Alone on Mount Kami - Cairn
- edgarm974
- Feb 23
- 4 min read
Hello everybody, welcome to the very first blog post of Beyond Myself, my blog where I aim to discuss/review/think on any and all forms of media I thoroughly enjoy. Ranging from games, music, movies, and books. You name it, and I likely enjoy it. I figure there is too much media out there and not enough time to curate exactly to our preferences, so hearing from one another is a valuable tool to discover something meaningful and to get a variety in what we consume. My hope is that this blog acts as a "library" of works that others might connect with as much as I have.
With introductions over, allow me to yap about a masterpiece of a game: Cairn.
I found Cairn by mindlessly scrolling the front page of Steam, scouring up and down for a new game to pour hours into and give me an excuse to avoid my coursework. Immediately, it stood out. Developed by The Game Bakers, Cairn follows Aava, an alpinist determined to be the first person to summit Mount Kami. When I first picked up Cairn, I didn't know what to expect from a climbing simulator. It was a kind of game I'd never even seen before, and I think that's what drew me in so much. It's such a simple concept: climb a big rock and get to the top, right?
What I found when I started the game proved me so very wrong. Cairn is a story of a deeply flawed woman whose identity is inseparable from the act of climbing. Someone so determined to summit Mount Kami that she will leave everything behind.
At first, the climbing is mechanical; you're placing feet and hands to climb, managing stamina, and cooking meals. However, slowly, these mechanics stop feeling like an obstacle and, more so, like you inhabiting Aava. The slowness isn't accidental; the silence isn't empty. Mount Kami doesn't care about you. Aava is an ant in comparison to the behemoth of Mount Kami, and that exact indifference is part of the experience. This game is extremely lonely for 80% of the duration; there are no dramatic scores or cheering crowds. All you get for a while is a box-shaped robot that reclaims gear and relays messages from Aava's girlfriend, whom she left at home, as well as her sickly cat. All of this to say, the isolation you and Aava are in, what purpose does it serve? Why keep going? Why risk everything for an accomplishment only you'll see?
That's where Cairn starts to become a character study, both of you and of Aava. Her determination isn't a heroic feat. It's just an obsession, and her own girlfriend's messages are a perfect example of how it affects their lives. Aava climbs not because she's told to, nor because of any promise of fame or money, but because it's a necessity for her. The game never states whether this ambition is destructive or admirable, but I think you can come to your own conclusions. We, as the player, just have to sit in that limbo, and in that space, it is hard not to think about Aava's ambition and your own. How much of what we chase is ego, and how much of it is growth?
What shocked me the most is how personal this game felt. Aava and I felt like one, every message from those who cared about Aava irked me and her, as we tried to not fall to our death. Not because I hated them, but because the climb is what I signed up for, and so did Aava. Every difficult section, every slip, every last reach to get onto flat ground all felt earned in a powerful way. The reward isn't a spectacle, it's a progression slightly closer to the top, and that you didn't die (also an extremely sweaty controller). It is all proof that you can keep going, and maybe that's the message. What does reaching the top truly mean to us?
Progression in the game is a test of how far you'll push yourself and Aava, and it shows in her mental and physical health. Every left behind note or corpse shows that nothing but death resides at the top of Kami, yet Aava and I continued. Aava is seriously flawed and probably should've solved her problems on flat ground with a therapist instead of sinking deeper into her obsession, but we stood firm in completing this summit.
Truthfully, this game asked me a moral question that I still haven't answered.
Was it worth it to chase your ambitions to the point that it is essentially your ruin, or do you step back and learn to appreciate the little things that you have?
Cairn doesn't require you to answer that question; it just makes you live with it.
In the case of Cairn, Aava and I chased our dream to the final moments of the game.
In our last moments, Aava became a part of a whole, and she climbed higher than I could ever follow.
Now obviously I am being very vague, and that's on purpose. I want to avoid spoilers if I can. But seriously, play this game or watch a playthrough if you can spare the time, you'll be supporting an indie developer and consuming an extremely well-made video game. The art is beautiful throughout, and Mount Kami is both daunting and extremely gorgeous. Cairn is a 10/10 in my opinion, and my highest praise cannot be put into words, so go experience it for yourself. If you're willing to sit with difficult questions, this game is worth your time, money, and tears.
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