Starting with “Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy”—also known as “Pot Uncle”—there’s a genre of platformer games often referred to as “torture games” or “mountain-climbing games,” where a single mistake sends you right back to the starting point.
Led by titles like *Jump King*, these games have spawned numerous imitators and tormented countless gamers—but now, a rather unique new entry has arrived.
*Fallosophy* is a unique title that combines Western philosophy, pinball, and “climbing-style” gameplay.
As you listen to profound words, yearn for the light, and endlessly repeat the cycle of ascending and descending—for this is the path to knowing thyself…
When you launch the game, a narration—delivered in a voice that’s easy to understand despite its somewhat abstruse language—begins to play, and a ball and a pair of flippers appear in an empty space.
Your goal is to use the flippers positioned throughout the stage to bounce the ball higher and higher. With no wobble, no score, and no ball savers, this game feels like the very essence of pinball laid bare.
The basic structure is the same as *Jump King*: the screen scrolls vertically only. If you send the ball flying off in a strange direction or fail to hit it with the flippers in time, it will slip right down, and you’ll have to start over from way down below. This is the myth of Sisyphus! Eternal recurrence! (Just saying.)
During gameplay, just like in *Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy*, you’re constantly subjected to a stream of cryptic, thought-provoking phrases.
While *Pot-Man* also featured a lot of difficult words, this game—true to its Western philosophical flavor—includes more direct references to the Bible and stories of philosophers. Topics like the story of Augustine stealing a pear will likely resonate with people who studied philosophy in college or regularly read the Iwanami Bunko series.
However, the pinball sections are so hectic that I don’t have time to read the subtitles, so these valuable stories go right over my head. I just want to listen to these enlightening words and maintain my inner peace, but the ball—it keeps falling!
Compared to Pot-Head Uncle, the taunting lines when you fall have a more academic feel to them, so they aren’t as irritating. Still, when told, “You fell because the light demands too much,” I was left wondering what kind of expression I was supposed to make.
Because of that, it doesn’t seem like this game will serve as a gateway to Western philosophy; it remains, at best, a unique flavor.
On the other hand, the gameplay itself was quite nice.
While this is a grueling climbing game, much like recent imitators, it features numerous points that might as well be checkpoints (areas where you won’t fall below them unless you bounce off in a really weird way), so it’s actually designed more like a challenging platformer.
In addition to the flippers, there are numerous spots where you can catch your breath, such as shooters (mechanisms that fire when you hold down a button) and cannons like those in the *Super Donkey Kong* series (though they looked like ancient Greek water jars).Each area has only one or two particularly challenging sections, so it falls into the relatively easy category among games known for their grueling difficulty.
Furthermore, the mechanisms that appear in each area are well-designed and do a great job of keeping boredom at bay.
From sections where you must touch every symbol to open a wall to areas where you can bring the ball to a sudden stop by pressing both flippers simultaneously, the game presents classic action-game mechanics that you must master to progress.
It’s packed with gameplay that appeals to gamers—going beyond just last-second jumps and varying the intensity of long presses.
So, while the Western philosophy references do feel a bit like one-liners, this title is ultimately a fairly well-crafted climbing game.
I’d recommend it to anyone who thinks, “I’d love to try something like this…” but feels they’d never stand a chance at games like *Jump King* or *Getting Over It*.
However, the fact that when your hands are busy, you don’t have the leisure to indulge in philosophical musings really brought to mind the relationship between Athens and Sparta…
*Fallosophy* is currently available on PC (Steam).
