How Celeste Climbed the Mountain to GOTY Nominee

MattMakesGames Super Meat Boy-esque platformer broke out of 2018’s indie sphere and into Game of the Year nominations.

From this year’s array of outstanding AAA titles, Celeste stands out as an indie. For those who have played Celeste its nomination will likely be no surprise, but for those unfamiliar, let’s take a look at what makes Celeste so special and warrants it a place among the likes of Red Dead Redemption 2, God of War and others.

In January this year, out of seemingly nowhere came Celeste. A vibrant, memorable adventure built on one simple mechanic: the dash.

“Like the very first level of Super Mario Bros, Celeste teaches you its mechanics organically through level design.”

The combination of this satisfying dash movement, jump, and wall climb presents a number of possible combinations. The development of the dash itself is natural. From a single dash to a double, and then to a free-flowing feather, this core game mechanic grows with Madeline.

The Mountain

Celeste, at surface level, is about a girl named Madeline who wants to climb Mount Celeste. She does this to break away from her everyday struggles and doubts. Through the conquest of the mountain, Celeste must face her true enemy and worst critic, herself.

Without visible tangible reason, the player feels compelled to climb the mountain just as Madeline is. The player’s motivation can arguably be found from the satisfying gameplay and relatability of Madeline.

Persistence

The theme of the game’s storyline is Persistence. This is also present in its somewhat challenging difficulty which peaks in post-main game content such as the B sides and C sides.

Celeste offers a death counter not just for the players’ amusement and challenge, but also to capture the essence of the main theme. The counter shows how many times the player failed yet kept trying, a powerful message when aligned with Celeste’s story.

The original Pico-8 version can be found within Celeste and strips the game back.

 No longer are there detailed sprites and character portraits.

This version of the game shows the player how simple the core idea is, and the level design remains clever from start to finish. The ability to pick up and play on Nintendo Switch made Celeste more accessible. Checkpoints are frequent which allows to user to pick up and play for a few minutes. However, I found myself unable to put the game down. The combination of fluid gameplay, stunning art style and Lena Raine’s beautiful soundtrack kept me clutching my switch into the late hours of the morning.

As players wage over the importance of storytelling versus mechanics in modern titles, Celeste excels in both. God of War was also nominated for Game of the Year and received praise for its strong story/gameplay balance through its showcase of Kratos and Atreus relationship. This storyline accompanied some extremely satisfying and intricate combat creating a great balance similar to Celeste’s.

Celeste’s presence as an indie GOTY nominee is nothing unheard of

In 2016 Playdead’s ‘Inside’ was nominated. However, we rarely see more than one indie title in the running to claim the prize, perhaps this will change, but for now indies are few are far between.

Celeste is available across all platforms.