demons of Grief are sadistic monsters that feed off despair, and each represent a stage of grief (Denial, Anger, Bargaining and Depression) and has an Ironic Name.
- Precision-Guided Boomerang: Stuart's broken heart can function as a boomerang in later levels to flip switches.
- Rhymes on a Dime: The opening and cutscenes are narrated via rhyme.
- Video Game Dashing: Double tapping or pressing 'right button' for the controller will 'feed the rage', and make Stuart dash forward.
