Celeste! ♫ the best a game can get ♫

wow. just made it to the end! i finished in just a touch under 11 hours

there's a certain kind of fun to be had with the kinds of AAA games that have enormous sandbox areas and a million sidequests in addition to the main storyline. but i feel like the end state those kinds of games lead to is exhaustion. you tackle as many sidequests as you can until you've had enough, then quit or take on the final mission. after all that work and time and effort (and some fun, sometimes), you just kind of stick a fork in it.

NOT SO with celeste. jfc, the end game amps up the intensity (not necessarily the difficulty) so much it's unbelievable! there is a boss showdown that is just O_O.
there's all sorts of stuff to do and go back to. i haven't done any of the b-sides.

i can think of only two criticisms for this game.
1) it makes my thumb hurt
2) i wish it had a simple map showing which rooms you've visited and their entrances/exits

that's it. wow. *howls at the moon*

just read this short little interview here: http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/01/feature_conquering_the_indie_mountain_with_celeste_creator_matt_makes_games

What does the future hold for Celeste?

Hopefully, a game that people remember and come back to fondly. I don't think we have any plans to create a sequel to Celeste - it really feels like we told the story we wanted to tell.

fuck yeah, that's what i'm talking about. make a perfect game, then drop the mic and go to the next one

https://www.instagram.com/TheoUnderStars/

Madeleine. Celeste. Coincidence in a game about time and memory, or are there any -or any more obvious - proust references?

Wondering whether to buy this - is it fun, or is it too twitchy/tense to count as relaxing?

I've just been replaying 10,000,000 (not a platform game) but that's about as breakneck as I can handle a modern game before I stop finding it fun

As I observed, it's weirdly chill, almost zen-like, despite being so stressful. Context counts, I guess?

It makes my hands sweat

It is really unbelievable how often you die on this game. And crazy that I'll pass a room first try, and then take twenty tries on my next run through it

the rooms are small enough and the reset times after death so quick that its not stressful really, and you feel satisfied after finally figuring out a room

i was feeling really good about trying to 100% the game. i went back and got all the strawberries for chapters 1 and 2, completed their b-sides, recorded 0 death runthroughs (2:35 and 3:31 respectively)

but shiiiit the difficulty does ramp up a bit for chapter 3. i managed to find all the strawberries but i'm not sure i'll ever be able to do a 0 death run (which is important to me for some reason)

Wow that's crazy

I got to the windy level and my internal rating for this game dropped from a 10/10 to an 8/10

Windy level can go fuck itself

I stopped even thinking about the strawberries on this level

windy level was my least favorite, but chapter 5 is better. and then everything to the end is just O_O (i thought)

You guys are nuts. I hadn't really touched it since the day I bought it, but was playing tonight and there was one screen on chapter 1 - yes, near the very beginning - that was kicking my ass so hard I was convinced my controller was broken and was even googling known issues. Eventually I found someone on youtube, and yeah, I was literally never going to figure out this screen, but the dude's play did help me realize what I was doing wrong. For some reason either I didn't know or had forgotten that you can only dash once before landing on ground, which means you can only *jump* off things you're clinging to, not *dash* off them (right?). However, you can just jump into the void and *then* dash. Just once, though, unless you get one of those recharging things.

Anyway, I'm old and my thumbs hurt.

"I'm old and my thumbs hurt" is what how this game is meant to make you feel

Anybody I've shown it to under 30 is like "lol you are old, we don't know how to play this kind of shit"

i finally figured out how to stream on twitch from my ps4 (i had weird microphone issues), so i'm going to work on the chapter 3 b-side in a sec. or start to figure out how to do it quickly without dying

in case anyone is incredibly bored tonight. i'm all by myself tonight and my dog has already been taken out, so this is going to be a wednesday night epiiiic stream

https://www.twitch.tv/weinventyou

Watched for a little while. Those levels look pretty hard!

they are intensely hard! room 4 of ch. 3 b-side now

ok WHOA, say what you want about the windy level, but the crystal heart for it is the beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeest of all time. i have never thought so highly of a collectible.

only like four strawberries in but this is very nice

Karl, I watched yr videos (I've never watched Twitch before!), that looks intense

I think I may regrettably have to accept that, if I struggled to even beat the first boss on Shovel Knight, Celeste may not be the Game For Me

Yeah Karl has cured me of my thirst for this :/

Oh shit

I saw that crystal heart (vanilla run through) but I didn't know how to jump up to it and gave up

Whoops?

fwiw the vanilla levels are not nearly as hard as the ones karl is playing there

Oh yeah, I was mainly working on the chapter 3 b-side and that was intense. It took about 500-600 deaths to get through!

Andrew I feel bad if I ruined it for you! ciderpress is right about the vanilla game not being nearly so hard. The first chapter in particular is a gem of level design, gradually teaching the skills of the game to newcomers. If I have time later tonight I’d be happy to do a leisurely chapter one strawberry hunt! I’ll let y’all know here if I do.

fgti

Let’s just say that to get to it you have to think about the game’s influences. I couldn’t believe it when it actually worked!

No I get that - I am a 100%er, so I have to think about these before comitting (and anyway I have a looong backlist even in just this genre - re-united with my Wii-U after a while and I've still got Mario Galaxy 2 let alone the two Wii-U Marios and the Rayman).

oh, i gotcha. i am generally not a 100%er. i end up quitting most games long before i reach the end, let alone all the collectibles. i think i'm gonna give 100% a shot on this game a shot, but it's going to be rough.

fwiw the vanilla levels are not nearly as hard as the ones karl is playing there

But they're still really hard! A lot harder than Shovel Knight.

Fuck I just saw a walkthrough and I literally thought "SMB3" when I saw that white box and should've tried that very thing

Godammit this game is very clever and good

Beat chapter 8 last night, some great new mechanics in that level

Karl when will u stream again

oh man, i still haven't even gotten access to chapter 8! i only have 2 of the crystal hearts.

i might actually have a go this afternoon! so far i have all the strawberries in the first 4 chapters, and the b-sides for the first 3. working on the b-side for the 4th. i was also able to record zero-death runs for the first three chapters, but i'm not sure if i'll ever be able to do it for chapter 4. shit is hard.

on a related note, the music for the 4th chapter b-side is my favorite of the game so far.

if i had more energy and willpower and research and writing abilities i would write an enormous essay on endlessly looping music, including stuff like hold music for insurance companies but primarily as it's used in video games. the ch. 4 b-side theme is not the best example of what i'm thinking because it is more of just a really long kickass song with identifiable movements that is made to seamlessly loop. but sometimes in other games i'll enter the pause menu, or the title screen, and spend some time appreciating the really thoughtful loop that someone has created for the purpose. it is it's own genre, i think, and it deserves more recognition.

fyi after you complete all the regular levels and b sides you unlock golden strawberries which you get from deathless runs, idk if they're retroactive so you might want to hold off on those

oh shit, thank you! i will hold off on attempting deathless runs for the rest of the chapters, then.

are you working on 100% completing the game ciderpress? how far are you?

I'm not going for 100% anytime soon, haven't finished the b sides yet

Karl what's your twitch name?

I don't have the means to stream myself, but if I could i'd totally kick the shit out of link to the past for y'all

i am weinventyou on twitch

and yeah, that would be awesome! i have gotten 3/4 of the way through LTTP so many times, but never beaten it ;_;

evan if you ever have questions about the streaming stuff, just let me know. i am very much an amateur but i struggled through a lot of technical issues when i first started and might be able to point you in the right direction at least.

streaming pc games is simple, i have no clue how to stream from a switch though

i assume you need a video card that has hdmi in, which mine doesn't

at least on ps4, streaming is built into it - i just hit the share button, connect it to my twitch, and i'm pretty much ready to go. not sure about switch > twitch, though

streaming pc games is simple

i found streaming mac games to be not nearly as simple as i thought it would be, although i am also a bumbling fool in general. my biggest issue was with sound, specifically with routing the correct audio channels to the stream while still being able to hear everything locally. it sounds like it would be easy but for me it involved a combo of OBS, wavtap, soundflower, and multi-output settings in my sound preferences

ah I only have experience with windows that must be it

evan if you ever have questions about the streaming stuff, just let me know. i am very much an amateur but i struggled through a lot of technical issues when i first started and might be able to point you in the right direction at least.

― Karl Malone, Wednesday, February 7, 2018 11:56 AM (twenty-four minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I appreciate that! My main deterrent is that my wife would probably get really worried that I was starting to go down some alarming LTTP speed running rabbit hole. We're fascinated and horrified by some of the career streamers we see grinding games for 6+ hours straight. Just seems unhealthy. Of course I wouldn't do that, nor is it inevitable. The closest I've come to streaming was sharing my screen during a skype call so a friend overseas could watch me play a LTTP randomizer.

ok, working on ch4 b-side now

You guys are total pros. I have hit two points in the first chapter or whatever - Forbidden City? - that have totally stumped me. The first I had to figure out by watching some online play through, this second one ... I hope it doesn't come to that, but I have no idea how to even leave the screen I'm on. Found my first b-side cassette, though.

i keep thinking i have reached the end of the b-side, and there's another screen

cloud jump/boost mechanics are always my achilles heel, ever since SMB3, so the stages which depend on them are total nightmares for me

likewise hooked on this, so many indelible touches around pretty flawless level design. 100% strawberries so far

Got back into playing this. Wasn't 100% feeling this but now I've got to Oshiro's hotel, I'm loving it.
However, I have a bad habit of getting really far, then rage quitting and forgetting to save my game!
All the same, it's wonderful how you can spend ages and ages and ages simply trying to get past the first obstacle on a screen, and then suddenly it comes so naturally you can do the whole thing in one fluid motion. Reminds me of learning a tricky piece on an instrument.

I cannot be bothered with most strawberries though

Yeah it's a satisfying feeling, like you just gained a new skill in life, have you tried 1001 Spikes? It's full of that sort of experience. Dick rippingly frustrating mind.

Oh man the strawberries in the hotel are what put me off the game!

Also I do not understand B-sides, and have only found one so far.

b-sides unlock another version of that level that is EVEN HARDER!

(there's also c-sides)

:D strawberries are my favorite part of the game. they're totally optional! they're similar to modern day marios where every level has a handful of yoshi coins that really are more just for completionists

also LOVE the strawberries. i had to get every last one. they are optional and don’t amount to much in the end but encourage you to explore and really get familiar with each stage.

i tapped out on the c-sides a while ago and now i feel old and out of shape. booted up the new DLC from earlier this year and that was a rude awakening to be sure.

I have been really enjoying this. Mostly just picking it up, clearing 1–3 screens, then saving and putting it back down. A great way to scratch that video game itch with my short attention span.

Love it, been stuck in mirror temple for about a year now

I whizzed through a whole bunch of this a few weeks ago but gave up around the windy levels

picked this back up and are being eaten by a fish in the mirror level. gonna carry on tomorrow when my red raw thumb recovers.

fuck a s/berry tho, I've never been a completionist. just wanna see how Madeline's story ends.

also, it turns out streaming on twitch concentrates my mind and gives me sufficient gee-up to persevere.

this game is fkn tough

just started a game called Olija, which is a bit like Celeste meets Castlevania but with more of a puzzle element than fast-twitch action. Feeling it so far!

started playing this today and uh it says i died 341 times on the hotel level. my thumb hurts so much.

oh my god the fucking mirror level

i gave up on the wind levels. great game but life is too short

Turn on assist mode! The end of the game is so nice 😭

Turn on assist mode!

^^^

also relevant for people struggling with hades

Celeste's dialogue design is the #1 most-asked-about topic when it comes to the game's sound. I figured I'd share some of how we went about creating it. pic.twitter.com/HVpRdvlfAD

— Kevin Regamey (@regameyk) July 17, 2021

That's neat. I personally like the emotive gibberish of "Hollow Knight."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekz4-SNVJjU

bafanada

another celeste mario ("hastily made with levels designed within two months"), nice humblebrag:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbQmiDDAx3A

Now in 3 dimensions!

https://maddymakesgamesinc.itch.io/celeste64

Looks sick!