Video Gamers Podcast - One Mountain, No Mercy: Breaking Down the Brutal Brilliance of Cairn – Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: February 5, 2026

Gaming hosts Josh, Ryan and Ace are strapping in for a deep dive on the indie sensation Cairn, one of the most talked-about releases of the year. Is this stark survival climb a quiet masterpiece, or just another case of gaming buzz outrunning reality? We break down what Cairn actually is, how its minimalist systems create tension, and why so many players are calling it one of the most memorable video games in recent years. From atmosphere and mechanics to difficulty and player choice, this episode explores whether Cairn truly earns its hype and what it says about where gaming is headed. If you love thoughtful video games that challenge your expectations, don’t miss this episode of the Video Gamers Podcast!   Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Disratory, Ol’ Jake, Gaius, Jigglepuf, Phelps and NorwegianGreaser, and Dettmarp   Thanks to our Legendary Supporters: HypnoticPyro, PeopleWonder, Bobby S.   Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: ⁠patreon.com/videogamerspod⁠ Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/h2cHKAvSmu 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

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See app for Tims. Fellow gamers and welcome to the video gamers podcast. Today we take a deep dive into Cairn, a game that asks a deceptively simple question. What if the mountain itself was the boss fight? No combat, just preparation, precision, and the constant risk of one wrong move ending at all. I am your host, Ace. And joining me is the man who decided he would rather keep his feet on the ground this time. It's Josh.

Oh, hey guys. Are we doing an episode on a game? I can't hear you from down there, Shorty. Yeah, I'm staying down here where it's fun and not boring. Josh, come up. There's totally not fairs. I'm good. You guys, you guys go on ahead.

I'll just stay here and play games that I like. Oh, fair enough. And joining us, he got knocked down. He got up again, but you ain't ever going to keep him down. It's right. You're dang right, brother. I'm just going to keep on climb and climb and climbing. I feel like that was a lot of song references right there.

Like in that intro, like, ain't nobody going to keep me down. Ain't nobody going to hold me down. Oh, no. And it's like climbing, this is why you're at the bottom of the mountain, dude. I was going to. The troglodytes would have kicked your butt out in a heartbeat. They would have kicked you out.

See, you don't even know what that is. There's troglodytes in this game? Yeah, see? Yeah, an ancient race of people known as the troglodytes. I will say this. Ace, you sent some screenshots of this game that really, and I kind of went, what's up with this one? And then I was like, this game might actually be a little bit more fun than I gave it credit for.

Well, guys, Karen has finally released. We've been waiting for this since I looked back since June of the last year. Goodness. We have been waiting for Karen. me and Ryan, we played the demos. We absolutely loved it. We could not wait. I played the demo.

Could not wait to get into the full game. Give me credit where credit is due. I did play the demo. Yes, but you missed the part at the end where I said absolutely loved it. Oh, oh, okay. I did miss that part? Did you beat the demo, though? Did you like make it to the peak?

Anyway, let's go on to the next subject here, Ace. So you were saying that you and Ryan really liked the demo and there we go. Yeah, we could not wait to get our hands on this game. Ryan, what kind of game is cared? uh, Karen is like, it's a weird combo of, uh,

a climbing game, a survivalist game, um, some, some crafting elements. Like, it's just, it's,

it's a weird mismatch of everything. But it more than anything, it's, it's, it's a vibes. Like, yeah, it's a vibes.

game, man. I, and I know we're going to get deep into it. Uh, I know you and I are very excited about this one. And we're going to, you know,

talk to Sophia, uh, soon, but, uh, Yeah, that'll be cool. Man, this is, I'm excited to talk about this one.

Yeah, I'm absolutely pumped to get back into this one. And since you set this one out, Josh, I guess you stay down there at the bottom of the mountain. No, I'm gonna be, honestly, I'm gonna be asking a lot of questions because I do have questions about this.

I said in our pre-show that we do for our Patreon supporters that like I have a lot of FOMO on this game, believe it or not, even though I don't like climbing games. Like, hearing people talk about it, seeing how you guys, seem so excited about playing it. We don't share our opinions with each other on these deep dives.

Like we want to kind of discover that just as the listeners do. But like I have this inner fomo that it's like, dang, I think I might be missing something really cool. But then I don't like this style of gameplay. And it's like, I feel like if I bought it and I played it, I would just wind up not liking it because of the gameplay. And that's a me thing. That's not anything to do with the game itself. Like, so let's just be clear right up front. Like, I didn't play Karen because I don't like climbing games. It is nothing against the game itself.

I actually think the game looks phenomenal. Every, you know, every trailer, every gameplay video, you know, every screenshot looks like you guys said, like it's a vibe. So I'm really curious to see like what y'all's thoughts on this are and to try to get some, like, I'm going to be asking some questions because I know there's listeners that aren't as familiar with Karen as, as you guys are. So I kind of get to be that representative, I think. That's fair.

It's like when I set out the Ark Raiders deep dive. If a game is not for you, there's no reason to pick it up. Like if you already know it's not your thing, sit it out. It's fine. No, but the FOMO will get you. It will absolutely climb up to you. I play everything. It'll always get you.

It'll always get you. It'll always get you. And boy, does Karen have some FOMO with over 200,000 players. And it's like 94% percent. positive on Steam already. Congrats to them, man. Like, honestly. Congrats to the game bakers.

Congrats to Karen. You made an impressive game. Yeah. Well, let's jump right into Karen. The main mechanic of Karen is obviously the climbing. You're going to climb up this impossible mountain. Nobody has ever summited before. That's the whole point.

You play as Ava, a, like, expert mountaineer mountain climber. And you are going to, to summit mount commie which is the it becomes a friend and an enemy depending how your journey is going genuinely as ryan found out oh yeah definitely is you uh you streamed karen when it came out a little bit i did i did i was able to have some people come on and uh we got some people watching um if you're not following we do have a twitch stream we will stream games from here to there uh it's not super consistent but we we stream when we want to uh it's always a good time though so definitely check it out

but uh i did get a chance to stream it and it was cool to share the experience of just kind of traversing this world and going up this mountain yeah it's super cool and karen has a very unique way you climb too where the you can you can do it two ways you can manually choose which limbs to move in order to grab the correct you know grips or precision

like cracks in the wall things like that or you can let the game decide for you, which is what I did most of the time. I just let the game be like, yeah, you should probably move this arm, this leg. And sometimes that screwed me over. Because I was like, no, no, no, no, wait. So did you ever, like, just spam to get, like, past the legs so you can get to an arm? Yeah, I just spam. Because she's, like, shaking.

You're like, you know, I didn't get to the arms. And you need to. Because it doesn't grip exactly where you want to, you know, type of thing. Yeah. You're, like, you missed by, like, a centimeter. And now instead of grabbing, like, the crack in the wall, you grab the flat stone face. Yeah. She just goes to the face.

Oh, no. So, yeah, we'll get into that. But, uh, but, but yeah, there's definitely, yeah, some of, some of those aspects. Yeah. And Karen is more than just the mountain climbing, though. It's the story of this mountain climber Ava and her, um, honestly her emotional baggage, uh, as she goes up this mountain and the trials and tribulation she goes through. What did you think of Ava as a main character, Ryan? Uh, I thought she was like, kind of the, the, the, uh,

standard like super reserved i got a dark deep past um i'm i'm wildly excellent at what i do but i don't want to talk to anybody i don't want to see anybody you know i want to do my thing type stuff and uh it fit for her you know it fit for her in that moment like as you're climbing up and we'll get more into to her and her character as like the the game progresses but like uh i think on the intro you you kind of you kind of to get that feeling of she is wildly experienced. She's the best of the best. She has

done everything and it's like, this is the one. Here you are. This is the one. You go through your tutorial. You start in a little rock climbing gym that's at the base of the mountain and you do that and you go through there. But then

you know, you're at the mountain after that. And so like this, this is the climb that you have to do. to really, I don't know, cement yourself in history or whatever she's looking for or whatever she's searching for, like, that's what you're trying to do. So she is that kind of dark, deep character that there's a lot more to be uncovered from the get-go. And you do discover that as you climb up the mountain. As you get higher and higher, you discover more. So. Yeah. And she's a very abrasive personality. So I have a question on this. So would you say,

I see this game and I just see the mountain climbing part, right? And I go, yeah, that's not for me. But would you qualify this game as, is it a story-based game? Like, yes, you do climb, but you feel like the story is like what the forefront is? Or is it like, no, no, no, this is definitely a climbing game. So you got to like that aspect. But there's some story elements that they sprinkle in at the same time. Like, how would you classify it, I guess?

similar to how I would classify Celeste how overcoming the mountain and Celeste also intertwines with the story of overcoming yourself It's very similar that the story and the mountain It's the best platformer there is in my opinion So like if I think Celeste

I'm saying like if you want to play the best platformer Like you play Celeste Now yes there is a story there But you know the story is secondary to me To the actual like gameplay portion of Celeste The story is much more important to obvious to Ava and her like mental state, her emotional state. And it kind of reflects on how her progress up the mountain is going.

So the how it's taking its toll on her. The book of this is just Ava's journey, what you learn about her as a character, like that kind of thing. Like the story of Ava is more like the forefront of this than it's like, yeah, this is like a climbing simulator, but it's got a few other elements. Yeah. You'll, you'll get introduced to Ava. She's a very abrasive, tough personality to get along with it. first and you'll just start to understand more and more why she is the way she is. Okay.

As you go up this mountain and you meet new characters and you meet, uh, trials that really are really tough for any person. Like, uh, well, what did you run into recently, Ryan that just happened to stopping your tracks? Yeah. Uh, the, the cool thing is to Josh, like is as you traverse the mountain to, they have it set up to where it actually is. it's weird because nobody is going to take the same path up these,

up these mountain, you know, rock climbing areas. Like everybody's going to go a different way. Everybody's going to do something slightly different and that is going to lead to a different result every single time. And the weather may be different. All these things, there's so many factors that come into play. But what they do, I think, really well is, is that Josh you mentioned like the story of her and who she is is that like in each segment it's almost like segments is that they just chop up the mountain into like a million different segments is like you get up this section and they do a really good job of making you not just like I'm not just climbing the whole time because that would get boring and and I would get annoyed and frustrated but you get to up to another area where like oh now I found this area that has fish and I can catch a fish and I can do this.

this or I can do that. Yeah, with my bare hands. And so, or I can get a call and, and somebody talks to me about my past, you know, through my robot. And there's just, there's always something on the next ledge that, uh, keeps you going. Like it's, it's, it's like the next step and it keeps the story going. So it's, it's not just climbing. It's, it's climbing through the story. So every time you get up to the next level, you're able to rest. You're able to relax. You're able to. and then go to the next stage and then start again. So it is cool.

It gives you like a little chance to rest and kind of figure out what's going on. And then you can start the climbing again. So the climbing is like the bridge that connects the different parts of the story. Absolutely. That's a perfect way to describe it. Yeah. But there's not just the climbing you have to worry about in this game. This game is far more interactive.

Like Ryan said, it is not a linear path. You cannot just go straight and start climbing upwards and you're going to make it. You're going to have to be decisive and work around things. Like there's obstacles. There's a bear. Yeah, there's a bear. There was a bear. Really, there's troglodytes.

Didn't that what you said, Ryan? Yeah, the troglodytes are an ancient civilization of people that used to live on Mount Kami. Okay. Like, there's so much to do. And while you're doing on this, you need to be taking care of Ava's mental and, uh, physical health. Yes. Like, you've got to wrap her fingers from all the climbing you've done because she'll start bleeding from the fingers. Got to get that max grip, baby.

Yeah, you got to get max grip. Or otherwise, if you don't do that when you're climbing up next time, you're going to slip. And it's going to be a nasty situation, especially if you didn't set up atone. But other than that, you also have to keep her fed. hydrated and warm because you're a mountain climber. There's elements up here, man. It's freezing. Yep.

Sometimes if you fall in the snow, you lose all your temperature. I actually, jokes aside, I actually did beat the demo when we played this game because I do remember you summit and then it shows the big mountain off the distance. Yeah. And it's like, surprise. So, you know, I did actually beat the demo for this. One of the parts that I thought was really cool was the survival part. Like you, you know, you get set up in your, your tent, and it's got that whole thing where it's like, do you want to cook food? Do you want to hydrate?

You know, do you want to wrap her fingers? But you only have a certain, if I remember right, you only have a certain number of actions that you can take or something like that. It's, uh, it's not actions. It's just amount of resources you can carry in your backpack. Is that what it is? So if you don't have it on you, you don't have it. Right. I remember it feeling limited.

Like I couldn't do everything. So I had to kind of have to choose what I thought would be most impactful or something like that. And that part of the game I thought was really cool because it. felt like they were mixing, you know, this, this climbing part, which again, you know, it's just not for me. But then the survival part of it, I thought was really neat. Like that part to me was like, oh, okay, this is kind of cool because you're managing like her, like you said, like her health and her, you know, what's going to help you tackle the next part of the game? And you could kind of tell that this was preparing you for the next thing. And then when you do the next thing, then you get

kind of rewarded with the story portions or that, you know, the discovery of Ava and stuff like that. Yeah, and something this game really does well is it rewards you for exploration. There's all sorts of stuff to find, including like big upgrades. Yeah. Like you can get a bigger chalk bag, which gives you better grip when you're in like the rain, because the rain will make you slide off the mountainside. You can, yeah, I know, I know. You could find a thermal blanket that'll let you rest without having to set up your camp and warm back up.

I found the blanket. Yeah, yeah, the thermal blanket. One of the big upgrades I found was a, surprisingly, it was a pinwheel that I put on my backpack that would tell me when the wind was about to pick up. So I wouldn't just get blown off the side of the mountain. Oh, that's a good one. There's all sorts of stuff to do in this world of Karen where it's completely alive. Like, Mount Kami is your enemy, but it is also the one thing that is keeping you alive is the amount of resources you can pick up here. All right.

We, this episode is going by really fast because I love Karen and I want to keep talking about it, but it's going to have to wait until after this break. With Amex Platinum, $400 in annual credits for travel and dining means you not only satisfy your travel bug, but your taste buds too. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. Local news is in decline across Canada, and this is bad news for all of us. With less local news, noise,

Rumors and misinformation fill the void, and it gets harder to separate truth from fiction. That's why CBC News is putting more journalists in more places across Canada, reporting on the ground from where you live, telling the stories that matter to all of us, because local news is big news. Choose news, not noise. CBC News. All right, we are back, and I am absolutely hyped to talk more about Karen. Ryan, where did you end up in Karen so far?

I was pretty far. I'm probably, this is the issue with these types of games for me is I tend to experiment and explore. And so a 15, 20 hour game could turn into a 50 hour game for me because of the way I play. I spent a ton of time just, oh, what's that? oh, and I climbed to this way or that way or these different things and see what's going on and check things out and then double pass through and like look through and then I'm taking screenshots and I'm looking around. So I got I got pretty far. I am, I would say probably 15 to 13 to 15 hours through the game. I have not finished it yet, which I know you have, which is good because

Josh has some played it. I'm kind of midway. maybe three quarters and then your complete, you know, full full play through. It's good to have all these points. Yeah. We got. So, so basically, uh, I am, I am where I'm at, you know, I, uh, have, have, have ascended the mountain to a, to a degree where it's very troublesome. I am, I am having a very hard time, uh, traversing upwards and keeping my, myself, uh, in order.

and keeping myself hydrated and fed and warm. Like it's the survival aspects, they make, they make a big deal, Josh. So this is a question because I saw, I think it was hell of it in our community that was saying that he felt like he was almost soft locked in a spot because he's like, hey, the game saved. But I don't think I have enough resources. And I'm out of like whatever like, you know, it was like he couldn't climb to the next level to get more resources. so he felt like he was kind of in this bad place where it's like, I can't tackle this next segment, but I don't have enough resources to go out and collect more resources.

So what do I do kind of thing? And I don't know if that's, I think he mentioned he felt like he was close to the end of the game. But it does, the impression that I get is, is this game gets like harder and harder as you play. Like, you know, it starts off easy,

but then it really starts to up the challenge level. I'm assuming that challenge. level is in the climbing, but I'm assuming that the challenge in the climbing is that you don't have all this stuff to prepare to be fully healthy to knock out that climb. So like I guess my question is can you get like soft lock where it's just like, dude, I can't I can't progress because I'm out of fatigue. I'm out of food. I'm out of water and I got to just reload like a prior save from two hours ago. So I am a bit of a pack rat. So I never found myself soft locked. I always had something to keep myself up

and I managed my resources fairly well. I did go through quite a few resources when I would be stubborn and I wouldn't reset myself and I would just keep trying to climb the same wall and I would there's one really annoying thing that can happen this game where you're about to set a

patone and you don't want to fall and as you set it before she can hook in and the patons are like set points right or checkpoints checkpoints basically they They keep you in a certain point on the wall. So say you put one in and you don't hook in, that means you are not hooked in.

And if you fall, you'll fall right past it and that could be 15 feet. That could be 30 feet. That could be to your death. Because you can die in Karen and it happens to some people pretty often. I only died once. I only died once. I only died once. Dude, okay.

So here's this is the issue is where what you can't do. is that when you see these like little hills uh little sledges and stuff that are maybe 15 20 feet up you're like oh i can just scale that no problem um don't do it like don't don't try that that way like take your time be be meticulous be specific because everything in this game like you may think there's a little ledge below you but the second you fall you just it's just ragdoll physics and then you just start flopping. Oh yeah. No, you can't get back up immediately. Yeah, you just start flopping and you just go down 3,000 feet and you just like splat on the ground and you're dead. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, you have to be very, very specific on how you climb and where you go and what you do, because otherwise, you know, you'll fall to your death for sure. I can see getting soft locked if you, you know, use up your resources and stuff, especially near the end, uh, something happens that makes it very easy to use up all your resources. very quickly, but that's intentional. The game does that very much on purpose

because you are, you're not supposed to be there. You're really not supposed to be there. But before we get to like any kind of big spoilers like that, I want to know something. Ryan, you said this is your kind of cozy game. So I want you to explain like what that means for this to be a cozy game for you. So that's a good question.

So for me, uh, man, like I am not someone who just wants to sit around and like play like a walking simulator or a cozy thing but like something about this gives me gives me a direct objective like hey get to the top of the mountain and then i i get discovery along the way and so those two things are what set it apart from anything else for me i have i have a uh a beautiful world that i can continuously look out at the music is amazing it's it's a it's a it's a It's a wonderful setting.

Oh, it's beautiful. Yeah. Oh, my gosh. Excuse me. There's, there's, um, there's cool history throughout as you go through. So it's not just kind of a, uh, uh, walking around seeing things. It, there's, there's just so many layers to it that made it more than just like a cozy game, in my opinion.

This, this, to me, this doesn't feel like a standard cozy game. This feels like something that, um, that, that, that, that, that, you, go on a journey with, you are part of it, you, you travel with this character, and you feel like you're part, you're, you're part of this world as you traverse up this mountain. So that, that drew me in hardcore. I, you know me, I'm an outdoors guy. I love, I love the wilderness. I love the forest. I love waterfalls. I love everything that I saw in this game. So anything that was there was, was all, all right for me. So, yeah, this, this was if this is a cozy

game this is like my type of cozy game. Is it cozy game because the climbing just doesn't require like a lot of quick reflexes or like a lot of thought or anything? Well, taking your time with it is the best choice. Does it? It's weird because it's like I don't know I would describe it kind of as a cozy game but it's also

like extremely stressful and maybe that's why I liked it. It's intense. It is absolutely intense. It's like so intense. like um you have these like cracks along the wall and you got to like like get the right joint into there and then you got to climb up and then you only have so much chalk and you only have so much petons that you can like anchor in otherwise if you don't you fall and you get your progress reset or you fall and die if you didn't set up any which is what I ran into unfortunately uh so like it's there's man it's it's hard because there's a lot there but it's also

it feels like a cozy game, but it's also maybe cozy game players won't feel like it is. I don't know. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact there's almost no UI in this game. So you only really see Ava and the world. And you start to really start to blend into the world with Ava and interact with things. You run into animals. You run into other people on the mountain.

And you just start to realize like Mount Kami is a very interesting place. Yes. and I loved it personally. Also, something to mention about when you fall, Ava likes to curse and get mad and you feel it. You're just like, yep, I feel the same way. I'm really angry. The only difference is I didn't

balk my head. Yeah. She did a good job. I can't wait to talk to her about it. Yeah, that'll be great. All right. I want to move into the spoiler section here so I can talk about the ending. This game has two endings. We didn't mention him because I didn't want to spoil it, but you meet a younger climber on your way up the mountain named Marco. And he is the polar opposite of Ava. He is bright and sunshiny.

He's so happy to be there. And like halfway through the climb, you're going to see him again. And he's like, he's lost all his whimsy. He is terrified of this mountain. He's terrified of dying because 169 people have died trying to climb this mountain. Trying to get to the peak of this mountain. And no one has made it. And it's all starting to really.

set in for him that he could die up here and he realizes that Ava understands that. Ava is ready to die to get up this mountain. Yeah. And he wants to go back down, but he won't go down without her. And he tries so hard to convince her over and over again. Eventually you get to basically the point just before the peak, the point of no return. There is a mountain climber up there who has been up there for years because he never came back down and he never decided to summit.

And he's been basically shooting the ropes that these other climbers are hanging from to get them back down into the valley because they died up on the peak. And it's the most morbid and horrible thing when he takes you to the back room. And he opens the door and there's just lines upon lines of backpacks from all the dead climbers. And it all really sets in for both Ava and Marco that like, you go past that point, you're not going to make it to the peak.

You're not going to survive. Like, that's it. Marco is ready to leave. He's like, Ava, we gotta go. And you can say, I'll go back down with you. And then in that ending, you go down with Marco. You meet back up with your family, your girlfriend, your publisher, you know, Ava has a happy life,

continues living. But she's very unfulfilled and the mountain always wins in the end is what the The game's tagline. I think the mountain always wins. Should you decide to summit Mount Kami? Marco will hug you, say goodbye, and say he'll wait for you in the valley. You will begin, well, before you begin your summit, something terrible happens. You are handed the rifle to shoot down the ropes of a climber who died up there to get his body.

So you get the real feeling. Yep. And Ava decides to take her chances and go to the summit. This is where you will start mixing your techniques for climbing because not only when you're up that high, there's not only rock, but there's ice. So you will have to alternate between using ice picks and bare hands to climb yourself all the way up the mountain. And an avalanche will take place. Aval will have to climb her way up through the avalanche just to reach the point where she can maybe get to the summit. Once she steps on to that point, all of her stats are halved.

she has started to die basically. She has used up so much of her energy, it's so much of her life force that she has started to die. She makes her way to the summit finally. She, after a long, arduous climb, her robot dies. She has to decide whether she's going to cut it loose or keep dragging it with her. I chose to drag that thing with me to the summit because it's been with me the whole time.

Yeah. And finally, finally, after all this time, you have. Sumit in Mount Kami, it is the, you feel fulfilled, you feel like you did it, but Ava is not looking too hot. And she's having a rough time and she just goes on one knee and screams. And the game cuts to a point where she starts climbing the stars and it's understood at this point, Ava has died on top of the mountain. She has died chasing her dream. And no one will even know. it is a intense moment it's an intense moment yeah

that's like depressing and like I mean yeah I don't know like if you're it was the only thing that is like fulfilling her but like at the same time it's like is this really worth your life like I don't that's kind of the thing is like she's she doesn't know what's wrong with her that she can't get over it that she needs to meet this summit and letting go while the better ending is not her

it just doesn't feel like something she would do well it's funny too because you have the other guy that uh what's his name again uh marco marco yeah marco is there and he's like you know what if you fail you know go back down and then you try again and you know he's always like you know it's okay it's not a big deal you know and she just like what do you mean why try if you're gonna fail and you know you could see you've already decided in your mind you're not making it yeah she's she knows like and so to see her go to that extent you know if you choose that path is,

man, that's wild. And it also kind of starts to like really make sense to you why she's ignoring all the calls she's getting why she's not. Yeah, the PR guys is like,

come on, give me something. I need something. Yeah. She ignores her PR guy. She knows this was her final climb. She wanted this to be it, basically.

She's unfulfilled. Like this is her final goal. And if she can hit it, what's left to look forward to? But then there's just an amazing, amazing living? Like,

you know, this is, what a depressing story, man? You don't understand. I'm not getting, I just got, I got goosebumps

when Ace described like the last section. Like, the last section is beautiful. She starts climbing the stars and it's called, the prompt just says become part of a hole.

And you start climbing the stars and Ava's body takes off into the stars. It's amazing. Except that her body is dead and rotting up the top of this mountain. No. Yeah, no.

Her frozen corpse is up on the peak of the mountain. But she is the only person up there. So beautiful. She's the only person to make it. I mean, that's kind of cool. She should have brought her parachute. She's the only person to ever summit Mount Kami. Just jump, man.

That's what I thought about. I was like, oh, yeah, I'm just going to free glide off the top of this thing. Scroll suit and just go. I mean, there's a point in the game, like, where you're climbing that final summit and, like, all your health bars and stuff disappear, your stamina disappears because it just wants you to make it to the summit. Yeah, it's like, get done. It's like you're done. All right. Well, that's the ending of the game.

So hopefully you'll still want to see it for yourself, Ryan, but. Oh, I absolutely do. Yeah, no, I end the episode here. How would you rate this game? That's what you'd say. What are you rating it? Um, for me, man, it was a, for a game that's generally not my style. Um, I really had a lot of fun with this one.

I'm going to absolutely continue playing it. I hope to beat it and finalize it before we talk with Sophia. So I would say this is probably like a 8-9. I'd say 8-9 is fair. 8-9, something like that. It's really... I'm a little higher... I'm a little higher one than you.

I'm about a 9-2-9-3. Yeah, that's great. There's... It's really good, dude. It's a really good game, man. It's so much more than the climbing. You've got the expiration. You've got the survival.

you've got these the story and like genuinely there's so much more to the story I can't get into but it's it's a really good I highly recommend Karen as I will say is somebody that doesn't care to play the game I can look at the game and go this game looks masterfully done like honestly from the visuals to the voice acting to the music to you know again I played the demo like everything about this game just kind of screams like artistic and polish to it so it's one of those. ones where it's like I think if anybody out there is curious about Karen you should probably just pick it up unless you're an idiot like me that just doesn't like climbing games at all then that's understandable but like if this sounds interesting to to

you know any of the listeners I have a feeling that you will really enjoy this game because it just it looks like it's that good of a quality game yeah I'm not I'm not kidding when I say I think Karen is our first big must play of 2020 if you even sound remotely. Absolutely. I would agree. Yeah. You got to play it.

I'd say that. Yeah. If you even think you may like it, check it out. It's so good. Well, that is all the time that we have for this episode. If you enjoyed, be sure to rate us five stars on Spotify and Apple Podcast. Leave us a review if you're over on Apple. We read them here, I promise.

We didn't this time because it's an indie episode. But, you know, we have a Patreon. We're going to go the extra mile and shows a little bit of support. We would love that. And you get access to an amazing thing called the pre-show, where we are just goofballs unleashed is the way to put. I like to put that. I like that.

And of course, we have our Discord full of amazing gamers just like you who are currently, a lot of people playing Karen if you want to talk to people about that. So hop on in there if you haven't already. And I think that's all for this one. So until next time, happy gaming. Remember gamers, the field mouse is fast. but the Alcy's at night.

See ya! What are these endings? Ryan is doing now. It's getting more and more cryptic. See you everybody.