I’d have an idea for a new obstacle, and I’d build it- test it- and it would usually turn out to be unreasonably hard… but I couldn’t bring myself to make it easier. The frustration is just essential to the act of climbing, and it’s authentic to the process of building a game about climbing.Ī funny thing happened to me as I was building this mountain. The obstacles in Sexy Hiking are unyielding, and that makes the game uniquely frustrating, but I’m not sure Jazzuo intended to make a frustrating game. In that sense, every pixellated obstacle in Sexy Hiking is real. Most obstacles in video game worlds are fake: you can be completely confident in your ability to get through them once you have the correct method, or the correct equipment, or just by spending enough time. You prod and you poke at it, exploring the limits of your reach and your strength, trying to find a way up and over, and there’s a sense of truth in that lack of compromise. It might take you an hour to get over that tree, and a lot of people never got past it. No amount of forward progress is guaranteed: some cliffs are too sheer or too slippery, and the player is constantly, unremittingly in danger of falling and losing everything.Īnyway when you start Sexy Hiking, you’re standing next to this dead tree that blocks the way to the entire rest of the game. That act of climbing, in the digital world or in real life has certain essential properties that give the game its flavor. In it, your task is to simply drag yourself up a mountain with a hammer. It’s built almost entirely out of found and recycled parts, and it’s one of the most unusual and unfriendly games of its time. In a certain way Sexy Hiking is the perfect embodiment of a b-game. They’re built more for the joy of building them than as polished products. Designers slap them together very quickly and freely, and they’re often too rough and unfriendly to gain much of a following. The author of that game was Jazzuo, a mysterious Czech designer who was known at the time as the father of b-games… and b-games are rough assemblages of found objects. This game is an homage to a game that came out in 2002 titled “Sexy Hiking”. Don’t worry, I’ll save your progress- always. Just find a safe place to stop, and quit the game. I’ll understand if you have to take a break at any point. I’ll be here.Īlright, thanks for coming with me on this trip. If you’re not ready for that, like you’ve already had a bad day, then what you’re about to go through might be too much. If you won an argument with a friend and then later discovered that they just returned to their original view, starting over is harder than starting up.
If you got your best shirt dry-cleaned before a wedding, but then immediately dropped food on it. If you won some money at the casino, and then put all your winnings on red, but it came up black. If you deleted your homework the day before it was due, as I have, or if you left your wallet at home and you have to go back after spending an hour in the commute. There’s no feeling more intense than starting over. If there’s an error or discrepancy somewhere, let me know. A brief heads-up, I didn’t really proofread this.
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