Celeste

Celeste is a 2018 platform game developed and published by indie developer Matt Makes Games. The player controls Madeline, a young girl with anxiety and depression who aims to climb Celeste Mountain. During her climb, she encounters several characters, including a personification of her self-doubt known as Badeline, who attempts to stop her from climbing the mountain. Development of Celeste began in August 2015, when game developers Maddy Thorson^[a] and Noel Berry participated in a game jam, where they created Celeste for the PICO-8. Thorson, who served as producer, and Berry, who served as the lead programmer, wanted to expand the PICO-8 game into a full release. Inspired in part by Thorson's own TowerFall (2013) and Super Mario Bros. 3 (1988), the gameplay was designed to be minimal, while mirroring Thorson's experiences with bouldering. Celeste was also designed to be accessible, featuring game mechanics intended to make the game more forgiving in addition to an "Assist Mode" offering several options to make the game less challenging. The themes of self-forgiveness present in the narrative began with the idea of creating a "more introspective" game, and later grew to become intertwined with the gameplay. The soundtrack was composed by Lena Raine.