What kind of person is Bennett Foddy?

[Pondera the Radio Angel]

So, as I made my way, yet again, past that narrow vertical shaft dubbed "The Devil's Chimney", I was wondering what kind of person would make a game like this. I don't mean it in a rhetoical sense to imply something about the creator, but as an honest question. I'm sure that, by now, we've all seen lets players losing their minds over this, and I've had a few spikes of anger myself over large falls (though I have kept a good mind on my limits and know when to declare that I'm done for right now), and I was wondering about the description of this game in the steam shop. "I made this game for a certain kind of person. To hurt them". Who exactly might that be?

There are a few segments that do speak to a certain, if not sadistic, then a malicious drive toward the lets player community. The bats jump scare is positioned perfectly to catch someone focusing intently on delicate key motions off guard. I've even seen one guy accidentally fling himself off the entire mountain and land all the way back at the start. The snake, though with ample warning, is also perfectly positioned to take advantage of a fall, and make it exponentially worse. I can completely understand wanting to make a hard game. Dark souls does that, and is famous for it. These strike more as decisions someone makes because they want the player to suffer. Why?

The reason I mention the lets player community is because it is even mentioned in game. Trends, memes, russian dash cam vids, shia lebeouff green screens, etc all working to fill the cultural landfill. And do lets players not ride that like a wave? I've observed that once in a great while, every lets player on youtube, from Markiplier to Two Best Friends to Cryoatic to Pewdiepie, as well as many others, turn their collective attention to a single game and play it almost at the same time. I noticed that this happened when the last of us was released. And I know that it does not pertain only to well known and advertised games because five nights at freddy's also saw this unique effect when it was a relative unknown. I am Bread did not see this kind of convergence, despite being very similar to this game, being a climbing game at heart, but Getting Over it did. Perhaps because it called them out in a way?I'm not exactly certain.

But, I at last get to my point. I'd like to hear your thoughts on the subject, Mr. Foddy. Who exactly did you create this game to hurt? Am I completely off the mark, and you were going after a certain kind of personality? And why are you seeking to hurt them at all? You tell me.

I'd also just like to mention that I bear absolutely no ill will or anger, or wish to imply anything about you as a person. I do intend on playing this game to finish (however many years that may take). I'd just like to know more about your thought processes.

Also, is this guy in a cauldron because he's the same guy from QWOP and the experiences broke his legs? Was curious about that. Cheers.

[It's Chobo]

A hack.

[EpicD1CK]

Obviously the message behind this game is that you should be a masochist and that bennett foddy is also actually a masochist but because the world frowns upon the idea that liking pain is weird so he made this game to express his guilty pleasure.

But mainly too turn you into a masochist especially after getting to the top multiple times and falling, the pain begins to numb and inside you, something changes as you begin to go beyond your own human nature of getting angry at the slightest thing as most normies are.

So embrace it! Embrace this gift brought to us all by the gods.

P.S: I'm totally not a shill at all okay?

[Mandala]

Get over it.

[Metathronos]

" Who exactly did you create this game to hurt?"

Meritocrats, maybe. The kind of person who would actually endure and struggle all the way to the end. All others are playing walking sims.

[Khorps]

he made this game to hurt children, not just children of children age but children of adult age. to teach them that life is suffering, and to get over it

[Lar Dass]

he made qwop, thats all you need to know

[Chaos]

I think it is made for masochist because they are defined as somebody who enjoys painful and tedious tasks.

[suboptimal]

He makes a fun, unique and challenging, if flawed, platforming game.

If the voiceover is serious and itself not a meta-goof, he's prone to a kind of pretentious and shallow philosophising. And an inflated sense of what his own game is, which iirc he at one point likens to some sort of evocation of rock/mountain climbing. It's nothing of the sort as humans when rock climbing do not remotely behave in the same was as the hyper-reactive, controls this game does. Getting Over It is very, very much an abstracted, platforming video game that has little/nothing to do with actual, real-world climbing except the universal human drive to overcome a challenge (but that's core to most video games and human real world sporting endeavours and not remotely special or unique to GOI).

That said, it's fun and challenging if you can accept the controls reactiveness/twitchiness deliberately designed to unfairly punish.

[Thorrk]

Dr. Bennett Foddy is a philosopher and game designer. His publications focused on addiction. Having worked at Princeton and Oxford until 2013, he now works at the New York University Game Centre.