A HUGE thank you to Adrian from over at The Gaming Observer for giving me a shout out on his show today. If you’re here from TGO, welcome! This website is secondary to the Alexa skill, Video Game of the Day so if you’re looking to add a bit of gaming trivia to your day, here’s a link to enable the show:
Anyway, on to Celeste. Back in January of last year, I bought this game after hearing some of the hype and I was not disappointed. I knew then and there that this was going to be my game of 2018. Games came and went throughout the year and there were some amazing games, for sure, but none of them were able to top Celeste in my mind.
Not only did it have some of the best platforming out there, perfecting the style attempted by The End is Nigh, but that story. THAT STORY! I don’t deal with anxiety much myself but it affects my life significantly. If you live with or near someone who deals with this stuff, you know that it’s not always easy. That’s why Celeste’s story of Madeline, climbing this mountain just to prove to herself she could was so emotional for me.
If you haven’t played Celeste, I cannot recommend it highly enough. It’s a beautiful game that’s out on everything. It’s only $20 which is a steal for how much content is there. Plus, it lets you mentally set your own difficulty in the perfect ways. The main game is there but there are also optional strawberries to get in many of the screens, adding to the challenge. Once you finish the main game, there are B sides and even C sides to each level, ramping up the challenge even further. I’m not cool enough to complete those but I got most of the strawberries in the main game and that felt like a satisfying accomplishment to me. Maybe I’ll go back to do the other sides at some point but either way, I was satisfied with what I completed.
So anyway, here is my transcript for Celeste.
2/24 – Celeste
Hello and welcome. My name is Katosepe and I’ll be your host for today’s video game of the day.
Today’s game is the hit platformer from 2018, Celeste. Celeste was developed and published by Matt Makes Games.
Celeste has players taking control of a girl named Madeline who decides to venture out of her comfort zone and climb the Celeste Mountain, a mountain famous for its extreme danger and mystical elements. Madeline has chosen to undertake this task to prove to herself that she can overcome her crippling anxiety and doubts. She meets a number of characters during her climb that both help and hinder her on this journey of self-discovery.
Gameplay is inspired by hardcore platformers such as Super Meat Boy and other tough platformers from the SNES era. Celeste is broken up into levels where players must conquer platforming challenges on a series of connected screens. Death will bring players back to the beginning of the section, typically only a short ways back. In order to proceed, players have a number of abilities such as a mid-jump dash and wall climbing. Gameplay is meant to be fast-paced with deaths being frequent as the player learns to progress past each obstacle. Once the main story is completed, there are a number of additional challenges and mechanics for the player to discover.
A prototype for Celeste, now called Celeste Classic, was developed during a four day game jam. This included 30 levels with very similar mechanics to the full game but lacked any of the story or interconnected screens. This prototype is included, in full, within Celeste. The developers would expand on this idea by adding a story, additional obstacles and mechanics, and many more levels for the full release.
Celeste received overwhelming acclaim upon release by fans and critics alike for all platforms. It was named in many game of the year lists and won the Game Awards for Best Independent Game and Games for Impact in 2018. It has been released on PC, Xbox One, Playstation 4, Switch, Mac OS and Linux platforms.
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