[1] Taking inspiration from other rage games like Getting Over It, Only Up!, Pogostuck, and Jump King, the primary objective is climbing through a themed platforming obstacle course to the top of a mountain.

What sets A Difficult Game About Climbing apart is its unique movement style, where mouse or joystick input directs force vectors applied to the player character's arms through Unity's physics simulation tools.

This behavior is somewhat similar to Getting Over It's hammer or the manual leg controls of QWOP.

Restricting movement to the character's two arms and hands limits traversal to what is possible with only two points of contact, but gaps can be crossed by swinging to create momentum.

Each new game area or level is associated with a new body of water, so falls resulting from failing platforming challenges do not return players to the beginning of the game, but the beginning of the area.