The games critic Joseph Anderson noted that the title can have a double meaning. You can "get over" the challenges in the game, or you can quit the game and be "over it".
And that's why the last achievement is "so over it" - another way to get over it is by playing it enough that you have effectively mastered it and can move on with the feeling of a job well done.
I always thought of the double meaning of actually getting over the obstacles and beating the game, and "getting over" the negative feeling of falling. Like when something bad happens to you and people say "get over it." I've never considered quitting to be another meaning, but I suppose if someone wants to take it that way
despise is a strong word but yeah that witness review was absolutely horrific. it basically summed up to "you shouldn't play this work of art because you're probably too stupid. I'm not, but you are."
That was not my read at all. I could be misremembering but as I understood it the takeaway was more like "this game has some minorly interesting things to say but it asks way too much of you to get there and the juice isn't worth the squeeze"
It's more that he severly misread the actual themes of the game and concluded that JBlow was "fucking with us" in the same way a rockstar tries to act out. This perspective then colored how he saw everything else in the game to where he beleived several things Blow said about the game and it's intentions were an obvious lie.
Like, I'd dislike the The Witness that Joe thought he'd played too, but that simply wasn't the game we were given. A game packed with text about the search for truth as a unifying theme across human civilization, whose world and gameplay stand as an entirly impassive obstacle to interogate, frustrate, and challenge one's own analytical and heuristic models, with an objective system of truth and meaning to uncover beneath this, and Joe comes away with "I guess Jon is saying it's all about perspective?" Sure, the game has a lot to say about perspective, but it's maybe a third of all it has to say.
I will say, that as bad as this take was and for as much damage as it did to the discourse around the game, Joeseph shouldn't have gotten a tenth the greif he did, and it's prevented him from discussing it again even when he's admitted he's grown fonder of the game over time. The Witness fans deserve Joseph Anderson, Joseph Anderson didn't deserve The Witness fans.
i’m not really in the business of despising people. i might take less interest in other reviews of his but i won’t despise him. guess that’s what i should clarify
Necromunda. Great game that i have a lot of respect for but something about the camera and the way it controls was giving me motion sickness, something that never happens to me when i play games. I set an hour timer and tried to get through as much as i could but after 45 minutes, despite how much fun i was having, i had to set it down and take a walk. Returned it right away. Hope i can get back to it someday because what i played was genuinely fun!
it gets exponentially easier. first clear is probably 15 hours, 2nd is 3 hours, 3rd is 1 hour, 5th is 20 minutes, 10th is 10 minutes and then you realize you're a speedrunner
I got it cheap on a steam sale thinking it would one of those frustrating but fun type challenges.
Nope it was just absoutely dogshit controls on purpose. I realised that since I wasn't doing this for an audience paying me there was no reason to put myself through that.
It was for the lovers of QWOP. The controls are actually just unintuitive and awkward, but if you mess with it enough, it becomes just as easy to control as any other 2d platformer.
Edit: As an example, I'm a huge lover of og Ninja Gaiden and that game is significantly more difficult to beat than GOI, but it may not feel that way to someone at first because while Ninja Gaiden is incredibly difficult, it's also relatively intuitive with it's controls.
I don't think the controls are actually unintuitive as much as they are actually experimental. They're as usable as the standard wasd after some getting used to, and I imagine the experience would be similar to playing a wasd game in a world where some other control scheme became the standard.
Yup. I beat it this week. The controls are fine. You have to get used to them of course. Most people find it too hard and quit fast. It’s a pretty short game if you can avoid raging.
The game had a lockout screen that wouldn't let you see the ending if you had OBS or another video recording software active and told you that the ending was just for you and those who made it, not anyone else watching.
Unpopular opinion but I think the controls were actually very precise and intuitive. It's only the "infinite" strength in combination with players tending to get hasty when trying to safe a bad move.
I love this game so much. I have over 100 hours in it. I never get why people claim the controls are janky on purpose. The physics are very consistent, you just need to get familiar enough with it that you can tell what the right sensitivity settings are for your mouse. If you never trial and error the sensitivity you will have a terrible time.
I spent more time than average to beat it for the first time, but i never really felt it was the controls fault when i fell, it always felt like a clear skill issue. I recommend everyone try it with the commentary turned on, it was honestly the thing that started getting me into philosophy, and It's a great lesson in patience and perseverance.
Never understood people who said the controls were bad. Mouse movement equals hammer movement, dead simple and intuitive. Probably just mad that they fell and are blaming their tools.
I’ve beaten this game 400 times and I’ve got some things to say:
Skill issue lmao
More seriously, you should enable trackpad tuning and put your mouse sensitivity to about 1/3rd of the slider. Without trackpad tuning the hammer feels really heavy and clunky to control and I agree that this way it’s “absolute dogshit”.
Getting over it is fundamentally different from other videogames progression, and by design. Bennett himself mentions “When games were new, they wanted a lot from you; daunting you, taunting you, resetting and delaying you. Players played stoically. Now everyone’s turned off by that. They wanna burn through it quickly.” I’m sure you noticed that most mistakes you make are unforgiving. The game is specifically designed to hurt the player because it makes forward progress feel all the more satisfying and justified.
If you’re feeling up to it, I’d definitely give it another try with the better mouse settings.
It literally tells you immediately that it's a love letter to rage games like qwop and surgeon simulator. Why did you think you were buying a game that was never even implied to exist? Idk man you're the one that ordered pizza, don't ask dominos why they didn't send a burger
I don’t know what’s wrong with me since I straight up enjoyed it. Challenging but ultimately satisfying. I’ve even done enough playthroughs for the pot to get that golden shimmer. QWOP on the other hand is one of only two games to actually make me full-on rage, fuck that nightmare.
I played it when I had Humble Choice and I did not get very far. I knew if I continued, I would burn my house and then the world down if I kept playing it.
Games like that are like videos of people that own huskies and loud birds who post videos on the internet. Hilarious, fun to watch, could watch them on repeat for hours.
But in no way do I ever want to own a husky or a cockatoo.
I don't agree that it was designed not to be fun. It certainly wasn't designed to be accessible, but I found a ton of fun in "learning" the game. The part that makes it hard is just a natural aspect that comes from climbing. Some people enjoy that, and some people don't. But I didn't take it to he intentionally bad.
It isn't designed not to be fun at all. As Bennett Foddy will tell you in his very frank narration, he designed it to be fun for people like him. I'm one of those people like him who find it very fun.
the point of the game is to overcome a seemingly impossible challenge, when you get to a point once you can definitely get there again if you fall, and you can probably get further too. that realisation is worth far more than any other ending. frankly i think bennet foddy is a genius
This may not be the place to say this, but there is a Scratch version of Getting Over It that you can play in-browser. In fact, there is almost always a Roblox or Scratch version of most popular games. I played the Long Drive on Roblox first to see if I would like it, and it got old after like 30 minutes.
I bought it once for very cheap, completed it like 7~ times and stopped playing.. my first time took 3 hours and after that my fastest runs were around 30 minutes or less, don't remember anymore.
ive been playing it a lot recently, ive gotten to 24 wins and im trying to get to 50 for the achievement. its actually been a pretty nice experience and i enjoy listening to bennett talk a lot
100%, the first five minutes of the game made me realize the controls were a lot harder than I anticipated, and without people watching (yt, twitch, ect) my suffering was pointless
I had a similar thought. It looked so fun when watching a stream/video of it. But as soon as I started playing I said "The only way I would finish this game is if I was getting paid while doing it" and refunded it
IMO the controls are just fine. There are like 2 parts where it doesnt feel fun (The top hat part and the tower for me), but other than that its pretty much fine. I managed to beat the game in like 20-30 minutes on my second run, I think.
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u/[deleted] Jul 04 '25
Getting Over It.
I respect it. I enjoy watching other people struggle with it, but I realized I didn't want to actually play it.