Surmount, Insurmountable, Unsurmountable…
It was Digital Foundry’s John Linneman who first made me see the truth.
Funny it should take me so long to realise this.
I have friends who are climbers and I am always full of questions.
I’ve read the complete works of people like Alex Honnold and Chris Bonington.
Bonington was my mum’s childhood - and adulthood - hero, incidentally.
It’s a picture of pure adventure.
What a disappointment to him I must be.
At that desk, though, I do quite a bit of climbing.
I climbed through Crackdown, without realising it, and recently I climbed through Jusant.
How do games do that?
The climbing, though, it plays straight - astonishingly straight really.
I sometimes find myself with my eyes squeezed shut in these moments.
You’re using the stick, but it feels like I’m flinging my whole body.
Hopefully you fly across the map in the direction you were hoping to go in.
Often, I find myself crashing to earth instead.
Insurmountable came out a few years back and I’ve been circling it since then without really engaging.
Now I have, and it’s odd and clever and quietly magical.
This is climbing as a sort of tactics game with a bit of narrative roguelike thrown in.
Warmth, energy, oxygen and sanity can’t be relied upon.
You have to do a bit of inventory Tetris when you pick up new supplies.
you might only use a tent three times for sleeping before it’s worn out.
Irritating, I guess, but I also felt very vulnerable in such moments.
This game is a delight.
Unsurmountable is like all the other mountain games - get from the bottom to the top.
It’s a choice.
See you at base camp.
A copy of Surmount was provided by Popagenda.
