I’m not a climber. I’m not even a hiker, really, which makes living in Utah less appealing for me than it is for others. But in college, in an effort to step outside my comfort zone, I joined a group of my roommates and their friends on a “hike” of Angel’s Landing in Zion national park (aka Honest Hearts).

For some reason my little sister also tagged along, and neither of us knew what we were getting into: it starts like a hike but at the end you have to climb chains on cliff faces! You could easily fall off and die, and people have. But I think I was wearing jeans, so that might clue you into my level of preparation.

You don’t hit the stretch with chains unless you decide to go to the very tip top, and there’s a large flat area where many people quit. Several of our group, even some of the athletic ones (they apparently did outdoor things for fun. Outside where it’s sweaty and dangerous. Let’s just say I doubt they’ll be playing Jusant any time soon) got scared and didn’t go to the top. I figured if I had to be there anyway I’d give it a go.

It was extremely scary for me. I’m sure some would say it’s not that bad, and that it’s a baby’s first hike situation, but to me it was one of the most dangerous things I’d ever done. This may sound silly but I legitimately thought “What if I let my little (adult) sister come on this hike with me and she fell to her death?” Well, my sister and I got a picture at the top, so I basically never need to do that again.

So Conman, what’s with the long anecdote replete with filler words your 7th grade English teacher said were off-limits?

This game reminded me of that memory, and it’s a happy one. It made me reminisce, bringing back feelings of climbing something so tall for so long that it felt like the top was running away from me. A time I felt a little braver. Forget the text log story, forget the textureless indie art style, forget the mid cave chapter… this game made me feel good. Criticism? What’s that? All I know is gut-level emotional reaction.

Oh, I also adore the gameplay.

I’ve loved the ‘triggers as hands’ climbing mechanic since I first played Grow Up, but there it’s just one of many disparate mechanics. In Jusant that mechanic is the game; this is a focused and effortlessly intuitive climbing experience with none of the drawbacks of actually going climbing, such as having to talk to people who rock climb.

Wait, also the rope - my beloved. Oh they also took the vine-growing mechanic from Grow Home/Grow Up which totally worked. And in Star Trek V, Captain Kirk free solos El Capitán. Well, he falls off and Spock catches him with his rocket boots. Ok ok alright