The craziest game design stunt I’ve ever seen is in Celeste, and it’s a part of the game I never see people talk about. Spoilers for that game if you haven’t played it yet. I’ll talk about what I mean by “game design stunt” after describing the moment itself because it’s kinda hard to think of other examples.
Halfway through chapter 5 (the first of three consecutive chapters for which I thought “surely THIS is the climax of the game, the most hype that it ever gets”), you are sucked into a giant mirror and wind up in some void-like limbo space. The camera moves away from the player character, Madeline, and focuses on a statue of some kind of many-eyed tentacle ball creature. Pressing a button causes the statue to crack and burst, revealing a live specimen of the depicted creature in its place.
You then gain control over this creature. It can fly around and dash, and you’ll probably discover pretty quickly that there are ethereal barriers the creature can’t pass through, as well as dirt walls that it can destroy by dashing. You spend a few seconds overcoming these very simple obstacles before reaching Madeline’s static body, completing the segment by attacking and killing her. Madeline “wakes up” in a frightening, eldritch version of the temple from before, once again under your control, and you quickly encounter those same monsters that have all the same mechanics as the one you played as (the ethereal barriers, the destructible dirt, the dash, the killing Madeline).
inhales
Excuse me what the FUCK??
Do you see what the game just did? It just. It just fucking taught you what an enemy does by letting you play as it. They programmed the ability to control one of these things for a thirty-second segment more than halfway through the game, and it’s the only time you ever get to control something other than Madeline! Who the fuck DOES that?? WHO DO THESE GAME DEVS THINK THEY ARE??
See what I mean by a “game design stunt” now? I really can’t think of any other examples that are quite as crazy as this one. It’s so out there, and so effective, and, god, how do you even think of this shit lmao
… Celeste is pretty good
