Written by. Nick Mosier based on the original Japanese article (original article’s publication date: 2022-06-28 19:23 JST)

Japanese indie game developer Tadasumen released a Steam version of A game that saves the muscles caught in the ceiling of the gymnasium on June 28 (JST). While the game initially launched for free on Tadasumen’s own website, the new Steam version adds additional features like achievements and online leaderboards and is available for $1.99.

A game that saves the muscles caught in the ceiling of the gymnasium is a new kind of shooting game where players throw balls at body builders stuck in a ceiling to rescue them. The game takes place in a gymnasium that for some reason has a bunch of buff guys caught in the rafters. Why are these half-naked muscle men stuck on the ceiling? Beats me. But somebody has to save them.

To do so, players throw a special “muscle rescue ball” to dislodge them from their positions and send them falling to the floor. The setting is nostalgic and strange for anyone that remembers elementary school gym class. Tadasumen says the rescue balls are specially made to rescue macho men, so there’s no need to worry about hurting anyone.

When setting out on a rescue, players can freely walk around the gym to find their preferred throwing position. Skillfully hit the macho men and dislodge them in one shot or hit them with multiple balls to dislodge them by brute force. If a macho man makes it to the ground, your rescue was a success.

Players start the round holding 15 rescue balls, with more placed in the middle of the gym to replenish your supply. There are also rare shiny variants of the muscle men that can appear. One example is the Gaming Macho which has a strange glow. Rescuing this macho will cause dramatic music to play and change the color of your rescue balls. Each rare macho has their own specific effects and saving them is connected to the game’s ending criteria.

The game has two modes. Rescue Mode lets players freely rescue macho men without any time limits and Challenge Mode has players rescue 10 macho men as quickly as possible. Besides buff bods, there are also exploding SP balls in the ceiling. Using these well can make short work of rescuing macho men stuck in particularly difficult positions.

A game that saves the muscles caught in the ceiling of the gymnasium comes from the Japanese indie developer Tadasumen who has also released free titles such as the 3D action game I’m going to die if I don’t eat sushi! (related article) and the horror game PIEN-ぴえん–. Tadasumen’s games can often be seen spreading on social media in Japan for their wild content and strange concepts.

A game that saves the muscles caught in the ceiling of the gymnasium first released on Tadasumen’s personal site kusoi.site on May 6, 2022. The content is largely the same as the Steam version, but the Steam version makes use of various Steam features like achievements, online leaderboards, cloud saves, and automatic updates.

Besides Japanese, the game supports text for 4 other languages including English. According to the official website, both versions of the game have been updated to Ver1.10 adding a rare “Legendary Macho” and a retry button for Challenge Mode. This new legendary macho is supposedly rarer than even the Gold Macho.

A game that saves the muscles caught in the ceiling of the gymnasium is now available on Steam for $1.99.