When you think of games based off mythology, you might think about the Hades or God of War franchises. But there’s a new contender on the block that mixes Greek myth with the foibles of Bennett Foddy. Pushing It! With Sisyphus is a game about endlessly rolling a rock up a big hill. This is a notoriously difficult and thankless task in the source material, and the game adaptation makes it even worse, because as you try and fail (and fail, and fail, and fail) the developer openly mocks you.
Pushing It! With Sisyphus originally released on Sept. 10, and as of Sept. 17, no one has managed to beat it. The game does a nasty little trick up-front where it shows you a finish line at the end of a high hill. Sure, it’s a steep slope to manage, and the ball will take any opportunity to slide out of Sisyphus’s grasp and back to the abyss below, but it seems manageable… at first. Once you get to that first goalpost, things just get harder.
“Falling games” like the infamous Getting Over It With Bennett Foddy are popular because of the both the challenge and the inevitable failure of the task at hand. Pushing It! (which Foddy is not involved in) revels in putting a carrot just in sight, pulling it out of the player’s reach at the last moment, and then making fun of the player for thinking it was a real carrot. And if Sisyphus perishes on those rocky slopes, a Dark Souls-style “You Died” banner appears … before Zeus shocks you back to life to begin your eternal torment once again.
Pushing It! with Sisyphus is available on Steam, and the description notes: “There is an end. You just probably won’t make it.” I certainly won’t; I’m wise enough to know when I’m beat. But for those who love the thrill of the climb, that elusive ending might just be what you’re looking for.
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