After getting lots of attention in the 2025 Game Maker's Toolkit game jam, Sisyphus Is a Bug has now released in an expanded version on Steam. The game is a physics-platformer of learning tricks to help you climb a mountain faster and faster each attempt, defying the bug-gods' prescribed punishment and finding a way to escape your hellish cycle.
This is perhaps a more fast-paced-action sort of game than most that we choose to feature and talk about around these parts, but we're not opposed to platformers as long as they're built around elements of learning, puzzles and thinking about things. Sisyphus goes so far as to call itself a "knowledgevania" in its Steam description (yet another attempt at a new genre term which I am taking to basically mean "metroidbrainia") and anything in that realm tends to catch our collective eye.
My biggest touchstone for a platformer game that centers around slowly learning new tricks and building up a moveset that opens up more of the world around you is undoubtedly Leap Year. I have no idea if the full version of Sisyphus will measure up to the genius that Daniel Linssen brought to his knowledge-based collectathon, but this feels like a relatively new and growing niche that I'd love to see more games flesh out and explore from their own angles.
You can get Sisyphus Is a Bug now on Steam or try the free demo to see what it's all about.
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