HELLO! I WRI... I... I MAKE...

BYE BYE


You are at the starting line. Your heart beats a mile a minute. Your mind goes back to the day you agreed to participate in a half-marathon with a coworker of yours. What were you thinking? Stupid. So stupid. You are not even sure if you can hold on for half that. All because you just let yourself get carried by the conversation.

And then you spent so much time thinking about that promise that when the fateful day arrived, you had not done anything to fix it.

Why are you here? An inner voice mocks you, jeers, accompanied by the echoes of the words you said on that day. The road ahead stretches into infinity. The crowds tower above you.

Suddenly, the signal.

Hmm. Maybe this is the wrong story. Maybe you are at an entrance exam, and a few early questions have thrown you off your balance. You feel like you’ve been punched in the gut. You’re tilting. You just want to disappear and lie in your bed forever. But if you do that, you’ll never be able to get your life in order. And so, distracted by these thoughts, you jump from question to question, desperate to get a grip.

Or maybe you haven't been honest with a friend. They haven't sussed it out, but now distance grows between the two of you. You would hate to see this friendship go away, but you don’t even know how to start a conversation anymore. So, you end up imagining pretend conversations that never happen. And a sinking feeling in your chest grows stronger each day.

You find yourself overwhelmed by problems of your creation. And while you're not alone in this situation, of course, that's small comfort at the moment.


Whoops, that was a long intro! Apologies. All this to say, Celeste is a game about the struggle. A lot of games feature it, but this Canadian indie platformer is about it. And that's a big part of what's so special about it.

It’s not hard to make a game difficult. It's often the natural result of creation, on the contrary. The creator is intimate with the mechanics they’re assembling. They know the level design before they even get to play through a level once as a player. This profound understanding of the work makes it easy to create challenging games by accident. The maker is just making something that feels natural... from an unnatural point of view.

Goodness knows every game jam project I've worked on has been twice as hard as it should have been.

Madeline is chased by multiple Badelines in world 2

Making a game difficult is the easy part. Making it difficult meaningfully, in a way that rewards the player, makes all the difference. And Celeste excels at this. Every step of Madeline’s journey is feels as difficult for the player as it is for her. And it would be so easy for either of you to stop, right? Nothing is forcing either of you to climb that mountain. And goodness knows you're not a mountain climber.

So… Why are you here? Why do we persist?

I have a theory about it. It's that Celeste is slightly, ever so slightly, more bark than bite. Every screen presents us with a new terror, a hill to climb that looks insurmountable. Each successful traversal gives us some brief relief, just before the next screen shows even more terrifying sights.

And yet, through all of it, the urge to give up does not win the fight. Because these sights, as scary as they are, need no pixel-perfect jumps. They need no split-second reflexes. The landscape just wants you to learn its layouts and understand Madeline’s physics. No more, no less. No matter how impossible things appear at first.

And through these harrowing experiences, you grow. Going back to the game's first world has been a wild experience for me. Screens that used to terrify me are now beaten on the first try with relative ease. Walls that seemed insurmountable almost feel... nostalgic?

It’s an experience that can make you proud of what was accomplished. And maybe, just maybe, that's just the push you and Madeline need, right now.

Madeline dashing her way through the free Farewall update

The team at Extremely Okay Games can be proud of what they accomplished with Celeste. They managed to make a game embody both fear and courage. One where map design, controls, and music align to amplify both anxiety and the all-too-important relief.

This sense of comfort, of empathy, elevates Celeste beyond being "just" a really good platformer. It’s a game that’s refreshingly devoid of cynicism, one that reminds you that your efforts are worth it.

And they are. Sometimes all you need is a gentle reminder.

(also holy shit the soundtrack is so good)

Previous retrospectives:

#1: NieR Automata


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