Three game devs climb a mountain - part 7

I wait around at the bottom of a tree for Bennett Foddy to scramble up the bark, desperately looking over my shoulder for undead threats. I would like the game designer and noted moral philosopher to climb quickly and offer me a hand from the platform above. But he has circled back to a question I asked some time ago about resource management.

"For Baby Steps," he says, climbing painfully slow, "at some point we must have decided we didn't want resource use, but I don't know why. I think partly it's because we got so allergic to implementing UI... and that makes it really hard to have resources."

Bennett runs out of stamina and falls from the tree. He is lightly hurt. I hear zombie noises nearby. I put down the heavy, unconscious body of Emeric Thoa for a moment (I'm sure he'll be okay) and try to climb the tree myself.

Beneath me Foddy continues to talk about user interfaces and how they can get in the way. He's saying something about a podcast he listened to, about a game designer with some salient point to make about something or other. I'm not listening. I can hear groans. I'm barely holding onto the trunk. My stamina is flashing red. I'm sweating. Almost... almost... therrrre...

"--and he was saying he had this theory about UI, which is that you need UI wherever you have made a special rule. Oh boy, that really hurt me when you landed on my head, Brendan."

I try to dust myself off. The short fall hurt me too.

"Your journalistic impartiality fell apart there," he says. "I'm unconscious at the bottom of the tree."

I look at my feet and see a body. It starts to rise. But it doesn't look like Bennett. It looks like... oh god.

I leg it. The zombie corpse of Emeric is at my back. He is long dead and the spores in his body have resurrected him as a bitey enemy. His zombie chases me as I hop from root to branch to rock to boulder, trying to escape. Bennett's calm lecturer voice is still in my ear.

"I'm in trouble down here," he says with tranquil academic authority. "I need a rescue."

I am in no state to respond. The monster wearing Emeric as a suit is on my heels. I slip and fall down a small pit and crumple my ankles on the hard rock below. It's a tiny injury, but it's also the last dash of pain my body can tolerate. I begin to faint. Just as my vision starts to blur, zombie Emeric joins me in the pit. He leaps at me with fearful enthusiasm, teeth bared, and delivers the final blow.

"I think we're all dead," says Bennett.

The ghost of Holly, who has been watching this all unfold with an undisclosed amount of glee, agrees.

"It was a good run," she says.

Has the mountain defeated us? Well, yes. But check out the bonus epilogue tomorrow.