Game developer Bennett Foddy was watching a Greek myth unfold in front of him.

A playtester for his latest project, Baby Steps , was struggling to navigate the game’s lead—Nate, a 35-year-old “failson” in a stained onesie—up a slippery hill. Each time, the terrain proved to be too much, and Nate skidded uselessly down it.

Foddy has a reputation for making onerous games that take a little bit of masochism to master. This was not one of those times. Neatly placed next to the slippery hill was a staircase, which Foddy says the player took note of after the third or fourth fall. However, this modern-day Sisyphus refused to quit; he continued to flop Nate’s thick limbs up that hill again and again, and he continued to fall again and again. The playtester’s “intense need to climb that mud

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