Bound To Fail

"ouch, aah, hng" Best 2D "getting over it" game in a long time!

[b]Bound to Fail[/b] is a comical rage climbing platformer in the vein of [i]Getting Over It[/i], [i]Jump King[/i], and [i]Pogostuck[/i], and it lives up to them in terms of both quality and difficulty while still maintaining a unique identity. Amongst the competition of so-called "foddians", of which I've developed a particular fondness for, this one stood out to me as containing strikingly fun movement mechanics, to the point where I found myself replaying the demo repeatedly before the full release in order to try new tricks and achieve faster run times. On the surface, you're just a guy rolling and jumping around while stuck to a chair, but the game gives you such precise control over your rotation that you can [1] approach most obstacles with more than one successful strategy, and [2] chain jumps together to gain a lot of speed in the more horizontal sections of the map. Speaking of the level design, I found it to be excellent in regard to both obstacle diversity and visual presentation. The several synthetic/urban environments you pass through almost feel like actual cartoon locations, with extra thought put into their diegetic purpose instead of just being arbitrarily arranged for the sake of gameplay alone. Naturally, the difficulty and punishment escalate alongside your elevation, culminating in a final zone that had me tense with a mix of anxiety and hope with every attempted (and re-attempted) maneuver, as all great rage climbers provoke. Definitely don't overlook this one.