Free Solo: One Life is a game dedicated to the greatest athletic achievement in the history of mankind.

In June 2017, rock climber Alex Honnold free solo climbed El Capitan and cemented his place in the annals of human history. Without a rope or harness, Alex scaled the majestic and opposing hard granite wall's Freerider route in just under 4 hours. It is a mind-boggling feat of human endurance and bravery.

The movie means a lot to me as it showed me the possibility of the human spirit. The training, dedication, and raw chutzpah required to even contemplate performing such a daunting act is unimaginable. It showed me that one can achieve anything if they put their mind to it.

This game is an attempt to capture but a sliver of that experience.

This game gives you one life. If you fall while scaling the mountain, the game locks you out and you can never play again.

Gameplay:
It is a rhythm game. You start with a pulse rate of 72(normal human BPM). For every beat, your climber will move up the mountain. For every beat that you miss, your BPM increases by 1 point. For every two consecutive beats that you hit, your pulse rate stabilizes and decreases to a minimum of 72. The speed of the beats depends on the BPM.

If you miss too many beats and the BPM increases, the beats move faster and it becomes harder and harder to get back to the resting BPM of 72, drawing you closer to your inevitable death. This simulates the helpless feeling of your mind spiraling out of control when you are perched up, on the side of a cliff, on a ledge the size of a penny.

If you miss too many beats and your BPM hits 144, the climber gets extremely nervous, loses his grip, and falls off the mountain.

You can practice all you want in "Practice Mode", but if you are playing for real and you happen to fall, you cannot play the game again.

The ultimate achievement in the game is the "Freerider On El Capitan: One Life". That level takes 3 hours and 56 minutes to complete at 72 BPM - the same amount of time it took Alex to achieve his ultimate feat.

You can pop a caffeine pill at any time to increase your BPM to climb faster. However, if you are not able to sustain the increased rhythm, all it will do is quicken your death.

Can you hit that level of dedication in at least something as banal as a rhythm game? Come find out...

DLC:
If you want to play the game after you've died, you can buy the DLC. The leaderboards are different for alive and dead players - so it is not Pay 2 Win.