The quiet climbing game revolution
I’ve noticed a lot of climbing games are popping up here and there in the last few years. It might be because a lot of game devs tend to also be into climbing, including myself.
Even if you’re not someone who goes to the climbing gym, I think we can all feel that urge to make our way up on high things. Probably because we’ve all got a monkey deep inside of us.
Here I’ve collected some notable indies that use climbing as their primary mechanic in different ways.
Lorn’s Lure
A dark and moody world of intricate and large structures to explore by climbing with your pickaxes.
Valley Peaks
This is also a first person climbing game but the tone is the complete opposite. It’s cartoony, warm and welcoming, there’s a bunch of cute frogs.
Bread & Fred
A coop game with two penguins who are attached to each other by a rope.
Turnip Mountain
“A turnip grows arms and climbs a mountain.” This one makes a lot of fun uses of the two-hand control scheme - there are interactions where you have to manually pull levers and turn cranks.
Gecko Gods
Explore a mysterious island full of ruins from a lost civilization. You’re a tiny gecko who solves puzzles and eats bugs.
Webbed
Spin and shoot webs to climb around in the wilderness, make friends with other bugs and try to save your boyfriend.
Jusant
Beautiful, atmospheric and from what I’ve heard it’s very intuitive.
Climbing Flail
Fling your climber up randomly generated mountains (or climbing walls?). This is a free mobile game so there’s no reason to not try it.
Chasing The Unseen
Climb colossal creatures and otherworldly landscapes. Seems to be quite a Lovecraft-ian vibe to this.
Surmount
This is the climbing game I’m making with my friend Jasper. Obviously I couldn’t not put it on this list. It’s a roguelite, it’s a coop game, it’s a singleplayer game, it has a character editor. My unbiased* opinion is that it’s pretty good.
*I would play this game even if I hadn’t made it myself
Grow Home
This is the first climbing game I ever played. It’s so mellow and peaceful, I replay it every now and then because it just makes me feel so free.
Getting Over It
I feel like every developer who makes a climbing game will find themselves compared to this game at one point or another. Or maybe it’s just us.
I am Bread
For some reason I feel like most people wouldn’t think of this as a climbing game. Maybe because you play as a slice of bread? It is definitely a climbing game.
Heave Ho
It’s always a messy-good-time to play this with friends.
Esophaguys
These silly men use their long, stretchy necks and their teeth to climb. Compete with your friends for “long-necked glory.”
GIRP
A browser game by the same guy who made Getting Over It. It’s quite finicky, just like real climbing.
Celeste
Most of the games on this list have mechanics completely built for or inspired by climbing. But Celeste doesn’t in the same way, like a typical platformer it’s mostly based on jumping. The level design and story really makes it a pure climbing game though, there’s no distracting enemies. It’s all about moving through tricky, spatial problems.
Those are all the games I know of and can think of right now! As you can see there are way more than a handful. I only wish there was enough to call it a genre. It would be so much easier to find them and I think they deserve a dedicated fanbase in the same way as other genres have (lifesim, soulslikes, metroidvanias, rougelikes).
One day there might be a word for it, maybe we’re just waiting for a game to become a real hit and define what they should be called.
My favorite thing in games is nice movement, if it’s not done right I usually can’t play them at all. To me that’s what sets climbing games apart from other games. Sure they could be defined as platformers, but most of those have combat. The challenge in a climbing game should come from mastering the movement and environmental stuff like weather and geometry.
When you climb you really get to touch and feel the world.
Throw more climbing games at me if you know any, I might add them to the list!
