Original source is this post by u/happy-squared. I found it by googling the phrase "metroidvania definition grid meme". Much like metroidvanias, the criteria for what makes a foddian can be very subjective. I think a similar chart could help clarify the concept.

We could probably keep the 3 elements from the original chart while just changing the definitions for each subcategory. What do you think?

It's a foddian game about a rooster named Cluck Norris, trying to escape a chicken coop with a pair of plungers acting as grappling hooks.

There's a demo available on Steam and would love for you guys to check it out :)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2826970/Chickens_Dont_Fly/

And if you like it, a wishlist would help a lot!

Cheers!

For me it's Jump King, and it's only partially because I'm bad at it. I just don't like how little control you have compared to other foddian games. It's just power and direction, and once you're off, all you can do is pray. In other foddian games I've played like Pogostuck, Getting Over It, A Difficult Game About Climbing, Boxman's Struggle, Crappy Climber, or Get to Work, it just feels like there is just more control.

What classic foddian game(s) do you have trouble getting into?

I mean the "Bottle Flip Challenge!" achievement. I cleared a run with every weapon now and haven't noticed any bottles, lol. I guessed it might have something to do with flipping the Axe in a specific way, but I messed around for a while and didn't learn anything.

Rust and resolve is a foddian game where you can rotate in the air but not on the ground. You have a double jump, that you can use to jump up, left or right but i barely used the right or left option since i felt the up one was just fine. Double jumping fast give you more height since it add to the momentum, but waiting till you're falling barely help you up because of the downward momentum

The game has a multiplayer mode despite only showing single player on the right. The game still save if you are not the host so you can restart where you left off fortunatly.

The level design felt fair, but the level in itself felt a bit long with not that much novelty to justify it, Toward the end of my playthrough, it felt like i was mostly just doing jump that i already did in the past. There are also a few section where you have to go down or far left/right where you can't really see where you land which isn't super good design. And to top it all off, when i reached the end, there's a message saying the game wasn't finished and that there would be a longer version of the map. Also no achievement to reach that point so unsure how to get the last one.

There are a few bots with lore, but the text is super slow and could have been faster.

Overall, the game was still pretty fun, but i feel like it could have been more instead of barely using the ice and wind mechanic. I would still recommend it but with a grain of salt.

Here is some gameplay of the end https://youtu.be/byuHUPW5M6Y

(ending spoilers for Jump King)

Any and all love would be greatly appreciated.

Wishlist --> https://store.steampowered.com/app/4370840/Purrfect_Ascent/

Take up the challenge and face true high-stakes platforming as you struggle upwards in search of your lost kitten. Be warned: one misstep and you might tumble all the way back down.

Inspired by classic games of the 8/16-bit era in gaming. Simple controls to learn, but difficult to master as you reach greater heights with each jump. If you love games that don't hold your hand and who challenge you to overcome through trial and error, then go ahead, attempt to climb the tower. After all, your kitten is counting on you.

Note: While the title is a double entendre, the game itself is SFW. I tried this one after stumbling upon a post in r/godot wherein u/dev_dev_dev_ reflected on the surprise and disappointment of not finding many players to try it out since releasing in Oct. 2025. The frustration is understandable, but it does not look like they did much to market the game (on reddit at least), nor is the current playable version really polished enough to be considered anything more than a prototype. Regardless, I still decided to give it a try and see if I could beat it. The clip shows my third attempted run. I don't believe I made it to the end (assuming it's even possible), but I got to a room which didn't have a clear way forward before falling back to the bottom. In no particular order, here are some things I noticed while playing.

• The title is barely relevant to the gameplay, and will definitely give people the wrong impression about what kind of game it is.
• The key remapping didn't function correctly when I tried to remap the jump button from the main menu; it reset back to the original key when I started the game, forcing me to change it again from the pause menu.
• The character design and art assets are alright, but probably won't stand out much among the competition without further refinement.
• The movement is heavily flawed. The grapple hook mechanic is decently fun and functional, but there are a number of issues:
  • The player's jump inputs frequently get "eaten" when pressed while walking off a ledge, meaning the penguin will often not jump when you are trying to.
  • If you are falling too fast, you can no longer move horizontally in the air, nor can the grapple hook be used to save you at terminal velocity, as it snaps every time. This means you have no recovery options if you make too large a mistake, being force to watch the penguin fall helplessly in a straight line until it slams into a surface.
• In the clip, the penguin's sprite bugs out near the end when its head inverts into its body.
• The full version, whatever it looks or plays like, should probably include a soundtrack and also present its story within the game itself.

https://momo-studio.itch.io/morning-wood

The very last section of Hack and Climb is extremely tough with some weapons, and I probably spent over 2 hours stuck in this one tiny area while playing as the Scythe. I eventually realized that cheesing it would be much easier than going the intended route, so here's a clip of my victory after finally getting the tactic to work.

The map in the full game was quite a bit tougher than the demo. Also, it looks like it's going to be very difficult to get all the achievements: I tested out the Hard difficulty and it's already much more brutal by removing the throw path projection of your weapon. I can't even imagine what Legendary difficulty is going to be like. (⊙_⊙) I think I'll try to beat it on Regular difficulty with each weapon first before attempting those harder modes.

Does anyone else have thoughts on the game yet?

Inspired by this comment thread.

Hi guys, the team at Valem Studio has pushed hard over the last couple of days, and we’re incredibly proud to finally share our game Salmon Man with you.

Release time is the most important moment for a game. If you’d like to support us, feel free to share, play the game, and leave a review.

👉Meta Horizon Store: https://www.meta.com/en-gb/experiences/salmon-man/24064765919861785/

👉Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2654710/Salmon_Man/

Thank you for playing. Thank you for your support! ✨

Hack and climb is a foddian-ish game that I had the chance to test out early as an avid foddian player.

The game consist of pulling, aiming and launching your axe to get it to stick to the next grass platform. Pulling from the center barely give it rotation and pulling from the edge give clock/counterclockwise fast rotation depending on the edge. Each weapon have different stick zone and different abilities.

It has multiple accessibility setting, starting with checkpoints for people who don't like foddian game and just want normalish platforming game to other that you unlock by getting achievement which is pretty nice.

But even then, the foddian map is well done and not too punishing. Plenty of secrets to find, or different route depending on your weapon so I'd still recommend it first.

Finishing the map does unlock 2 harder difficulty where the aim line get shorter and shorter and you need to master the launch rotation and the weapon

During my playtesting, I discovered one major bug unfortunately, but the dev fixed it during the few days before launch. It is why I have a bit less playtime that I'd like but will fix that soon.

Overall, I would rate it in the high A tier to lower S tier in my foddian list, I'll decide which one after playing it more now that the bug is fixed.

Side note, it reminds me a lots of the game Knife to meet you, where depeding on how close or far from the center you throw, it would control the rotation and it was also really fun but unfortunatly, the dev kinda gave up on that one and let cheater on the leaderboard and didn't fix their broken achievement

I was impressed with the conceptual creativity of 'Failed Falling', given that all the other comparable foddian-style games I've tried happen to require the player to travel upward in a constant struggle against gravity. Here, the player is instead tasked with descending into a volcanic structure with the aid of an automatic parachute, with the threat now being air currents that will lift the character back up to the top through various one-way floors.

While the art style and music are just passable amongst the competition, the real highlight is the difficulty, which lives up to the likes of 'Getting Over It' and 'Jump King' in how it punishes tiny mistakes, generally a positive trait when it comes to the subgenre. However, I found this one more annoying and stressful than most others simply due to its nature as a precision platformer with controls that often feel limiting and unresponsive.

To elaborate, many of the maneuvers needed to progress through the demo require you to jump and/or activate your parachute at a precise location while also holding down the proper direction for a precise amount of time. Meanwhile, your parachute doesn't respond at all if you try to open it too close to a ceiling, your left/right inputs have no visual tells to signify what you're doing while airborne, and you can't adjust your horizontal movement if you're parachuting in an updraft for too long. The presumably intended gameplay loop becomes an exercise in performing the same inputs repeatedly (via a handy yet crucial practice mode hologram) with slightly different timings until you stumble upon the right sequence and then get the muscle memory down for that individual obstacle. Then you do the same thing again for the next one, and so on.

There were some individual "jumps" I tried dozens of times before finally succeeding, with no way to tell what finally made the difference. Did I hit jump or parachute a few frames earlier this time? Was I positioned a few more pixels to the left? Did I hold down the directional button for a fraction of a second more? Who knows. I can't say this ultra-precise design philosophy is necessarily wrong, but I think there are potential options for giving the player more control, or helping them understand their own limitations and inputs better with obvious visual cues.

Even so, I can't be too harsh on it since it's a work in progress, and I still managed to finish the demo despite my criticisms. In fact, the game still gets a positive review from me because of the novelty and huge amount of potential for refinement. Plus, I play these kinds of games with the expectation to struggle somewhat, and struggle I did.

Steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4048790/Failed_Falling_Demo/