Getting Over It Meets Nokia Nostalgia in New Indie Game Flipping Is Hard
Flipping Is Hard is now available on Steam, challenging up to 16 players to climb a towering world of discarded technology as an indestructible brick phone.
Elegant Horse Studios has released Flipping Is Hard, a physics-driven 3D rage game starring an indestructible Nokia-brick phone with no legs and only one reliable form of movement: rotating itself through the air.
Flippy becomes separated from his owner, Jeff, following an unfortunate encounter with a banana peel and a storm drain. Waking inside the Trashlands, a towering world assembled from discarded technology and other remnants of the 1990s and early 2000s (which makes me feel quite old!), the phone must begin a long and extremely precarious journey home.
Players can rotate, flip, and perform vibration-powered jumps across ten handcrafted areas, including the Storm Drain, Cardboard Fort, Candyland, the Fridge, and Recycling Core. One poorly timed movement can erase a considerable amount of progress, placing the game firmly alongside rage-inducing precision platformers such as Getting Over It, Jump King, Pogostuck, and Only Up!
The intended Flipping Is Hard mode contains no checkpoints, but players who primarily want to experience its story and humor can select Flipping Is Chill and collect checkpoints along the way. An even less forgiving Flipping Is Insane mode is planned for a post-launch update.
The climb incorporates 26 interactive mechanics, including cannons, magnets, ziplines, swinging hooks, conveyor belts, fans, and reverse gravity. Players will also encounter 18 unusual NPCs, customize Flippy with cases and charms, and access an operating system containing retro-inspired minigames and statistics such as falls, distance traveled, and total playtime.
Up to 16 players can attempt the climb together through Steam Friends lobbies with proximity voice chat. Struggling climbers can theoretically rescue one another using the Help Beam, although activating it also causes the rescuer to bounce uncontrollably from side to side.
The game also includes quick restarts, an integrated timer, and dedicated speedrun leaderboards for players interested in mastering its deliberately awkward movement.
"We wanted to make a game that looks cozy and safe from the outside, and then quietly ruins your evening. Flipping Is Hard is a love letter to the gadgets we all left behind in a drawer somewhere. We're three people from Lithuania, and seeing over a hundred thousand players fall off the demo, then come back for more, has been the best part of making it. Now it's time to see who makes it home."
- Liudas Spangelevičius, Co-founder and Director, Elegant Horse Studios
Flipping Is Hard follows a Steam demo that attracted more than 100,000 players and over 50,000 wishlists. The game was created by the small Lithuanian studio behind Driving Is Hard, another physics-driven challenge built around controlling an unconventional vehicle.
Flipping Is Hard is available now on PC through Steam for $14.99, discounted to $9.74 during its launch promotion.
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