River Racing

Very interesting and original control mechanic! The game essentially consists of learning how to control your boat, and it feels good to figure out how to do different things (for instance when I discovered how you could go backward). It was a bit hard at first especially with the health decreasing with collisions but the frequent checkpoints helped balance the difficulty and after playing for a bit I managed to progress and ultimately finish the race. It then took me a few tries to take the 1st place. An interesting thing with games like that is that even when you do not progress in the game, you can still feel the progression in the process of learning the controls and you know that next try you will progress faster in the game.
The graphics are simple but good, and I liked the sound design (a music could be nice but no music also fits the calm kayaking in the nature vibe).

Didn't stand a chance at beating this one, lol. Tried my best but pretty sure I got an RSI instead. Still an interesting game, can't speak to the balance much since I assume I was controlling things wrong, but I liked the level design.

I'm not one for "frustrating controls" type games, but I can imagine some people liking this sort of challenge.
Would be interesting as a coop game where each player controls a padel (like in a canoe). Sort of like a relationship test. :D

This might be a boomer thing to say but I think the genre is "QWOP" kind of game more than "Gettting over it" ;)
Anyway, really nice implementation! The kayak started turning every time I tried to go straight. Normally I'd say you could tweak it to make it easier, but that's against the spirit of the game :D
But I think the damage is a bit too much. In the end it didn't matter that much.
Graphics are pretty great too. Well done!

I feel like a hero for finishing the race. There is no chance I could win the computer haha. It is a very rage-inducing game and I applaud you for it, since so is the game you mentioned as the inspiration. The controls are so unforgiving but mostly fair. Graphics and sfx work well but I would have liked a little more sounds and perhaps a music track.

The attention to physics is phenomenal. The gameplay seems very boring at first, but once you master the controls, it turns out to be a fun challenge to finish the race. I really like the art style, the graphics and specially the main menu. The only thing I would criticize is the difficulty and the damage output, which is a little too high in my opinion.

Beautiful environment design, nice gameplay concept but the jankyness of the controls really put me off. I'd consider it a QWOP-like but much of the crashing didn't feel like my fault, with the health drops feeling quite random and so I was reset over and over, losing my competitor very early on.
I'd love to see this be slightly more forgiving (perhaps just rebound off walls, I'm not sure the health mechanic adds much) and slightly more intuitive controls.
I'd also like to see a tutorial or more-forgiving section before being thrown straight into the thick of the action.

I found that I could make a bit more progress going backward then forward. However, the canoe is also very fragile. I think this is (for a jam game, as opposed to a complete one) already hard enough without the damage mechanic.

(In fairness, I was trying to cheese it a bit; I ket trying to do ways to do both sides at one, but that only gave me very tiny boosts.)

Fun fact: This was half of the original idea behind 'visje', but then I swapped a sine for a cosine when drawing the lines, and the 'boat' started flopping around… and, well.

@M2tias Another fun fact: 'Getting over it' and QWOP are both by the same author, Bennet Foddy.