Climb a Brutalist tower in this first-person platformer inspired by Minecraft parkour

rockpapershotgun.com:

I spent my morning trying and failing to rise from the depths of a vast Brutalist tower in Beton Brutal, a new first-person platformer. It's a challenging climb yet a curiously chill vibe, perhaps because any time I fall all the way down, I'm delighted to be back surrounded by overgrown plants and sculptures rising from a pond. The developer says Beton Brutal "tries to replicate and build upon the parkour mechanics seen in Minecraft," and I think I have a lot to learn. I didn't even know Minecraft had parkour.

Here I start, at 0 metres, surrounded by giant plants and standing before a nice Brutalist sculpture/water feature. Having spent a great many weekends in my early thirties at the Barbican Centre, reading by the pond and skulking around the greenhouse, this is a comforting place for me. Then I look up and oh. Well. That's quite high. Best get up it. So off you go up the abstract structure, climbing sculptures, hopping between pipes, leaping onto gantries, scampering up ladders, and generally trying to find a path to the top.

Beton Brutal certainly gets challenging as you climb higher, and introduces some special surfaces which I assume are part of the inspiration from Minecraft parkour maps. The punishment grows too, as you can fall all the way down if you don't get lucky and land on something close. Though unlike trolly gauntlet platformers such as AltF4 and Rage Quit, it doesn't seem outright hostile and dickish. Not from what I've seen, anyway. It seems more in the vein of Getting Over It and fittingly, I heard of Beton Brutal through Bennet Foddy declaring "This game rules."

I have peeked at a few speedrun videos, out of curiosity, and oh I have a lot to learn. The game is full of little shortcuts and clever