Who has never imagined themselves climbing high mountains, but has no idea where to start or is even clear that that wouldn’t be their thing in real life? Well, as the online retailer’s claim says, your problems are over: a video game has just been released that will allow viewers to take the main character to the top of an impossible mountain, without leaving the comfort of their armchair. This is the “Cairn”, launched worldwide on January 29th, after five years of development.
The game, developed by the French company The Game Bakers, takes climber Aava, defined by art director, comic artist and screenwriter Mathieu Blabet as someone “with a mind of steel, demanding and perfectionist” to conquer increasingly difficult routes on the fictional mountain of Kami, “whose summit no one has ever reached” and which, according to estimates by the gaming community, would reach an impossible 9,000 meters in altitude — higher than the highest summit in the world, Everest, which is “only” 8,849 meters. Any similarity with the real lives of highly competitive real-life mountaineers, always looking for one more summit, a greater challenge, is not a coincidence.
According to Blabet, “Cairn” “is an emotional and meaningful story, because even though it is a solo ascent, Aava will meet people on the mountain and reveal much of her personal history, through exchanges with those she left behind and with those who were unable to return, in addition to contact with a troglodytic civilization of climbers and rock sculptors who lived isolated in the mountains.”
“We could have made ‘Cairn’ just as a climbing simulation,” says creative director Emeric Thoa, “but for our entire team at The Game Bakers it was important to go further, to tell a story that moves us.”
“We partner with professional climbers in fact,” Thoa explained to the column, via email. “Not only to create the game mechanics, but to help us make the entire game more realistic, as we are not experienced climbers and needed the technical knowledge.”
The duo, who spent three years researching the world of mountaineering, worked with Loan Giroud, a mountain guide from Chamonix, a mandatory route for those who want to climb Mont Blanc, in the Alps, and also with Elisabeth Revol, who has several mountains of 8,000 meters in altitude on her CV. “We wanted to understand what it’s like to reach these heights and why they do it,” says Thoa.
The idea of developing “Cairn” was born, according to Thoa, from the line they pursue in their productions, of valuing “free living and the search for absolute freedom”. Inspiration had begun to sprout 15 years earlier, when he read Jiro Taniguchi’s manga, “The Summit of the Gods”. “From then on I became fascinated by mountaineering stories, there is something incredible about all the sacrifices these people make to climb a rock.” That’s where it all started.
Tested in the demo version by experts and players, the creators believe that the game, which can take up to 15 hours to complete all stages of the ascension, could be a success, packed with awards it has already won, such as Best Game at the Tribeca Independent Games Festival and Best Systemic Design at IndieCade, among others in the gaming world.
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