There's one game I've completed recently that stands out from many others I've played, for unusual reasons. Normally my gaming interests are on a casually-paced adventure, platformer, or sandbox game; or a first-person shooter or survival horror genre with a save/checkpoint system. I usually play games with the focus of it being an escapism into something else you can just predictably progress through, and often don't care for something that trolls you.

Then I discovered "Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy" which is often described as a "rage game". It's architected in an interesting way, as it was designed by the person that made the original "QWOP" Flash game from long ago. It gives you a pretty clear disclaimer upfront in the beginning explaining that it's not for those who can't cope with stressful situations. But despite the warning, many Twitch/YouTube 'Let's Players' take the bait of the challenge, expecting it to be just another thing to quickly crunch through, and to throw on their stack of completed games. What results instead is a unique test of character that demonstrates the player's sense of self-control--and if they lack that--how much they'll attribute it to sinister or malicious intentions of the game itself, instead of on their own mistakes.

Watching someone else play it makes it seem like an exceedingly difficult Olympic sport, since you don't have a reference point of how easy/difficult the controls are, if you haven't played it before. Understandably many people that do a career of streaming games usually try to play up their emotions just for people that watch solely for reactions. But that facade starts to break and you really start to see someone genuinely get sabotaged by a simple little game, just because they kick themself in the face by having little patience or self-control. You'll also see simple life lessons blow completely over their head, if someone's unwilling to really put any perspective to anything.

In response, I bought the game myself curiously to see if it was really that "hard". In experimenting with the input settings to my liking, and using a cheap $6 Inland USB wired mouse, I started to get into and adapt to it's unusual control style. In all honesty, it's a very fair game, gives you plenty of opportunities to save yourself from losing everything (despite no checkpoints nor a multi-slot save system), and once you pass a certain threshold, it's difficult to accidentally lose everything unless you truly have no self-restraint nor self-control. The game does not threaten you to move faster or take unnecessary risk, you can take it at whatever pace you want, but there can always be some human error in the way. Some of the physics may be a little weird (specifically: friction and slopes), but as you experiment with it, you can start to get a grasp on it, and it becomes more predictable.

On my first time through, I completed it in around 5 hours and 42 minutes allegedly per the in-game timer. For some of the more visible YouTube personalities, there's some who took a whole lot longer, having rage and sobbing fits leading to them breaking their equipment, while I got it done in less with very little of any anguish, and it honestly felt empowering. Because unlike some people that expect linearity to challenges in life, as if there's a kind of predicted entitlement to reward, who have only gotten straight-A's in school and never faced unforeseen consequence or 'surprises', because of the bar being set low for them--that this was the one simple curveball to stagger and break them. Whereas those who have been metaphorically kicked in the face plenty, who have tumbled back to square one over and over, but chose to not resort to self-pity or blaming everyone else--that this was a simple little game for those with humility and self-control to shine instead.

Once I got over it the first time, I then felt ambitious that I could at least reach for the achievement of doing it twice. Which then led to "screw it, I'll turn it into a mission of 50 times", despite how time-consuming and monumental that objective sounded in the beginning. And I got there. It was very rewarding to me--far more than completing most AAA-budget titles. It's an unusual game, and some may just not take much interest in it, and that's understandable. Not everyone needs to reach for 50 times, getting through it at least once is fine.

Nonetheless, it's available on Windows, Mac, and Linux on Steam and the Humble Store:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/240720/Getting_Over_It_with_Bennett_Foddy/
https://www.humblebundle.com/store/getting-over-it-with-bennett-foddy
(Steam achievements might be broken on the latest Linux build, the v1.60 branch works fine)

If you send me death threats for me recommending this game, it's your own damn fault. It warned you on the tin, and you chose to ignore that and whine anyway. For others, hopefully it's a good insightful experience.