I've been out all day, so I just got a chance to get back to work a bit ago, but I'm happy to report I think I've got the camera system operating how I want it!
It's a nice smooth scrolling camera that leads the player by a constant tied to a script argument, which means that I can have the camera lead the player further during the more oppressive scenes in the game (so that it hides what's behind you).
Next up is climbing, which will work by deleting the player when they interact with a climbable block, running a pre-animated sprite, and then creating the player on top of the block. The two big hurdles here are
one: the climbing animation, as animation is not my strong suit, and
two: A visual indicator that an object is interactable. A have a few ideas for this, one being that when the player is within the interaction range of an object, some visual queue is thrown (an exclamation point above your head, or maybe the object will glow orange). The other option is to take the mirrors edge route, and have interactable objects be chromatically distinct from their surroundings, ie. a red tablecloth on a climbable table, red mushrooms on a climbable log, have the trash can you can knock over be red, etc. Not sure which direction I'm gonna go on this one, as there are pros and cons for either.