BBC Sounds, Music, Radio, Podcasts.

This is the documentary in the studio from the BBC World Service.

I'm Jordan Erica Weber.

I've spent my whole life playing video games

and my whole career on radio and television explaining why.

The brand new game I want to tell you about today

asks a similar question of another popular pastime, climbing.

We read all the books, we watched all the movies and the TV shows related to mountain

climbing, to try to enter that question of why are people doing it?

The game was sort of being made as we were recording it and I voice it to video sometimes

and then sometimes it would just be completely blind.

So today is the first time I've seen bits of actual footage voiced with my voice.

It's looking really cool.

My interest in video games stems from how their creators tell stories and evoke emotions,

not just through how they look and sound, but also what the player does,

whether that's furiously tapping buttons to defeat an enemy and save a loved one,

or blinking into a webcam to jump cut through the memories of a life cut short while on a ferry to the afterlife.

In the game Ken, the buttons you press control the arms and legs of a climber

on her ascent up a fictional mountain that has never been conquered. The skill needed for a player

to get her to the top is designed to reflect the challenge on which real-world mountaineers thrive.

The game is made by The Gamebakers,

an independent studio based in the southern French city of Montpellier,

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