Mountain 4+

It only took me so long to realize that Mountain is an uninspired derivative of Getting Over It because by the time I stumbled upon GOI about a year ago, I had completely forgotten about this one. I played with Mountain a few times and wanted to like it, but it seemed something was missing from its attempt at existential irony. I saw its icon while paging through my games folder just now and it all made sense: why Mountain was made and why it misfires. Even as a joke, which it may well be.

If you think you might like Mountain, try Getting Over It. Both are very offbeat and both are exercises in frustration and learning to live with unhappy accidents. But GOI gives you something interesting to fail to do, over and over and over again- and its commentary is much more subtle and engaging. I am still failing to win Getting Over It. but winning is not the point with either of these. GOI, though, does have a point—and a narrative arc that changes. Not by much, but it makes a tremendous difference.

The graphics are wonderful, but watching my mountain become polluted with an unending array of junk which I can’t do anything about is far from the relaxing experience this game is supposed to engender. I would have been happy to pay a lot more for the relaxing experience I was promised, but as it is the 99 cents I paid for the game is far too much.

I didn’t know what to expect and I think it helped me in being completely open to whatever the mountain would be. I found myself looking at the mountain as something I want to protect. Green, serene, void of anything negative. Suddenly, an old fridge crashes into my serenity. I can feel the discomfort, my urge to do something to “fix” the scene, clean it up. Then I realize there’s nothing I can do but accept it, release my anxiety about it and seek ways to welcome it and other unexpected or unwelcome things into my mountain (world). A great exercise in letting go of the urge to control and just accept the beauty of everything as it evolves.