If you’re just getting into Cairn, I’ve got some news for you. The game is pretty challenging. In fact, even on the easiest difficulty, you’re going to run into plenty of trouble and tense moments as you climb the mountain, even if you are able to rewind your falls and try a section again.
One surefire way to combat this is by powdering your hands with a healthy dosage of chalk before embarking on a particularly difficult stretch of cliffside. This improves your grip, which you’ll soon learn is immeasurably important to staying alive.
Chalk, however, can easily run out, at least till you get your hands on the big chalk bag. It’s also not something you really come across on the mountain naturally to replenish your stocks. You’ll have to find another way. Thankfully, it’s not too tricky of a thing to figure out, and more chalk can come pretty easily most of the time.
The Chalk Creation Process
Creating more chalk when you run out in Cairn is, thankfully, really easy. As you’re browsing the contents of your backpack, you’ll notice the “Compost” prompt at the bottom of the screen. This is Y on XBOX, Triangle on PlayStation.
Hold down the button, and whichever item you have highlighted will be lost permanently and placed inside of your Climbot for composting. Make sure it’s actually something you’re willing to get rid of forever, because once you compost it, there’s no getting it back.
From here, the Climbot will get to work. Whatever you place inside the bot will kick off a countdown timer, which starts at twelve minutes. Yes, this means that in just twelve minutes’ time, your robot-buddy will spit out some fresh chalk for you to apply directly to your hands.
What’s nice, however, is that if you’re desperate, or simply have plenty of things in your bag you don’t want, you can shorten this timer. Every item you compost will speed up the process, meaning you get your chalk sooner.
When the timer is up, select the Climbot from the backpack menu screen, and your new chalk will be placed into your bag. This is important to keep in mind, because this compost-produced chalk is literally a new item you’ll need to have space for, unless you can immediately deposit all of it into your chalk bag.
Which Items To Compost
Of course, your next question might be, “Which items are worth composting?” This has a pretty straightforward answer as well.
Yes, if you’re truly desperate, you can compost anything you like, really. Still, you don’t want to actually waste anything useful, like food, drinks, or other items that can also help keep you alive on Kami.
Your best option is to compost anything that constitutes as trash: Plastic wrap, broken bottles, the broken camera, etc. Often times, you’ll come across these items as litter on the mountainside, left behind by previous climbers who were less responsible than you are. There’s nothing else to do with this trash, so you may as well pick it up and compost it.
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What’s especially nice is that many of your wrapped food items will also leave a spare plastic wrap in your backpack whenever you consume one of them. That means that whenever you eat something with a wrapper, you’re not only gaining needed sustenance, but also another item you can compost into more precious chalk.
