Cairn, a recently released mountain climbing simulator by The Game Bakers, may be a mostly solitary and gruelling experience. However, every budding pro-climber needs to have some training and knowledge if they hope to defeat Kami, something that no one has done before. Here is our Beginner’s Guide to Cairn, a necessary training tool if you want to overcome Kami!
Also, while you’re here, check out our review for Cairn!
A Beginner’s Guide To Cairn
While the game does a great job of having a training zone before the actual climb, there are important things to learn than just knowing where to put your hands and feet.
Don’t chalk it up to Luck
Make sure to use the tools you are given. One of these tools is chalk! Chalk improves grip by 12x when you use your hands to grasp a surface.
I know what you’re thinking: “Toasty, 12 times? That’s nothing! Sounds useless, and I will run out of chalk in no time!”
Yes, 12 times doesn’t seem like much; however, it could literally be the thing keeping you from falling to your untimely death, potentially costing you 15 minutes of climbing progress!
You start to feel/see your hands quiver, as you run out of stamina and your grip is dwindling. It’s been a while since you’ve nursed your hands, fingers covered in cuts and blood. USE. CHALK!
Especially since your trusty climbot can make more for you whenever you feed it your delicious trash!
Take Control of your limbs!
You’ll notice early on in Cairn that Aava will automatically choose which limb is next for you to control in order to ascend.
This is all fine in most situations. However, some rock faces may need a bit more finesse and precise control. Press R1 (On PS5) while you’re in climbing mode, and you’ll have the ability to highlight which limb you want to control.
Infuse your Water when the Container is Full
As you play Cairn, you’ll quickly notice the abundance of herbs, especially early on. So much so, that you might take them for granted. However, did you know that mixing herbs with liquid, doesn’t just make one? Infusing or mixing things with most liquids will use up the whole container!
What does this mean? If you mix nettle + 3/4 water flask, it will make a 3/4 Nettle infused flask. This means, to make the most of your infusions, make sure the container is full, whenever possible.
This will be crucial, especially the higher you go, when herbs will be less available due to higher altitudes. You will want the most out of your herbs, especially if you made yourself some tasty Ultimate Infusion drinks. Check out the links below for a guide on how to create the Ultimate Infusion, earning you the Herbalist Trophy.
Also, did you know that if your bivouac is close enough to a source of water (stream, lake, puddle), you can fill up your container from the Cook menu while inside your bivouac? Simply press Triangle (for PS5).
Cook, Cook, Cook!
I cannot stress enough the importance of making sure you have sufficient consumables during your ascent. Especially if you play in Alpinist Difficulty. In this difficulty, survival parameters (eating, drinking) are a constant worry, especially in higher altitudes. And while you’ll be able to scavenge or forage enough consumables, actually consuming them in their base form is a complete waste.
Cooking your food (as most item tooltips will mention) is better than eating them raw. It will increase its potency and, most often, will provide additional buffs such as the amazing Grip and Grit buffs. Lastly, cooking anything means the food will be warm and can help regulate your temperature levels. If it’s some form of liquid consumable, you can even reheat the item in your bivouac!
You will want to cook EVERYTHING in your backpack every time you have access to your bivouacs. Luckily, food items don’t spoil! As you progress through Cairn, you may notice that the bivouacs will start to be fewer. Not only that, it’s entirely possible to miss a bivouac altogether, depending on the route you take! Therefore, it’s imperative to be prepared.
Climb up, Rappel down
The amazing thing about Cairn and Kami is that there are so many things to discover and many ways to tackle the climb. You’ll often be in situations where you’ll need to decide which path to take, and perhaps be afraid to miss out on things if you make the “wrong” choice.
The goal of the game is to go up, so it stands to reason that up is the correct choice, that is, if you want to go the right way. However, any self-serving curious adventurer will always want to go the wrong way first.
Knowing that going down is the “wrong way”, make sure to always rappel down, instead of climbing down. This way, once you’ve discovered everything “down” has to offer, you can zip back up without much loss in time.
EXTRA TIP for SURVIVAL!
This has saved me at least twice.
During long climbing sessions, you will run out of water, especially later in the game and if you’ve been neglectful of keeping empty bottles. Take the time to rappel down to a source of water to refill your bottles before you get too high up, because you don’t know if you’ll have water up there and when you’ll be able to refill next.
Don’t sleep (as much)
As much as eating and drinking seem to be important things for Aava to maintain, sleeping…not so much. She doesn’t actually get “tired”. The only thing that sleeping does is replenish your health while sacrificing time, hunger, and thirst. Therefore, depending on how much HP you need to recover, it might be more economical to just eat, as most foods not only satiate your thirst and hunger, but also your HP.
Of course, there will be moments when you take a huge fall, where it’ll be better to sleep.
The only thing you DON’T want to do is sleep because you don’t want to climb while it’s dark.
Don’t be afraid of the dark
Don’t be afraid to climb while it’s dark, especially when you’re running out of resources and time is your enemy. There are tricks around it.
This magical trick: PHOTO MODE!
The beauty of Cairn’s photo mode is its many options.
- You can pan great distances. It isn’t as convenient as the Look function to go over your route. But great enough that it’ll let you see around you.
- More importantly, you can change the time of day and the weather! This means even though visibility is poor due to lighting or poor weather, you can still “see” where you’re going while it’s dark.
So, keep on climbing, check out photo mode, and take screenshots if you need to keep the visuals handy! You’re welcome!
Look where you’re going
While Photomode is great, nothing beats the awesomeness of Looking. It’s truly amazing how The Game Bakers was able to implement a way for you to not only see your whole adventure from beginning to end, but also to let you see above and around you so you can plan your ascent. ALL WHILE YOU’RE CLIMBING!
You can plan depending on your goals. Are you low on herbs and want to see if a path could lead you to one? Curious to see if something is rewarding at the end of a potentially challenging climb?
You never know, you might discover interesting locations and secrets you couldn’t foresee with the naked eye.
That was our Beginner’s Guide for Cairn, the mountaineering adventure from The Game Bakers. We hope that it was helpful and that you learned from the trial and errors we experienced!
Got any tips for Cairn you’d like to share? Drop them in the comments below, or come and join the Gamer Social Club Discord and chat with others about your favourite games, play in community game nights, take part in giveaways, and more!
Cairn Guides
- Light Up the Sky Trophy Guide
- Herbalist Trophy Guide
- All That Glitters Trophy Guide
- Aava Porter Bridges Trophy Guide
- The Ancient Trophy Guide
- The Child Trophy Guide
- Lick Responsibly Trophy Guide
- Grizzly Woman Trophy Guide
- One Day, I’ll Be Rich! & Wind Whisperer Trophy Guide
- Love Birds Trophy Guide
- Meteorologist Trophy Guide
- Heartbeat Trophy Guide
- I Did It!, Return To The Source, & The Secret Trophy Guide
