Stair Dismount is one of the most famous freeware games to come out of the Finnish demoscene, and has the honor of being one of the first computer games whose gameplay is built heavily around an interactive real-time physics engine, predating Half-Life 2 by several years.
For being such an important game, it's surprising that its gameplay consists near-entirely of nudging a ragdoll down some stairs. No, really.
Originally developed by the demo group tAAt and featured as the winning entry at the Assembly demoscene game development contest, Stair Dismount (originally named Porrasturvat, more-or-less meaning 'Falling-on-your-face-on-some-stairs') stars a superhero by the name of Spector (also known as Mr. Dismount), who finds himself in a need to repay his city for the damages he's caused while fighting crime, and is forced to commit tax fraud by repeatedly injuring himself to show that he himself is just as battered as the city he was trying to protect.
His method of choice? Throwing himself down a flight of stairs. Repeatedly.
All the above is essentially an Excuse Plot, because nowhere in the actual game is there any evidence who the guy is or what he does. The gameplay is fairly simple too: Pick a body part, the force of the push and angle, and watch the guy fall down the stairs. The trick, of course, is to see just how much damage you can cause at once, and finding the optimal pushing angle.
Several versions of the game are now available, such as Truck Dismount which replaces the stairway with a moving truck, allowing the player to place their ragdoll anywhere they like in the general vicinity of the truck, and to add obstacles and ramps in the truck's way for maximum destruction. Turbo Dismount was later created, which improves on the above concept while adding new vehicles, ragdolls, preexisting maps and allowing for the creation of new maps. Ports for iOS and Android are now available as well.
Compare NANACA†CRASH!!
Stair Dismount contains examples of:
- Bloodless Carnage: Regardless of how much damage is inflicted on the ragdolls, they will never bleed.
- Made of Iron: Averted. While the ragdoll can sustain numerous injuries from just falling down stairs, putting enough punishment will cause his limbs and head to come off.
- Video Game Cruelty Potential: The entire point of the games is to gain points by inflicting as much destruction as humanly possible to your character (and, in Turbo Dismount, your vehicle as well.)
