24 Feb 2025
The Game Bakers, known for their stylized, mechanically refined titles like Furi and Haven, are tackling an ambitious new project with Cairn. This physics-driven climbing simulation isn’t just about scaling a mountain—it’s about mastering movement, managing resources, and making deeply personal choices in an unforgiving environment. For developers, Cairn represents a fascinating case study in systemic gameplay design, physics-based traversal, and immersive storytelling.
At the core of Cairn lies its climbing simulation, which eschews pre-baked animations in favor of real-time procedural movement. Much like games such as Getting Over It or Grow Home, Cairn appears to rely on inverse kinematics (IK) to dynamically position the player's limbs based on surface topology. This approach ensures that every climb feels unique, driven by real player input rather than scripted sequences.
The control scheme seems designed for precision, allowing players to position hands and feet independently, shifting weight dynamically to maintain balance. This suggests an underlying system that takes friction, center of mass, and body tension into account—factors rarely modeled in traditional traversal mechanics. For devs interested in systemic physics, Cairn could serve as an excellent reference for implementing real-time, tactile interaction with a game world.
Rather than a linear sequence of climbable paths, Cairn presents an open-ended mountain, encouraging players to analyze rock faces and determine their own routes. This suggests a robust level design philosophy akin to open-world traversal games like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, where climbing is not just an action but a strategic choice.
The environmental design likely involves detailed collision meshes combined with hand-authored gripping surfaces, ensuring that players can’t brute-force their way up sheer faces. The challenge of reading the terrain from below and adapting on the fly aligns closely with rock climbing in reality—something few games have attempted to replicate at this level of depth.
Beyond movement, Cairn introduces a survival layer, requiring players to manage food, water, and medical supplies. This shifts it from a pure climbing sim into something closer to The Long Dark or Death Stranding, where resource efficiency and planning directly impact moment-to-moment gameplay.
From a game design perspective, this system likely introduces soft failure states—rather than outright game-over conditions, dwindling resources might make certain climbs riskier, forcing players to detour for supplies or make difficult judgment calls about whether to push forward. The interplay between moment-to-moment physicality and long-term resource planning adds depth without resorting to traditional combat mechanics.
The Game Bakers are known for their strong aesthetic choices, and Cairn continues that tradition. With music and sound design from the teams behind Limbo, Inside, Control, and Cocoon, expect a deeply atmospheric soundscape that reacts dynamically to the player’s actions. Given that climbing is often a solitary, introspective activity, the absence of excessive UI elements or traditional HUD distractions could reinforce immersion.
Narratively, Cairn follows pro climber Aava on an unprecedented ascent of Mount Kami, a mountain shrouded in mystery. The decision to keep storytelling largely environmental and emergent—through encounters with other climbers and remnants of past attempts—means Cairn likely employs a show, don’t tell approach, integrating narrative through level design and player-driven discovery rather than traditional cutscenes.
For devs intrigued by systemic game design, Cairn is shaping up to be a fascinating blend of physics-based traversal, player-driven storytelling, and survival mechanics. Its approach to climbing as a high-stakes, skill-driven interaction rather than a background mechanic sets it apart from traditional adventure games. The integration of physics, IK, and emergent gameplay elements makes it an intriguing case study for anyone interested in movement systems, procedural animation, or designing challenges that feel both organic and deeply rewarding.
Whether you're a developer looking for inspiration in physics-based gameplay, or just someone fascinated by the intersection of challenge and immersion, Cairn is a game worth keeping an eye on.
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