On Cairn
This is one of those games where other people like it way more than I do, and I still liked it a fair bit, but there's also bits that bug me a lot.
Gameplay
Much ink has been spilled over the game's QWOP-like climbing system, in which you move individual limbs slowly and meticulously to try and lever yourself up cliffaces. I generally like it - there is nothing quite like meticulously sidling along a ledge, or the accomplishment from slowly and labourously ascending up a sheer face, but there are a few caveats.
The main issues are with a difficulty ramp that runs into a literal wall (the perils) about halfway through, allied to a very 'fudgy' climbing system that is great at hiding its own issues until said wall - which is when it becomes integral you actually understand how to play the game. If you get to that wall with only two or three pitons, and you don't really understand what is actually happening when you are climbing, you're going to have a bad time. I did have a bad time until I looked stuff up, and by that point I was frustrated enough to turn on one of the game's accessibility options and just cheat my way to the top with infinite items.
I also enjoyed the survival stuff as well, but there was a couple of features I was missing like the ability to easily manage the movements of heated liquids and such within thermoses, etc. (Why the main character didn't bother to bring a thermos in the first place, I have no idea). I sort of feel this game would be a really interesting roguelike (I know, I know, but some stuff is actually suited to that sort of structure) and so the survival elements felt sort of neutered in service to the story - particularly in the ending sequences which, while very dramatic, I could see the dramatic artifice around since they didn't want the player to actually die before seeing the end of their tale. Speaking of which...
Story
This is largely where I depart from popular opinion. I know the protagonist is deliberately unlikeable, and to some extent the story is about obsession, running away from stuff, etc, but I think the problem is to tell an effective story about that sort of thing you need to be invited to care about the main character, and I never did; she just was always kind of vaguely a stand-offish asshole who I had no real investment in. This rendered a lot of the game sort of just something that washed over me or that I was actively annoyed by, which is never a great place to be in.
That said I think the ending sequence is the correct one; I'm not certain how much sense it makes, but emotionally it feels like the right way to end the game, and I can forgive a lot if a work's feeling is coherent, consistent and the right thing for the character as I understand them.
Wrap
So yeah, I had a decent time with it. At the very least it felt like something new, and that's worth a lot.