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# PoleRiders
- URL: https://www.killscreen.com/flash-forward-poleriders/
- Published: 2011-12-28T09:00:00.000Z
- Updated: 2015-11-17T14:34:32.000Z
- Description: Whack a pole and watch fun and tragedy unfold in unison! Filipe Salgado pays tribute to QWOP and GIRP creator Bennett Foddy’s latest miscreation.
- Author: Filipe Salgado
- Tags: Columns, Flash Forward, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2024-07-26 09:39

*Flash Forward covers the vanguard of games you can play in your browser RIGHT NOW. This week we look at some 2011 highlights for the holiday comedown.*

[*PoleRiders*](http://www.foddy.net/PoleRiders.html?ref=killscreen.com) isn’t a fun game alone. No game by [Bennett Foddy](http://killscreendaily.com/articles/profile-bennett-foddy?ref=killscreen.com) is really supposed to be fun. The Oxford professor delights in watching players struggle. In *QWOP* you run a race by controlling a track runner’s legs. [*GIRP*](http://killscreendaily.com/articles/reviews/review-girp?ref=killscreen.com) has you holding three letter keys at the same time to climb a mountain. These games are about resisting the urge to throw your computer across the room, and coming back to them to laugh at the way you struggle. *PoleRiders* solo is mainly meant to teach you how to control—and that’s a very loose definition of what you’ll be doing—your little pole-vaulting dude. Left and right direct the would-be Olympian’s legs, and up and down control the arms. Practice jumping over phone booths and double-decker buses, and you might come away thinking it’s no big thing.

But *PoleRiders*, despite the late-night Cinemax title, is incredibly fun with other people. The goal is to try to kick and nudge a ball, suspended on a cable above, to the opposing player’s castle. This is very difficult. With skill and a lot of practice, the game can be overcome, but its fun comes in those first few games where nothing is intuitive. The pressure of having an opponent will lead to a mistake. And the shared pain makes that easier to digest.

If anything, the wacky controls are a source of comedy gold with friends around. Walk on and try to clumsily pole-vault off of your opponent’s pole. Use your pole as a wall to trick your opponent into bouncing off and hitting the ball in your favor. Stomp on their head to render them unconscious: particularly long games are littered with the corpses of pole-vaulters who couldn’t quite make the cut. You will curse loudly and then laugh at yourself. Misery loves company, and what better time to share misery than the holidays?