Video Gamers Podcast - Climbing Into Cairn: Sophia Eleni on Voice, Vulnerability & Vertical Worlds – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: June 27, 2025

Gaming host John sits down with Sophia Eleni, the voice of Aava in the highly anticipated narrative climbing video game Cairn. In this heartfelt and informative interview, we dig into Sophia’s process, the emotional weight of her performance, and what it takes to bring such a grounded, intimate video game to life. We cover: Where Sophia pulled inspiration from for her performance The surprising (and hilarious) challenges of recording grunts, gasps, and falls in a video game How she connected personally with Cairn’s themes of perseverance And yes… we finally settle how to actually pronounce “Cairn” It’s an episode filled with laughs, insight, and community-submitted questions. All the behind the scenes gaming news and more, right here at Video Gamers Podcast! FOLLOW Sophie Eleni at: Insta: https://www.instagram.com/sophiaeleniofficial X: https://x.com/sophiaeleni FOLLOW Cairn at: Website: https://www.thegamebakers.com/cairn/ Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1588550/Cairn/ Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, and Phelps Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@VideoGamersPod?sub_confirmation=1    Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Intro Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Gaming provides players the opportunity to immerse themselves in worlds filled with adventure and peril. It allows us to feel like we are climbing a mountain of progression or peering over the edge of a cliff of danger. Karen is an indie climber simulator that takes these scenarios quite literally. Today we have on our show a guest who helped breathe life into the lead character of this beautiful game, Sophia Eleni. Sophia, welcome to the show. Hello John and hello fellow gamers.

So the first thing I have to ask you is how do you pronounce the title of this game? Okay, so it's pronounced Cairn as in like a Cairn of rocks. So that's the name Cairn. Okay, Cairn, a C a Karen of rocks. Yes. Can you can you can you provide the definition of that? So I mean, I wasn't there when they decided why they would call the game can but a can if you would if you were to see a can of of rocks or stones piled on top of each other in the wilderness or on a mountain, it would suggest that a human has been there, that humankind has been present at that moment and they have left their mark or their territory to suggest. That means we've been doing it

for centuries. Okay. Well, then that makes a lot of sense for this game. I would yeah, I mean, there's a lot of climbing up wilderness and, you know, altitudes and things like that. So yeah, it would, I think, hopefully suggest, you know, that someone had been there. Yeah. Yeah. So so this game is is currently in demo phase right now. The demo is available for free on Steam. And it's really interesting. There's not a lot of games like this.

It's very clearly, it's a climbing simulator with a gorgeous art style and a lot of emotion behind it. But what seems like it should have maybe been or not should have but would have normally been kind of like a niche game seems to have found quite a broad audience. I mean, there's a lot of interest for this game. I'd like to ask, you know, what your involvement is in the game, your role? And, you know, what what you feel makes this game unique? Yeah, sure. So I play the role of Ava in Ken. The whole story follows Ava.

She is a professional mountain rock climber. And it's been sort of her life mission and her goal to reach the top of the summit of Mount Cami, which is a fictional mount, I should add. But it's the story of her journey. And you play as Ava throughout the game, and her journey to reach the summit of Mount Cami and the experiences that she has up there. It is a really beautiful narrative, very cinematic game, deeply evocative at times. And I think what will be surprising for a lot of gamers is when they realize just how much story there is, how deep the game is. In the demo, you guys have probably been able to tell there's a lot of strategy involved

and it's quite technical as well, but there is a lot of story behind it, which hasn't yet been revealed because obviously we don't want to do spoilers before the release of the game. But there is a really strong narrative, a very evocative, deep sense of euphoria as well when you play this game. And what I love about it as well is that it's beautifully, beautifully designed, all the graphics in the game. They're designed by Mathieu Bablé. Truly beautiful. Mathieu Bablé is a French cartoonist who has,

yes, he was commissioned to make the game and to do all the design and the graphics and the illustration. And it is phenomenal what they've done and how they've made this world. There's so much to explore in the game. So one of the things that I loved about the demo was that, you know, again, the demo's maybe maybe an hour long to play through. And it is strikingly unique. It is very interesting in that it is at the same time relaxing and stressful, if that makes sense. It is very technical gameplay. You're literally meticulously moving one limb of your protagonist at a time

up this mountain with pretty heavy stakes. You know, if you make a wrong move or if you run out of energy, you die. Yeah, it's pretty high stakes. Yeah, exactly. But it's high stakes in a way that's relatable. You know, I think most people could relate to the sensation of like climbing up a mountain. But the other thing is, is that, you know, as you mentioned, there hasn't been a lot

of the story that's been revealed so far, there it's been hinted at. But the there's so much emotion that is conveyed with such subtlety. It is it's beautiful. Like what what I love in movies and stories and shows in general is when a story can be presented in a way that doesn't rely on heavy exposition. And there's so much of you know, you get so much of the feeling of this game just through sort of nuance and the performance of your character, which is what I wanted to ask you next on this. So this is a very protagonist heavy demo at a

minimum. And I imagine that the remainder of the story sort of lies very heavily on your shoulders. What was the auditioning and casting process for a game like this? That's a really interesting question. So initially for this game I didn't know too much about what the game was. I didn't really know much about, I didn't even know the name of the game. They keep things very under wraps when you're auditioning. There's loads of NDAs. So you're just kind of almost going in blind. You get a kind of rough idea of a character's description, who they are as a person, a little

bit of the backstory, but not much. So yeah, the initial audition, I actually did right from this very chair where I'm sat now. It was an audio. It's a great chair. Oh, thank you so much. With this very mic, I should add as well. I did an audition from home. It was a, yeah, just a voice audition and got sent some sides with a little bit of script, a little bit of a monologue as well. And yeah, you know, as an actor, you just, you know, you kind of read bits of, you know, what you've been sent and you think, oh, is that familiar to me in some way? Or

can I sink my teeth into that? And you know, you find little bits in, and it's beautifully written, by the way, the story is phenomenal. I agree. But you find bits of yourself in the character, you know, and you start to resonate with it. And I really resonated with the material and with the character. And, you know, she is a very complex character, Arthur, and her reasoning behind why she is a climber and why on earth is she doing something so risky, risking her life to achieve this ambition of hers. She's taking huge risks. So it really gets into the psyche of this person and the complexities of leaving behind people you know, to go and risk your life and possibly never come back.

So it's very deep. And I think a lot of people will resonate with that complexity a little bit as well with, you know, humans are complex. But yeah, so I very, my very first moments coming into contact with Arva was right here. And then had a recall, which was nice. I went in person to the studio in London where we record in North London at Side Global and got the part. Hooray. And then- Yeah, hooray indeed.

Yeah, hooray, hooray. And then, yeah, we recorded, I think the whole game. So we recorded last year between September to November and then a few weeks ago came back once the game has been made a little bit more. So we've actually got some cutscenes now, some visual narrative, and we're just doing pickups and things like that. So it was really strange coming back to it actually after months away. I'd just got married. I just came back from my honeymoon. Congratulations.

Thank you so much. Uh, I was on a real high and I thought, Oh gosh, I've got to come back to this very dark and very deep, uh, you know, um, intense game all of a sudden. Um, yeah. So, um, yeah, we've, we've done the final pickups now. Um, I've seen lots of the game. I'm sure you guys will love it. Yeah, it's a very special game. And I really, really do hope people enjoy playing it. I agree with that. So I'm going on the tangent here. I'm just very curious. Where'd you guys

honeymoon to? We went to Bali. Oh, very nice. Yeah. Nice. Did you guys do like the chill Bali or were you guys like partying the whole time? It was more chill Bali slash explorer vibes. Going to temples and riding on elephants. That sort of kind of maybe slightly hipster vibes. I don't know. But yeah, it was great fun. Really, really cool. Yeah. Yeah. Writing an elephant is about one of the most hipster things I can think of.

How was that, by the way? Were the elephants like cool or? It was an experience. I mean, it was lovely. It was in an elephant sanctuary. So they, you know, they were all very well looked after and very intelligent creatures as well. Elephants and very gentle. My husband actually dropped his phone as we were on these elephants and the elephant behind us got his big snout trunk and just picked it up and gave it back to him. I know. That's so cool. Absolutely insane. I was like, okay, guys, well, we know what we're dealing with now. You're smart. Yeah, it was crazy.

That's so cool. Yeah, I'm always curious about these like wild animals, how they actually interact with humans. My wife and I did this dolphin thing in Mexico, and it most certainly was not a sanctuary. It was very dodgy to say the least. But the dolphins were like so, they were like water dogs. Like they were so enthusiastic. They wanted to like interact with people and stuff. And it's just interesting. It's interesting how the interspecies relationships

work from time to time and I've always been curious about elephants because they could smush you so easily. They're actually quite... Well sorry, I'm glad you got to experience that. They're actually quite hairy as well, which I was shocked by. Interesting. I know fun. Dolphins are not hairy elephants. So coming back to coming back to the role here You mentioned that you were drawn to the have you done a lot of video game voiceover work I Have this was my first Big leads role in a video game. So for me, this was a really big deal and also quite emotionally challenging as well. I'm coming into this game. Yeah. Yeah, I can imagine. So a question that comes from our community from a member called jiggle

puff asks, were there any characters from media or real life that inspired your performance and that's I'm actually curious about the same thing. It is a very physical or at least physical sounding performance. A lot of the performance relies on these sort of like emotional like grunts and like nuanced like whimpers and stuff is I'm imagining somebody would express themselves when they're climbing up the side of a mountain. Were there any inspirations that you drew from? Um, so I'm, I'm, I wouldn't say I'm a particularly, um, athletic person. I mean, I like going

to the gym and stuff, but I've never like climbed up a mountain like a professional rock climber would you know. So I had to do a lot of research and a lot of preparation to get the character to sound as authentic as possible you know and it has to be believable otherwise there's no sort of marriage between the visuals and the sound that's's going to sound a bit weird, isn't it? So I did a lot of documentary watching about rock climbers, particularly female rock climbers, pros who do this professionally, you know, like all the time. This is their ambition, their burning desire. So I was just finding like lots of different documentaries and watching these young women,

these really inspirational young women who are just absolutely fearless and they go and they climb and it's, what really struck me in the documentaries was how these women, they have this innate resilience, mental resilience, and the physical resilience as well. It is the whole journey, the process of someone ascending up this mammoth thing. It's you versus nature, basically. These women were just so fearless. They were times where you could see they just wanted to give up. They really had this mental fatigue, the physical fatigue, the exhaustion. It's about overcoming that and fighting yourself as well, not just the mountain, but fighting yourself and what you're capable of. And

I was, it just really inspired me and I was so amazed by people actually do this, you know, and what they've achieved. So I was really inspired by that and I'd watch them and I'd see what they go through and everything but I'd also sometimes turn away from the television and I'd just kind of listen to the vocal efforts. Where does it sit vocally in the placement? You know, is it quite growly? Is it quite breathy? You know, and, and, and just, you know, sort of embodying that really and, and banking it in my head so that then when I was in the studio in the booth, I was working alone actually for most, all of it, just with the director and the game developers, just voices in my ear in a studio. You'd have to

sort of rely on yourself as the actor to embody all those sounds and to get those efforts. So quite a lot of the time I look a bit like a fruitcake in the studio and I'm doing a lot of star jumps, running around, doing push-ups, press-ups, sit-ups, just to get myself a bit sort of out of breath, get that adrenaline going, boom, boom, boom, and then straight in for a take, you know, so it's kind of a dance, you're kind of leading it and working with the director to get those those sounds. Yeah. So what we've heard that there are there's kind of like a spectrum of relationships that exist between voice actors and directors in a project like this.

Sometimes you're reading straight from the page and it's very, very strict. Other times there's opportunity for a lot of improv and you kind of like just take whatever the present situation is and let it run a bit. What was the relationship like in this game or what was the actual recording process like? So the first few months I mean that we were on this I worked with so Damian Goodwin who is a very established video game director. He works here in London and he's done loads of really well-known projects, you guys would know, but he and I worked very, very closely together on every session, you know, developing and honing this character, understanding more about her personality, just kind of like the actory things, like focusing on

the narrative side of stuff, you know, and getting the dialogue down and, you know, how does she sound? Where's her vocal placement? Is it how I speak as Sophia or is it, you know, we found Ava's voice is a little bit more, it's a little bit more down here and a bit more gravelly and with a bit more, you know, a bit more, a bit more chesty. She's seen some stuff. She's seen stuff and she's quite strong, you know. So we're thinking about things like, you know, my voice is a bit lighter and a bit happier, you know, but Ava, you know, and I

think a few people commented in Steam and they were like, God, she's got quite like a deep voice, this woman. And I was thinking, well, yeah, it's deliberate, you know, it's to, that's the character, that's her personality, you know. But yeah, we worked on every single session pretty much. And we also had the gaming developers as well for the first week actually flew in from France and the game bakers. Oh wow. They flew in from France and they were sat in the booth so it's me in the studio, huge window, got the director there and I've got the two gaming developers just like you know looking at me like that. Like you're in a fishbowl. Yeah it's a it's a strange thing and especially when you're having to do you know, looking at me like that. Um, like you're in a fishbowl. Yeah, it's, it's a, it's a strange thing.

And especially when you're having to do, you know, like quite intimate sounds as well, just out of context. You know, you're kind of going into a microphone. It's a bit weird. Um, but you, you sort of get over it and you just forget people are there and you just, you are that person and it's all happening in the moment. Yeah. Are you able to share how long you were actually

in the recording booth? How much time you actually spent during doing the dialogue recording? So, a typical session in the studio will be about four hours per session. So that's, yeah, four hours per day. We were there for maybe three months. So it's a long time. And just little, yeah, just little things like, I remember in our pickups a few weeks ago, we had a session, literally a whole

four hour session. And it was just, you know, Arva walking through snow, Arva walking through the rain, Arva walking on wet ground, you know, and how, how, because she walks barefoot and I think a few people have noticed she doesn't wear shoes because she's a badass and you know how how does that affect the vocal effort you know is is is it a relief to walk on soft squelchy floor or is it is it really awful walking through cold snow is it shock you know so all these things change your voice and you know as a as an actor you've got to think about all these things. So we spent four hours just, and we'd sometimes do like a three minute take, a three minute recording of me just walking through snow and just the vocal sounds

of that. A lot goes into games. I think this is why I love the gaming community is because gamers actually appreciate everything that goes into making these masterpieces, you know. Well, right. And like, clearly, I have a bias. But that is one of the things that's unique about gaming is that it is a level of immersion that you just aren't able to experience, you know, with with other media. Yeah. And something that is striking about this game is how absolutely intimate it is usually in a game or in most games, you're taking on sort of the persona of a character and you're kind of living, living scenarios through this person's eyes, this person's point of view.

But I have played few games where it is so incredibly reliant on the nuances of the of the protagonist. It you're right, like every, every breath, every little grunt, like conveys an emotion that is sort of critical to the experience. And this actually leads it this a good segue into a question that comes from our member Safety Jake. And I want to make sure to read this line by line because it's ridiculous. Sorry, Jake. It would be cool to know how she comes up with the half screams, grunts, and other noises she makes when she slips and falls. I just don't feel like those come very natural unless you're recording them while climbing and slipping from a rock

wall on your click kids playset in the backyard because the guys that built it put the hand and footholds in the wrong spot, but I guess that's what you get when you buy it with the $99 installation special. So but but in so you mentioned like in your recording you were doing like pushups and sprints I guess to get out of breath or whatever. But did they like did you talk to me about that? Like so much of the so much of the dialogue or so much of the character voice in this is literally just like climbing noises. You mentioned you you had watched climbing videos and attempted

to emulate some of that but it feels so genuine. I mean, was there anything more to that? Well, it's, I don't know, it might surprise some of, some of, you know, your listeners, but voice acting is actually, it's very physical, particularly with this game. So you're, you know, you're emulating sounds of really difficult physical efforts and, you know, and sometimes, you know, you're swinging off a rope and your life depends on it and it's very physical. So yeah, you can sort of think, oh, okay, so yeah, I'll emulate a scream and try and get it to sound like that. But sometimes the way to actually

get the achieved sound that, and you know, you're, you know, I've got like a big TV in front of me, so I'm watching cut scenes or I'm watching visuals, or I'm sort of dubbing over what I'm seeing and kind of recording as I'm watching Arva move. I'm sort of copying almost the, what I'm seeing in the, I'm seeing on the TV screen in the cut scenes and I'm forming her shape physically, you know, if she's hunched over or she's in pain. And changing your physicality as a performer, you know, it's actually changing how much of my diaphragm I can use.

So it's changing the sound, it's changing how much breath I can use, it's making my breathing shallower, you know, it changes so many things. So sometimes I would physically kind of become a hunchback or, you know, I look ridiculous in the studio probably. But you know, you don't care, you have to lose all your inhibitions. Do you have any proof of this we'd like to see? Well, I mean, I'll tell you a lot of the time, I mean, if they're doing any sort of behind the scenes stuff, a lot of the time I'm, you know, if I'm, if she's like climbing up a rock, for example,

I would kind of hunch over a lot. So as if I'm really holding onto this rock and you know like every movement is an effort and you want to try and that was awesome if anyone's watching on video that was awesome I just thought I'd do it. If anyone's watching on video, that was awesome. But, you know, you want each vocal effort to sound a little bit different as well, because each time you're not going to sound exactly the same. So the way I like to, this is just a weird Sophia thing that I do, but each time I think, right, I go through the vowels, A E I O U,

and I think, okay, first vocal effect is going to be an A, so I go, ah, the next one is E, the next one is I, so it would be, you know, it would just be like different vowel sounds and I'm just randomly giving them stuff. That is fascinating. That is fascinating. Thank you. I've never heard that before, but that is fascinating and very like smart. That's great utility. I mean, it just helps stop things being a bit repetitive, you know, when the director's like, okay, give me something else. Give me something. I'm like, okay, what letter have I not done yet? You know, like, oh, there's Z. Did you, did you try that? Yeah,

I was going to say, did you ever try that with consonants a bit harder? Yeah. You know, um, yeah. And we, man, I do not envy the sound engineer who had to like tag all of these, probably thousands of individual noises, uh, in a sound library. Oh my gosh. That's unbelievable. We had a few different sound engineers. We had a particular regular sound engineer. We had Jack outside. Shout out to you, Jack. Shout out to Jack. Shout out to Jack. He and I spent most of the time recording together and I think he is probably so fed up of hearing my voice now.

You know, he's heard every facet of my voice possible. Bless him. He signed up for it. Yeah, and so did he to be fair. So you know, bless him. He signed up for it. I, yeah, yeah. And so did he, to be fair. So, um, you know, just saying, but yeah, we, we, we had, we had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun and, um, yeah. That's what a great peek behind the curtain. Thank you so much for, for sharing that. So, uh, curious, then this comes from, uh, fromiggle Puff in our community. Have you been rock climbing since? Has this inspired you to do any rock climbing?

Well, I like that Jiggle Puff even thinks I've ever gone rock climbing. I mean, I have never been rock climbing, Jigglepuff. And after Ava's journey, I don't think I'll ever want to, to be honest with you. And she does go through hell and back. I mean, it's made me admire and appreciate and also realize as well that it's an Olympic sport, rock climbing as well. I had no idea. Um, but it's just given me an appreciation, um, particularly sort of like for athletes and, you know, like how much resilience and just your entire being, you know, you just

have to throw everything in and, and, and I just, I think these people are amazing. But no, I'm quite happy at home with a cup of tea and a chocolate biscuit. You know. Follow up, follow up question then. So from Stylen Steve 135, did you actually record any of these lines while you were hanging from the side of a mountain or anything like that? Were you actually hanging on anything when you were recording any of this? So, no. No, we were in a studio booth the whole time. There were no actual mountains

involved. It was- They didn't set up like a climbing apparatus like monkey bars or something in your studio? No. I mean, I think during the demo, there was a French actress who originally did some of the vocal efforts in the demo and they've just kept them in. And I think she actually was hanging off a few pole bars and they were in a kind of not your traditional studio, they were in a sort of slightly bigger booth room with lots of apparatus and things. And I think she was a little bit more physical

than I ever got. But I'll leave that to her because I'm quite happy with lying on a sunbed with a cocktail. That'll do me. Okay, okay. So you mentioned tea and biscuits earlier. What's the best tea and biscuit combo? Oh, well, I do love an Earl Grey tea. It's quite a flowery type of tea over here in England.

Earl Grey with, well, it's gotta either be a chocolate digestive or, I mean, I'm not impartial actually to a ginger biscuit as well. Ginger biscuits are quite nice. Ooh, ginger biscuits are completely underrated actually Actually, do you prefer the harder the crisp? I mean, the crisp or the chewy? No, no, it's got to have a bit of crunch, you know, the ginger biscuit and then you dip it in the tea and then it gets nice and light and then it gets a little mushy. Yeah. I know.

Uh, what about your favorite cocktail? Um, well, that's a difficult one. I mean, my go to usually, I do like a porn star martini. Pornstar martini or mojito is quite nice. Or strawberry daiquiri, actually. Strawberry daiquiri. That's a good one. Strawberry, and sugar and booze on a hot day is a great cure all. I mean, I love a bit of sugar and a bit of cocktail. When's the last time you had a proper English breakfast? Do you know what? This is going to sound ridiculous, but it was in Bali.

It was literally a few weeks ago on my honeymoon in Bali. That's probably when it was. Actually, that was when they do that specifically, like for you, like as a request, or the place we were staying at, they had, you know, you could have English breakfast every day if you wanted. Like including like, like black pudding. No, they did not have black pudding. But then I go, I don't really like, don't really like black pudding? No, they did not have black pudding. But then I don't really like black pudding. So. Yeah, I can understand. When you understand what it is,

I can understand people's reaction to it. I quite enjoy it, frankly. An English breakfast for me is probably the top meal on the face of the planet. I mean, first time good It's it's really good. It'll carry you through the day to when my wife visited my wife and I visited for the first time we stayed like at a proper Airbnb where somebody was serving us breakfast and I Must have looked like a kid in Disneyland for the first time when she brought out that trash can trash can lid size plate with every single food item you could imagine on it. Oh gosh,

for anybody listening, if you have an experience of proper English breakfast, it's all of your food grapes and all of your calories for the day in one meal. Oh, fantastic. Don't eat anything else for the day. Yeah, exactly. So what's your relationship with gaming? Are you a gamer? Have you ever played games, non-gamer? So before I met my husband, I didn't know the first clue about video games.

I wouldn't have even been interested in talking about them or anything. I didn't have a Scooby-Doo, really. And then when I met my husband, boyfriend at the time, I realized he was a gamer and I thought, oh, this is silly. What's so great about gaming and all of this? And when I actually watched him starting to play these games, I was really shocked because I didn't realize how story driven and like how much narrative and how cinematic games actually are, you know, and how, how drawn in it gets you because you're, it's not like watching a film. It's like you're

actually drawn into the story and you're making decisions, you know, throughout. And I was just Mario Brothers anymore. Yeah. And I was fascinated by that. I think the first game my husband played was Neo Noir, I think it's called, or, I think that's what it was, Neo Noir or- Okay.

And then there was Supermassive games, the dark anthology series. And then Okay, so he's he's a legit gamer then he's like, he's like proper like gamer gamer. Yeah. So did he totally geek out when you got this role? He was a bit starstruck. I mean, the very first role I got was in Assassin's Creed Mirage and... Oh very cool. Yeah, yeah. So that was my first entry into the world of gaming and I thought oh wow this is kind of cool. And yeah I was yeah just really sort of finding my stride in it. And then, yeah, this kind of came out and I was like, Oh, right then. But yeah, I kind of got an interest and developed an interest in gaming because of my husband. And, you know, when I was watching him playing

like Last of, and things like that. And I was just going to mention the last of us is such a wonderful example of what you're talking about. Yeah. So the last of us did very well as a video game. And then there was a show adaptation on HBO Max. And I've played the game and I've watched the show. And every

time I'm watching the show, I go, this is a really great adaptation. But for anybody who's enjoying this, gosh, would you love the game? I mean, like, because you're able to immerse yourself in it and take your time with the character and experience it on a level that you just can't. Yeah. Uh, when, when you're watching the show. Yeah, absolutely. But it's, it's, do you have, yeah. Do you have a dream role or franchise that you'd not necessarily video games, but just in general, do you have sort of like a dream project that you'd like to work on? Ah, well, if they were to make any more of the Dark Anthology and Supermassive games, I'd love to get involved with something like that.

Or in terms of like TV stuff, I mean, I'm a huge Handmaid's Tale fan. Ah, yeah, my wife and I watch. Yes. So, I mean... That is a big pill of depressing. It's a big pill of depressing, but I mean, there's a kind of theme running here with these kind of women who kind of go through hell and back, and for some reason I'm drawn to them. So, I don't know why I keep being drawn to these characters and being cast in them, so, but yeah, something.

Well, let's dig into that. Why do you think you're attracted to those characters? Um, I don't know. I think as Sophia, I think I'm quite an empathic person. And I like to think because I'm an empath that I can understand people and resonate maybe with some of, you know, what they're going through. I was a bit of a loner at school as well. I was sort of the weird one. So I think, you know, you know, an actor was the weird one in school. Yeah, for sure. For sure. But I mean, just, you know,

you kind of you're always a bit different, aren't you? And sometimes people don't like that. So I think, you know, you, you kind of find little bits of yourself and you think, gosh, that really resonates with me or, oh, yeah, I can understand that. And I've always been interested in people and, you know, why are people behaving in that way? And, you know, a bit more sort of the psychology behind things.

So I like understanding complex people and the layers of that. So yeah, it's a big ball of string to untangle, but it's an interesting question. I don't think I've ever been asked that before. Well, yeah, it makes sense as an empath and somebody in your profession that these sort of deep pained characters probably provide quite a compelling, compelling, cathartic experience for somebody like you. Do you have like a favorite fictional character like you can think of, like maybe a character that inspired you to get into this line of work to begin with? Well, currently my favorite fictional character, going back to Handmaid's Tale,

but I love June Osborn in Handmaid's Tale. She is my go-to. Again, she's very similar to Ava. Actually, it's interesting even from a performance perspective because so much of the show is dependent on these sort of nuanced reactions from her. It's very close up, intense cinematography and it's very emotional you know, it's a very, very emotional, very personal story. Very vulnerable as well. Very vulnerable. Yes. Yes. And oftentimes, you know, June is alone and she's alone with her thoughts or she's isolated

from the outside world, you know, and so is Ava. I guess, you know, she's alone with her thoughts in this vast place. But she's different with her because she's choosing to leave behind people and to make this perilous climb and with the knowledge that she might not ever come back, you know, so she's she's an in she's really interesting. And other very interesting character to play. But yeah, I really am drawn to characters with that have a lot of ambition. And they're very resilient. Yeah. Awesome. So we're getting a little low on time here. I wanted to ask you, what do you hope that players take away from this experience with Karen?

I want them to experience this game fully. It should feel euphoric. It should also, I hope because I've seen, you know, there's been some criticism about the protagonist being a female, but I really hope, I mean, yeah, I mean, you get that from everywhere, but I really hope that it kind of, because traditionally you think, oh, a big tough sort of character, going climbing up a rock, oh, it's gonna be a man, isn't it?

But I think maybe it will bring out a softer side, gamers playing this game, and they'll see that this woman, she is tough. She's very, very ambitious, but she's very complex as well. And she does have a vulnerability and there is, you know, and the performance in it, you know, there's this innate truth that comes out. And, you know, I hope players can kind of I hope players can kind of sense a little bit of themselves as well. It's almost also about almost a fear of dying. It's like a life or death thing.

It's quite a big thing, but you get so engrossed in the game. And it's quite a long game, think you know and there's a lot to tackle along the way and so I just hope players fully experience all of all of this game because so much goes into it and there are lots of little nuances and I think you know if you play the game even you know again and again you'll find different things within the game, within the storytelling, within the character, you'll find different things. There's, there's, there is so much in this game. This is why it took so long to record, but there is so much in this game and enjoy the ride and enjoy it and it and the beauty of this game and and you know it should feel

like escapism. I love it so again having played the demo I agree with everything you said it is a it is a beautiful beautiful game very intimate and unique I haven't personally played a game like this ever. For anybody listening, the demo is available right now for free. I highly recommend you check it out. The demo is about an hour. It's going to grip you. Sofia, is there any place that people can follow you or support your support your work. Thank you. I am on Instagram at Sophia Eleni official and I'm also on X as well at Sophia Eleni. That's me. But just a quick fun fact about Ken. This game, what makes it also a little bit more special is that it was inspired by true story. No kidding. I didn't realize that. Yes. Our game. So the game, one of the game developers, Audrey Le Prince, her father was a professional mountain climber and it's based on his experiences and she was really inspired by that and so they made it into a game and they thought why not make this a game. We'll have a female protagonist and put a little spin on it and so yeah it's a little bit special this game. Wow. Yeah.

If that, if that doesn't hook you listeners, I don't know. I don't know what will that that's, that's amazing. I had no idea that there was sort of like a true inspiration behind all of this. Yes. Awesome. Sophia, it has been so wonderful talking to you. What a great way for me to start my morning and you know start your afternoon. I guess I don't know Thank you for having me

Yeah, of course listeners If you enjoyed this episode, please please please take a moment to follow us on your spot Your podcast player of choice and rate us five stars It goes such a long way towards helping an independent show like us keep going and meet wonderful people like Sophia here if you really enjoyed the show and want to take your support the next step we have a patreon the information will be put in our show notes for easy access there and of course we recommend everyone joins our patreon we've got a thriving patreon gamer community it's the best community in gaming of over a easy access there. And of course we recommend everyone joins our Patreon. We've got a thriving

Patreon gamer community. It's the best community in gaming of over a thousand people now that are all regularly engaged and help to inform the content of this show. Please take a moment to support and follow Karen and Sophia. We will include those links in the show notes as well. And, uh, guys, I can't stress it enough. This is such a unique, fun and oddly relaxing perilous journey that you can take with this game. Please go check it out. Sophia.

It's been awesome having you on the show today. And that's all on the show today. And that's all we have for today. And until next time, happy gaming. Bye guys.