Hello, soon-to-be climber.
I’m Mateusz, PR Manager at Art Games Studio, here to tell you about the mountain adventure for the cold winter nights. We’ve just released Climber: Sky is the Limit on the Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S, allowing you to become an alpinist while sitting comfortably in front of your console!
Real-Life Experience
Creating a realistic mountain climbing simulation game requires immense alpinistic knowledge, which our team didn’t have, so in order to create the immersive experience we teamed up with a member of the Polish National Team in Mountaineering – Paweł Michalski.
His involvement in 19 expeditions in the Himalayas and Karakoram and several dozen expeditions to lower peaks on all continents, helped a ton when recreating those peaks in-game.
Paweł helped us to introduce all the necessary equipment which is used during the expedition, explain their parameters, and, describe all practical aspects and difficulties of the high mountain environment.
Preparing the Expedition
As in real life the successful expedition in Climber: Sky is the Limit begins with the right preparations. In order to survive in the high mountains, you’ll need the proper gear. Depending on the funds you have available you can acquire items of various qualities. Each piece of equipment improves your chances in different ways:
Clothing protects you from harsh weather conditions (increases your low-temperature resistance), allows for more freedom of movement (increases your stamina), and utilizes lighter materials (lowers the overall weight of your equipment)
Specialized equipment such as ice axes, ropes, and leaders will help you traverse diverse terrain and clear slippery terrains, vertical ice walls, crevasses, and so on. However, watch out not to overburden yourself, take only the necessary things if you don’t want to gas yourself out in the middle of the expedition.
During preparations, you cannot forget about nutrition. Energy bars, lyophilized soups, and others regenerate your Stamina, Mental Condition, and Food parameters. Warm meals will also regenerate your body temperature, but take into consideration that they must be prepared in the camp.
Pack all of the needed things into your backpack, watch out for your balance and you’re ready to go!
Hitting the Trail
It doesn’t matter which one of the five eight-thousanders available in the game (Mount Everest, K2, Manaslu, Gasherbrum I, Cho Oyu) you choose, you’ll start your expedition in the base camp. Then slowly work your way to the top, while facing many challenges and harsh weather conditions.
The key to success is a combination of careful planning and learning what equipment to use and when. You’ll probably not succeed during your first attempt, but contrary to the real-life mountain climbing you’ll always be able to try again with your new-gained knowledge.
Staying Healthy
If you want to succeed and reach the summit you must watch out for your health parameters:
- Stamina – physical strength of the climber, indicates your ability to walk, run, jump, climb, and move objects.
- Mental Health – the physical health of your climber and his willingness to venture forward. Taking risky actions, such as sliding down the frozen slopes, or overcoming crevasses will quickly deplete it.
- Temperature – Indicates your climber’s body temperature, which is dependent on outside weather conditions and what you’re wearing. Adjusting clothes to the weather conditions is vital because freezing out means a brutal end to your expedition…
- Food – You have to eat to survive. If you don’t, your Stamina will drop to zero extremely quickly, making you unable to move forward. Not every food is equal, some are more filling than others and can give you a boost to your Stamina and Morale, or heat you up.
Reaching the Summit
If you manage to overcome the challenges of the mountain and balance your health parameters, you’ll surely reach the top of the mountain, finishing your sponsor contract gaining more funds for your next expedition, and increasing your climber prestige!
That’s not all that will await you in the game. For example, Climber: Sky is the Limit support and also the leaderboards for seasoned climbers, allow you to compare your summit times with other alpinists across the world!
See you at the top!