From humble days as a prototype from a four-day game jam, Celeste is a platformer with challenging difficulty and unique mechanics.
From the Steam store description:
"Help Madeline survive her inner demons on her journey to the top of Celeste Mountain, in this super-tight, hand-crafted platformer from the creators of multiplayer classic TowerFall.
- A narrative-driven, single-player adventure like mom used to make, with a charming cast of characters and a touching story of self-discovery
- A massive mountain teeming with 700+ screens of hardcore platforming challenges and devious secrets
- Brutal B-side chapters to unlock, built for only the bravest mountaineers
- IGF “Excellence in Audio” finalist, with over 2 hours of original music led by dazzling live piano and catchy synth beats
- Pie
The controls are simple and accessible - simply jump, air-dash, and climb - but with layers of expressive depth to master, where every death is a lesson. Lightning-fast respawns keep you climbing as you uncover the mysteries of the mountain and brave its many perils.
This is it, Madeline. Just breathe. You can do this."
From an interview between Gamasutra, co-creator Noel Berry and composer Lena Raine:
"I had recently discovered PICO-8, a small fantasy console inspired by the computer & gaming platforms of the late 80s, and Matt and I decided it would be fun to try to make a game for it. We wanted something fairly minimalist in concept, partially due to the limitations of the tool, but that also had a lot of depth in mechanics. The idea of a character struggling to climb a mountain felt like it fit really well with this. We spent 4 days and made the original.
After releasing it, we left the concept alone for a few months. When we later revisited the game, we decided to make something inspired by the original, but without any of the constraints of PICO-8. Initially, we felt like we could do that in a few months, but as the game grew, the spaces we felt we could explore with it did too, and it ended up being a 2 year project (we were also never realistic with our timeline, and kept thinking "it'll be done next month" the entire 2nd year of the project). As we expanded the project, we tried to make sure it always felt true to the initial concept of the PICO-8 version - a game about climbing a mountain and overcoming the personal struggle of seeing that through." - co-creator Noel Berry