Emeric Thoa, creative director on Cairn
After Haven, a weightless romance game designed as an intimate bubble for two, the members of The Game Bakers studio are taking everyone by surprise with Cairn, a harsh, vertical, and demanding solo experience focused on climbing and survival in the high mountains. Behind this radical shift, however, lies a profound coherence: Cairn concludes a thematic trilogy that began with Furi and continued with Haven, exploring different facets of freedom—living freely, loving freely, then seeking absolute freedom at the cost of effort, risk, and sacrifice. Designed as a survival climber where every hold counts and every route becomes a personal story, Cairn pushes the studio’s experimental logic to its breaking point, both in terms of gameplay and staging, reinforced by the collaboration with Mathieu Bablet (with whom we spoke here). In this interview, Emeric Thoa looks back on the genesis of the project, its extraordinary technical challenges, and the almost obsessive ambition that drives this unique video game climb.
Point’n Think: Haven was a very different game, focused on duo exploration and romance. After its release, how did you come up with the idea for Cairn, a single-player game focused on climbing and survival? Was this radical choice motivated by your desire to constantly innovate and surprise the public, and do you see Cairn as the natural evolution of Haven?
Emeric Thoa: We do have a strong desire to innovate and surprise; it’s a survival strategy in today’s highly competitive video game market, with thousands of releases every year. But to be completely honest, the number one reason is also a personal desire to do something different. After working on a given game for four or five years, you want to change completely and try something new!
PnT: You have described Cairn as the final chapter in a trilogy on the theme of freedom that began with your previous games: Furi was about living freely, Haven was about the freedom to love whomever you want, and Cairn is about the quest for “absolute” freedom. Can you explain how this theme of freedom manifests itself in Cairn, both through Aava’s story and in the climbing gameplay itself?
Emeric: The story and gameplay come together to support this theme of freedom. The story is about Aava, a climber who has dedicated her life to climbing and who is searching for the freedom she only feels in certain moments of grace when she climbs a wall or reaches a summit. She also meets other characters who highlight the sacrifices that this quest for absolute freedom leads her to make. The gameplay is so innovative because we wanted players to feel this quest for freedom too. Unlike any other climbing game before it, Cairn lets you climb anywhere. You are completely free to place your hands and feet wherever you want. This creates a feeling of crafting your own “story” as you create your route. You can then look back at your route (there is a display of the route you have taken) which tells your own personal story.
PnT: Where did the idea to make a video game centered on high-altitude mountaineering come from? Were there any particular inspirations that fueled the creation of Cairn, such as works like the manga The Summit of the Gods by Jirô Taniguchi, cited by Emeric Thoa as an important influence, or personal experiences? What fascinates you so much about mountaineering that you decided to make it the focus of a video game?
Emeric: It’s a combination of several things, but there is indeed a great deal of fascination with mountaineering stories, which often feature people determined to sacrifice everything, to suffer, to put their lives on the line to… reach a summit that no one is forcing them to reach. Obviously, they’re looking for something else, and that’s what fascinated us. There’s also some inspiration from Le Sommet des Dieux (The Summit of the Gods) and other comics, films, and documentaries. But also personal experiences (Audrey’s father, a mountaineer with his own stories and anecdotes…). And finally, the fact that climbing is very interesting as a video game action. The objective is simple: reach a higher point. The conditions for success and failure are also simple. The visualization of progress. The action verbs used during the activity translate well into the game.
PnT: In most action games, climbing is just a simplified means of locomotion. Here, you’ve made it the core of the gameplay. What motivated you to transform this often secondary mechanic into a demanding main challenge? How did you approach designing a system where the player has to control every movement down to the millimeter instead of climbing with a simple push of a button, as in a classic Assassin’s Creed? Was it to recapture the planning and real risk involved in mountaineering, which is absent from games where you climb without ever falling?
Emeric: It’s difficult to summarize four years of prototyping in a few lines, but indeed, the starting point for the creation of Cairn was to make a climbing game where each movement offers an infinite number of choices. Like when you take a turn in a car game, there are an infinite number of possible curves. We knew that if we succeeded in doing this, we would create constant tension and a unique involvement in climbing, which would lead to a memorable sense of satisfaction when you finish a route, your route. It was really this basic assumption that then guided all our choices during development.
PnT : How would you describe what fundamentally distinguishes Cairn from other video game climbing experiences? Was it important for you to offer a game that is more simulation and survival oriented, whereas others offer a more structured and safe climbing experience?
Emeric: There are games like Assassin’s Creed that do a great job of depicting people climbing, but they use it as a means of transportation without offering any real challenge. There are games that depict climbing in a more abstract way but are actually very deep and open-ended (such as Peak or Climbing Over It with Bennett Foddy). Cairn bridges the gap between the two; it’s a deep climbing simulation experience with a quasi-realistic representation. To date, that’s what makes Cairn quite unique. But it’s more than just a climbing simulation; it’s a real adventure game with survival, characters, and a story.
Cairn marks your first collaboration with comic book author Mathieu Bablet, known for his science fiction graphic novels (Shangri-La, Carbone & Silicium, etc.). How did Mathieu get involved in the Cairn adventure as the game’s art director and scriptwriter? Did you seek him out for his unique style, or was it a mutual desire to try your hand at video games?
Emeric: It happened very simply. We had our first climbing prototype and were looking for a strong artistic direction to create a unique experience. We had read his comics, so we contacted him just in case we clicked. When we first met, we discovered that he lived in Grenoble and was a climber. A week later, he sent us a synopsis and illustrations that completely won us over. And four years later, the result exceeds our expectations 😃.
PnT: The visual style of Cairn benefits from Mathieu’s highly recognizable graphic style. How was this visual identity transposed into the game? Did you have to adapt Bablet’s style and universe to the constraints of game design, for example, to ensure the readability of the climbing holds and the 3D environment, or does the game faithfully reflect the aesthetics of his comic book works? More generally, how did Bablet’s artistic approach influence the creation of the settings, characters, and atmosphere of Cairn?
Emeric: Mathieu had a huge influence on our art director, of course. Not only through the concept art he delivered, which we tried to transpose into 3D, but also because he was involved in the development: colorimetry, character textures, skyboxes. He painted all the skyboxes (skies). But it was also a team effort with Anthony Beyer, our technical art director, to make this transition. Especially for the look and feel of the mountain, the rocks, and the holds. It took us over two years to really find the right formula. We thought that to create Cairn, the key would be to move the character, but we had to invent a new way to create rocks, mountains, and climbable elements. It was one of the most complex things in the entire development, both technically and conceptually.
PnT: The climbing system in Cairn intrigued and appealed to many players with its very physical aspect. Each limb of Aava must be positioned and moved independently, resulting in a crunchy, tactile climbing experience where you feel every movement based on the pressure applied. Yet the controls remain surprisingly simple and intuitive, with one stick to move a limb and one button to grab, thanks to your clever design choices. How did you manage to strike this balance between realism and playability? Did you experiment with many different control schemes before arriving at this “one stick + one button” solution that allows you to manage four limbs without overwhelming the player with complexity?
Emeric: Actually, for all our games since the first one (Squids on iOS), before we start the very first prototype, I imagine what we’re going to do in the game (move an octopus, fight, dodge, parry like in Furi…) and I pick up a controller and press the buttons with my eyes closed, imagining myself playing the game. That way, I try to stick with simple controls that lead to deep gameplay. So for Cairn, I naturally decided that we should stick with “one stick + one button” for the basic controls. It was only after numerous playtests that we added the completely optional ability to control each limb manually, for experts. Once again, you can see a similarity with a racing game that offers manual or automatic gearboxes.
PnT: Designing such a free and precise climbing system must have been a huge technical challenge. You spent more than three years of R&D refining it. Is it true that Cairn relies almost entirely on traditional animations, and that each of Aava’s movements is calculated in real time by physics and mathematical algorithms rather than being pre-animated? Can you tell us more about this simulation of the human body climbing: what were the main technical obstacles you encountered (managing gravity, collisions, muscle fatigue, etc.) and how did you overcome them with your relatively small team?
Emeric: Cairn’s climbing system relies on two “big algorithms” that work together. One controls the character’s movements. If you move the stick in one direction, you move a hand, which brings with it an elbow, a shoulder, and if you continue, a hip movement, a knee, a foot that moves, etc. This is called “IK” (inverted kinematics), but it’s very advanced.
The other algorithm calculates the effort required for these movements, the forces involved in relation to the orientation of the holds and the direction of the push. This determines whether you get tired, slip, or fall. This system was very long and complex to set up, especially since one of the key developers of its architecture had to leave the project before it was finished. It took us a long time, but we finally got there, and the result is a unique gaming experience.
PnT: Cairn is not just about climbing: it’s a real high-mountain survival game. Players must prepare for their ascent and manage their inventory (pitons, chalk, food, water, medicine, etc.) to last the duration. Why did you integrate these survival and resource management mechanics in addition to the climbing simulation? How do these elements (treating an injury after a fall, rationing water, bivouacking to recover, etc.) contribute to enhancing the immersion and tension of the gaming experience?
Emeric: Survival in the mountains, equipment, food, rest… all of this is part of the “fantasy” of mountaineering. So we wanted it to be in the game. It contributes to the “great recipe” of adventure games. A mix of action, management, and storytelling. That’s why I refer to Cairn as a “survival climber,” just as Resident Evil is a “survival horror” game. Cairn has a survival-management layer like Resident Evil, and action, except that the zombies… are the walls!
PnT: You present Cairn as a difficult and unforgiving game, with each wall to be climbed compared to a boss that must be defeated through effort. Falling can be fatal, and failure is part of the journey. However, you have also included numerous difficulty settings and accessibility options so that everyone can experience the adventure at their own pace. It will be possible to ease the punishment for those who want a more peaceful climb, while conversely, a Free Solo mode without ropes and with permadeath will offer the ultimate challenge for the most daring players. How do you reconcile this ambition for demanding realism with the need not to discourage part of the audience? What is your philosophy for adjusting the difficulty in Cairn, so that the game is both accessible to newcomers and satisfying for hardcore gamers seeking an adrenaline rush?
Emeric: We do a lot of playtesting, which means we invite people (both male and female players) to test the game, watch them play, and adjust it so that the experience suits as many people as possible. Suiting means that the experience must create memorable sensations and emotions. Since no two people are alike, we offer options so that those who want to play Cairn but are held back by the challenge can adjust it to their liking. But I think the default mode will suit the vast majority of people who are interested in Cairn. And the Free Solo mode serves to bring back the thrill once you’ve mastered the original gaming experience, as well as being fairly representative of the madness that is mountaineering in real life!
PnT: Did you call on professional climbers to test Cairn during its development, and what did they think of the simulation?
Emeric: We worked upstream with specialists (Loann Giroud, Chamonix guide, Elisabeth Revol, mountaineer and Himalayan climber, among others) who enlightened us on a whole host of subjects that we didn’t know as well as they did. This allowed us to make certain decisions in advance and avoid pitfalls. Then, when we had climbers test the game, everyone confirmed that the sensations were very realistic, not only in terms of the character’s movements and the climbing itself, but also in terms of reading the routes. We made a few adjustments, but we also kept in mind that the goal is not to make climbing realistic, but to create “the sensations of climbing,” to create memorable emotions that put us in the shoes of a climber. Not realism at all costs.
PnT: Cairn is not just a sandboxclimbing game: it’s also the story of Aava, a seasoned mountaineer determined to conquer Mount Kami, which has already claimed the lives of many climbers before her. The script, written by Mathieu Bablet, explores Aava’s inner struggle as much as the physical challenge: it talks about the sacrifices she is willing to make to achieve her goal, the people who have helped or accompanied her, and what this quest for absolute freedom means to her. How do you integrate this narrative and emotional dimension into a game so focused on athletic performance? Is the story revealed through cutscenes, radio dialogues, the environment, and the encounters Aava has during her ascent? In other words, how do you balance the narrative and gameplay without one taking precedence over the other?
Emeric: From a production standpoint, the narrative is a relatively classic combination of elements: quite a few cutscenes, audio messages delivered by the robot, a few written documents, and sometimes Aava talking to herself a little, complaining about the weather or her injuries. But the game’s story isn’t just about the narrative content, it’s about the mix between that story and the player’s personal journey. Their paths, their fears, their falls, their injuries, their moments of grace, their discoveries, their breaks. Together, these elements create a tempo that allows you to better understand and feel what the story is telling you. It’s a balance that needs to be found, but I think the one we offer will leave a mark once the game is over.
PnT: Despite her isolation high in the mountains, Aava is not completely alone in Cairn. You called on a leading international voice cast to embody the characters who gravitate around her: actress Sophia Eleni lends her voice (and determination) to Aava, Camille Constantin Da Silva lends her singing and dubbing talents, Hyoie O’Grady plays Marco (another climber Aava meets), and Adam Howden plays Chris, Aava’s agent who remains at base camp. What role do these secondary characters play in the adventure? For example, how does the long-distance relationship with Chris, who follows the climb via radio, or the encounter with Marco on the rock face enrich the narrative and the player’s experience?
Emeric: As in life, everyone is different, with similar or different motivations, goals, and priorities. Each character provides perspective on the views of Aava’s loved ones, other climbers, or mountain dwellers. And we get to know Aava better by seeing the choices and sacrifices she is willing to make to achieve her goal. It seemed important to us not to make a game that was just a sporting challenge with no stakes. We wanted to talk about what it represents beyond the sporting feat.
PnT: During her climb, Aava has a valuable aid: a small autonomous belay robot (affectionately nicknamed climbot) that manages the safety rope. Where did you get the idea to include this robotic companion in Cairn? Is it primarily a gameplay artifact, to credibly justify solo safety and allow the player to climb alone with a rope, or did you also give it a role in the story (for example, an endearing personality, a special meaning for Aava)?
Emeric: The climbot is several things at once. First and foremost, it’s a way to climb solo while still being secured. In real life, when you climb solo, you’re either unsecured (free solo), in which case a fall can quickly be fatal, or you secure yourself with a rather laborious counterweight system (equipment, etc.) that you have to climb back down to retrieve once you’ve completed the route. So you climb a wall once, come back down, and climb back up again. Functional, but not much fun. The Climbot, on the other hand, belays you just like a climbing partner would, and once you’ve climbed a wall, it joins you with rope and pitons. Naturally, this crucial function makes it extremely endearing. But we didn’t want to anthropomorphize it. It’s not Wall-e, it’s a functional robot that Aava tends to call a “pile of scrap metal.” But a bit like the companion cube in Portal, since it has a crucial function in gameplay and climbing, we end up getting attached to it anyway.
PnT: Mount Kami, which players climb in Cairn, is presented as a vast, open, vertical environment. It was designed entirely by hand by your level designers, with no invisible walls or imposed paths. How did you approach the level design of such a vertical world? Since players can theoretically climb anywhere, you can’t predict exactly where they will go. Did you still incorporate different routes (some easier but longer, others very direct but extremely difficult) to guide the challenges?
Emeric: The climbing system allows you to grab onto anything naturally. So obviously, a flat wall won’t get you very far, but as soon as there’s some volume, a crack, a small hole, you can use it for support. As a result, we can’t know exactly what players will do, where they will go, or the specific routes they will take. But we still put a lot of effort into the level design to create routes of varying difficulty that feel natural. Everything is thought out, but that doesn’t make the paths predictable. We saw that in the demo, for example. We had designed a certain number of paths, and the players found three or four times as many!
PnT: Why did you choose Cairn as the title of the game? A “cairn” refers to the small piles of stones that mountaineers or hikers erect to mark a path or symbolize a summit they have reached. Does this word have a special meaning in the game world or for Aava’s journey? Should we see it as a metaphor for progression (each stage of the climb left behind), a tribute to explorers of the past, or perhaps a concrete element of gameplay (for example, does the player leave cairns to mark their path)? Was Cairn chosen for its sound, its symbolism, or a little of both?
Emeric: It’s clearly a symbolic name. It’s a unique word, just like Furi and Haven, which concludes the “Freedom” trilogy. As in Furi and Haven, there is an element of gameplay in Cairn that involves “leaving a trail” (you can view your route), and a cairn is there to “leave a trace of your passage.”
PnT: Feedback from the demo also highlighted a few technical points that need improvement, which is inevitable for a game still in development. For example, some players noted that the physics of the rope and the belay robot could be a little unpredictable or jerky at times. How do you approach the polishing stage on such a physically complex game? Is it more difficult to debug and adjust a systemic simulation (where each correction can have knock-on effects) compared to a more scripted game?
Emeric: I couldn’t even quantify how much more difficult it is. In the case of Furi or Haven, I could estimate the duration of a task almost to the day. We didn’t fall behind schedule, or if we did, it was to make design iterations. But technically, we knew how to quantify it, there were relatively few unknowns. With Cairn, there are no certainties. We don’t really know how long it will take to develop a feature or fix a bug. Whether we’ll succeed or not. If there’s one thing we’re pretty sure of, it’s that when we fix something in one place, we’ll break something else! It’s really very complex technically, and at the same time it’s a miracle that the team managed to build this extremely ambitious system.
PnT: The Game Bakers is an independent studio that has made a name for itself by pushing the boundaries of traditional gameplay. Do you think that your indie status gives you the freedom to innovate more radically, where larger studios would not dare to take such creative risks? For example, Emeric Thoa explained that not having the resources of an AAA studio was compensated by the desire to offer truly new experiences that “big games” don’t dare to attempt. Is Cairn a bold gamble for you in the current video game landscape? How do you reconcile this desire to experiment (with new mechanics and an original tone) with the reality of the market? Is it also a strategy to stand out in a highly competitive industry?
Emeric: I am convinced that a game like Cairn could never have seen the light of day in a multinational company with multi-level decision-making processes, where dozens of people in senior positions have to be convinced to approve a project. Game Bakers’ strength today lies in its core team, which has been working together and trusting each other for 10-15 years. It’s also a differentiation strategy, of course. To stand out from the crowd, you have to take risks, but these risks are possible because management and the production team are one and the same, and the core team has known and trusted each other for 10-15 years.
PnT: What is the ultimate goal you are aiming for in terms of player experience with Cairn? What do you hope players will take away from their journey once they have climbed (or attempted to climb) Mount Kami? You describe Cairn as an intense experience, and you emphasize the value of the effort for its own sake. Is this philosophy of pushing oneself beyond one’s limits what you want to convey through the game?
Emeric: Part of the experience is indeed based on the tension of the gameplay, the perseverance it requires, and the satisfaction it creates when you finally overcome an obstacle. But that’s not the only thing I want people to feel. There’s something deeper that’s created throughout the climb. You really experience something when you climb this mountain, in your own way. I think you feel like you’ve “accomplished” something. And then there’s what Aava’s story evokes in us at the end. All of this will leave a mark on the players who make it to the end, leaving them with a memorable experience that will make them think, and maybe even change them a little.
PnT: Cairn seems to place as much importance on sound as it does on images to immerse the player in their climb. To achieve this, you recruited sound design experts such as Martin Stig Andersen (known for his masterful work on Limbo, Inside, and Control), who serves as audio director and composer on the project, as well as sound designer Lukas Lentz (Cocoon). How did you approach the design of the game’s soundscape?
Emeric: Just like the gameplay and technical aspects, the audio was a real challenge for a game that’s “like no other.” We had to invent a new sound design. We put a lot of emphasis on the feel of the character and the climbing. The breathing, the effort, the quality of the holds. This contributes enormously to the “game feel” of the game. Like everything else… it’s a project that wasn’t completed in a day (more like three years, I’d say).
Unlike other games from The Game Bakers, the music takes a back seat to make room for the sensory aspect and the natural environment. But there are still a few powerful musical moments that reinforce the strongest emotions.