Sisyphos 4+

This game isn’t fun, and that’s okay. Not every game needs to make you feel powerful. This game is meant to make you feel the frustration and despair that the character “Sisyphus” would feel. It does that pretty well, at the beginning at least. You don’t know what to do, do you follow the tutorial. You quickly learn how to beat the game system after ten minutes filled with despair. You learn that any failure is your fault alone, which I feel takes away from the intended feeling of the game. My opinion is that personal failures are less frustrating than those by pure chance, and much less than those by the choices of others. I think that it would be much more frustrating if there was RNG in the game, a VERY small chance of randomly failing through no fault of your own.

I don’t find this game frustrating. It’s in the same category as Daddy Long Legs, Verticow, Drop Not, Skyward, etc. The point is to get further each time. There are only a handful of achievements, and no cute, silly collectables most games in this category accrue.

The biggest difference is that the pace of Sisyphos is more meditative. I can narrow my focus down to the placement of his feet, little changes in the path beneath him, and the pace of my breath.

Is this therefore not fun fun? I suppose not. I find it restful, though. It’s worth the “offering” for that.

This game is not fun; however, if you are familiar with the myth for which the game is named, you should not expect it to be fun. The developer has asked you to spend $.99 to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill. In a Flappy Bird-style score mechanic, your score is based upon your willingness to continue a monotonous repetition of taps that move your boulder up and over the hill. The skill required for this is very limited. Patience is much more important.

The trick: you can't stop if you're pursuing a high score. There are no levels. Just a strength meter that increases (+1) every time you successfully push the boulder over the hill, and a stoicism meter that increases at a trivial rate (+.2) every time you fail. Your score is multiplied by both numbers after you fail. Your stoicism carries with you when you fail, but your strength resets.

This game gets brutal fast. There is no relief as you attempt to achieve a high score. Just the unforgiving fact that your failure is only inevitable if you choose to give up. However, you will give up, so failure is inevitable.

Great game.