Fences to keep Marines on the road have spiky pins atop each post to prevent ravens from having yet another place to perch.

Rather than a watery grave, however, a mysterious moonlit desert is where she’s adrift, a row of spiky cactuses behind her appearing to pierce her body.

"Wildfire smoke is a different animal, in that it's much spikier. There are many days where there's no wildfire smoke, and there are some days where exposure is really, really extreme."

If an oarfish happens to swim up to the ocean’s surface, a sailor would see a long slithering creature with spiky protrusions on its head and could believe it was a sea monster, Paig-Tran said.

Instead, “Stickerbush Symphony,” with its strangely melancholic New Age groove, accompanies a level in which the player navigates a fantastically cruel maze of spiky vines.