Grade: A–
A cairn, as readers will know, is a pile of stones often placed to mark a grave. Yikes. Not the most encouraging title to give to a videogame about someone trying to climb a mountain. Aava is a dedicated rock-climber determined to make the first solo ascent of Mount Kami, despite the countless lives it has already claimed. Equipped with chalk, rope, pitons, climbing tape and a limited supply of snacks and bottled water, not to mention a friendly robot that follows you around picking up your pitons and screening your calls, off you set.
The heart of the game – though the story contains surprising emotional and thematic depth – is the climbing simulation. You position Aava’s limbs one by one, reading the rock-face to find holds and cracks that will take your weight. Choose unwisely, and you’re toast. This, the game completely nails. If you’ve ever done any climbing, you’ll know how it feels when your fingers start to cramp or your knees start shaking uncontrollably just before you fall off. Here’s a game, amazingly, that captures exactly that moment. Likewise, the sublime relief of topping out on a ledge after a long tricky bit.
It’s entirely absorbing – and wonderfully tense. Cold, thirst, hunger, exhaustion, darkness and abrasions to your hands add cumulative extra challenges to your ascent. You must scavenge where you can and marshal your resources. Climbing – since so much of it is about proprioception, your sense of your own body in space – seems an unlikely candidate for a simulation game, but here’s one that triumphs. With its cartoonish but not too cartoonish visuals, it’s very pretty, too.
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