Most approach Getting Over It as a game designed to enrage you. I've had the fortune of a different POV, having grown up on open world games like Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress, conceptual games like The Stanley Parable, and 4X strategies. When I played Subnautica, it made particularly clear that all these games, even if they have awesome graphics, complex systems, and lots of room for creativity, have game loops that depend on busywork. The gameplay is there just to have something to do between seeing the things.
So I actively sought this game for its bitterness, expecting it to be a miserable experience, but to pay off in the end. And, well... it's not what YouTubers would have you believe. You quickly realise that however high you may be, you will eventually fall back to the bottom. The game loop is just built that way. If you manage to accept that as a fact, losing all your progress becomes much less painful, as the real progress is in your head, in your knowledge of the mountain, of the physics of your hammer (which turn out to be quite Difficult, but Awesome, not just an obnoxiously difficult control system), and even in physical dexterity and precision of movements. There is some frustration, but you get back up easily enough, unless you had bypassed an obstacle by luck. It is impossible to find yourself stuck against something you don't understand - the constant falls serve to teach. You end up progressing two steps forward, one step back, which is satisfying enough and earned.
It took me some fifteen hours to get to the top, and a glitch caused the final reward not to load. But it matters not. Those who climb the mountain share an experience that those who only watch the process on YouTube can never quite match. There's an element of snobbery as well (I only got past two of the hardest parts when I read how few players make it past, which is of course the best motivator).
Only 6.3% of Steam players made it to the top, but out of these, over 70% managed to do so for a second time, and over 20% go on to climb fifty times. There is something about the mountain that keeps pushing you to try and be better, a drive that will hook you if you get over the initial discomfort.
I will go on to play more traditional A games with a clearer conscience, but I have come to think of them as similar in principle to other forms of art, immersive, yet still consumption-based, whereas B games can be experiences. There's room for both.
A counterbalance we need in the world of triple A
Most approach Getting Over It as a game designed to enrage you. I've had the fortune of a different POV, having grown up on open world games like Minecraft or Dwarf Fortress, conceptual games like The Stanley Parable, and 4X strategies. When I played Subnautica, it made particularly clear that all these games, even if they have awesome graphics, complex systems, and lots of room for creativity, have game loops that depend on busywork. The gameplay is there just to have something to do between seeing the things.
So I actively sought this game for its bitterness, expecting it to be a miserable experience, but to pay off in the end. And, well... it's not what YouTubers would have you believe. You quickly realise that however high you may be, you will eventually fall back to the bottom. The game loop is just built that way. If you manage to accept that as a fact, losing all your progress becomes much less painful, as the real progress is in your head, in your knowledge of the mountain, of the physics of your hammer (which turn out to be quite Difficult, but Awesome, not just an obnoxiously difficult control system), and even in physical dexterity and precision of movements. There is some frustration, but you get back up easily enough, unless you had bypassed an obstacle by luck. It is impossible to find yourself stuck against something you don't understand - the constant falls serve to teach. You end up progressing two steps forward, one step back, which is satisfying enough and earned.
It took me some fifteen hours to get to the top, and a glitch caused the final reward not to load. But it matters not. Those who climb the mountain share an experience that those who only watch the process on YouTube can never quite match. There's an element of snobbery as well (I only got past two of the hardest parts when I read how few players make it past, which is of course the best motivator).
Only 6.3% of Steam players made it to the top, but out of these, over 70% managed to do so for a second time, and over 20% go on to climb fifty times. There is something about the mountain that keeps pushing you to try and be better, a drive that will hook you if you get over the initial discomfort.
I will go on to play more traditional A games with a clearer conscience, but I have come to think of them as similar in principle to other forms of art, immersive, yet still consumption-based, whereas B games can be experiences. There's room for both.