In case you don't know the headline reference, Orpheus was a mythical Greek musician who famously descended to the underworld to rescue his snake-bitten lover, Eurydice. The underworld's rulers, Hades and Persephone, were massively bummed out by Orpheus's emo lyre-playing, and swiftly agreed to let him lead Eurydice's soul upward to the waking world, with the extremely simple proviso that he not look back at her till they're both on the surface.
Being a love-drunk spannerhead, however, Orpheus couldn't resist a quick peek at Eurydice after crossing the threshold - and the result is a timeless moral about human frailty and the specific truism that you should absolutely never date musicians, which Australian developers Oppolyon Studios have totally ignored in their otherwise-redolent game about kicking your brother's soul out of hell.
I'm writing this up partly because the press release does, indeed, call the game "Foddian", and I love that this is a thing now. I love that Bennett Foddy's game-length exercise in punching you in the hands has become a genre. I love that developers are doing this to us, the Gamers - we definitely have it coming. In fairness, Ascending Inferno seems relatively gentle for a Foddlike. It's more of a traditional 2.5D platformer, with luscious voxel and pixel art, and mechanics specific to certain levels. That said, it does rely entirely on ball physics.
The setup is that you're a Goth footballer called Dani, who is trying to rescue her brother Vincent from Hell. Vincent, unfortunately, no longer has a body. He's an ectoplasmic orb with eyes. On the upside, this means he can't independently get himself into trouble, like many an NPC in an escort quest. On the downside - nine realms deep, to be exact - this means that he is quite capable of rolling and tumbling all the way to the bottom of the level. "It's not enough to run, jump and platform your way out of Hell - you'll need to dribble, kick and header [as well]" gloats the Steam page.
PC
platformer
Fantasy
Story Rich
Bennett Foddy