the healing of sisyphus

Aaa my heart ;;-;; this is beautiful.

I found myself cheering Sisyphus on his journey! Having feelings is good! Please take some time to rest and recover. If the boulder is too heavy, it's okay to say it is heavy! In a way, we are all alone -- but if all of us are alone, doesn't that also mean we are all in this together? So, it's okay. ;-; You're okay! You're alright! And by doing something, anything, no matter how small -- that's the mark of you. I think that's really nice! You're doing great! Do you want to push the boulder? Yeah, sure! Nope, that's fine! You're really strong regardless of your choice! Do you need a hand? Can you do more? We're all in this together. I'll cheer for you from the bottom of my heart!

((My thoughts when playing this-- Aaa helen's writing always tug my heartstrings... Thank you very much for writing this, it's really lovely <3))

Wow, I enjoyed the metaphor, the poetic prose and the emotional journey of the story. It just made me smile the whole time. Beautifully done.

1000/10 would push the boulder again

i think i knew what was coming when i downloaded this, but i didn't expect to relate to the lil boulder man so much. many of the words he said were things i've been telling myself (some verbatim too!!!) for so long. It will all come back to me. people will always point at me. 

But maybe i will change. maybe they wont, then that's their problem, at least i should. I'm nowhere near to be a good person. but maybe i can get better. maybe i can understand myself better as i persist.

thoughts aside, the blood part you mentioned in the warning? that entire section was very chilling. in a good way.

weirdly enough, i loathe the entire concept of existentialism (including absurdism and nihilism) and whenever I read in the genre, i end up rolling my eyes. but ironically??? i feel myself pulled towards these themes over and over and over again. as if it's trying to tell me something.

like the boulder. 

i'll have you know i delete games when i finish playing them to free up storage, but this, i'll be keeping this in my files a bit longer. thanks!!

This was such a powerful game, I really enjoyed it. So many of Sisyphus's thoughts resonated with me... especially the one about holding in his feelings. Not saying what he really feels. Only to then have all those thoughts unspoken roll back into him as the boulder. That one hit me a bit hard...

Love the whole style of this in general. So simple. Yet so powerful. Watching him roll it up. Encouraging him to roll it again and again. Even when it keeps falling back down. And sometimes his thoughts change towards the better. Only to then take a step back again. The same as all of us. We can't heal in a day. We can't heal even in years. Maybe we never will fully heal. And we'll always have those days where it all goes tumbling again. Even if for a while we thought things were going well again. But once we have the will again, we take back to the boulder as always. Because the boulder is always there. But we ourselves can try to change and learn from it.

Thanks for making this. It made me feel a lot while playing it!!

I needed this one today. Thank you for taking the time to make and upload it!

Happy to announce that this made me so 🥹 I don't know how you keep making me feel all sorts of emotions so effectively, and with so little words. I love what you've done with the whole game. Love that you've forgone the whole main menu, and the prompt to start the game again being so in theme it drives me crazy how effective and well designed this entire thing is. Thanks for making this!! You did amazing!

This was a lovely game (thank you for giving me the opportunity to proof it)!

The usage of the visuals is perfect for O2A2, as there really is no need for anything else - just a man, rolling his boulder up the hill (and indeed, the fact that the visual stays the same, even after the man rolls the boulder up and down multiple times, emphasizes the futility and monotony of his task). The little animations are very immersive, and I liked the choice to not include BGM, as it really allowed you to focus on the game itself.  

===SPOILERS===

The entire game is very metaphorical. While it can be applied to Sisphyus' task, literally pushing the boulder up the hill, it could also be applied to some a person's mental state - their attempts to change, and how they fail to change in spite of their desire. I like how the struggle is framed not as an external one, but an internal one - a struggle against the self. In the game, Sisyphus feels discouraged, troubled, even as he continues to push the boulder up the hill - until he finally can't do it anymore, and the boulder falls back down. However, at the end, Sisyphus decides to continue pushing the boulder up the hill, despite the meaninglessness of it all, deciding that he will create his own meaning - and that his growth is meaning in and of itself, that this is work that he has created for himself. 

I like this reframing of the myth - Sisyphus is not forced by the gods to push the boulder up the hill. Instead, it is something he decides to do for himself - and despite knowing that it will fall back down, that he'll revert back to his toxic patterns, he persists. His happy ending is to accept the futility of his task and to appreciate the act itself, rather than to "succeed." It's an appropriate message that's pretty universal - indeed, many things in life are "meaningless," and you decide to do them because they are personally meaningful to you. It's an uplifting message, and a realistic take on what it means to "heal." 

Great work on the game by the dev!! 

This was a great game, Len! Very unique, but we're used to it with you lol!

I think you used the visuals in a very interesting way, especially considering the restrictions of O2A2. Somehow, Sisyphus really was a perfect myth for it!

And I also appreciated the overall point of the game, and I felt comforted, in the end, when Sisyphus just amusingly looked at his rock. It will roll down, but it's okay. Maybe he did not break the pattern, but he made sense of it, so it felt empowering.

Congrats on the game!!