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S1 Ep16: Celeste
73 Plays7 years ago
Join us for a full spoiler episode of the frustratingly difficult but immensely rewarding platformer, Celeste!
Like the Celeste music samples in this episode? Check out the awesome OST on Lena Raine's bandcamp!
https://radicaldreamland.bandcamp.com/album/celeste-original-soundtrack
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Transcript
00:00:23
Speaker
Oh no!
Introduction and Casual Banter
00:01:06
Speaker
Hello everybody, welcome again to yet another episode of the Soapstone podcast. I, as always, am Dave, joined by my co-host.
00:01:14
Speaker
Jake. That's my name. I thought you said your name and then asked how you were doing. Yeah, that's fine. How are you doing though? I'm doing pretty swell. Ready for the weekend. Doing pretty swell. I'm pinching his muscles. He's very, very
Exploring Celeste's Art and Gameplay
00:01:29
Speaker
toned. He lied. I wouldn't let him do that. I'm baritone. Very toned. Okay. Yeah, I was going to say, I don't know if that's usually
00:01:39
Speaker
a muscular description but what game we talking about today Jake so it's a platformer obviously uh mario no i'm just talking about celeste which uh is a game you played i did play it'd be weird if i didn't and i was gonna run my mouth about it i've also played it on the recommendation of dave um
00:01:59
Speaker
It's a nice little platformer on Steam. It is indie. What was it, 15, 20 bucks? Yeah, I think it was 20 bucks when I picked it up. Yeah. Very cute art style. Very good everything. We'll get more into that later. But it's been such a value purchase for me. I've sunk 16 hours into already. The game's not that long, but I keep I keep sucking at the game. Yeah. And then trying to do side things.
00:02:25
Speaker
This is one of those rare games where the worse you are, maybe not necessarily rare, but it's a game where the worse you are at it, the more value you'll get over time. Yeah. And deaths are not, I mean, they are tracked for the game, but it's not necessarily a bad thing. It just shows how invested you are. So this sounds like Dark Souls. What makes this game different than Dark Souls?
00:02:47
Speaker
This is a game about puzzle platformer challenge and learning how to utilize and abuse mechanics. We watched a speedrun of this game recently. Oh, yeah. Where people can do really crazy things. It's really just a fun game that builds on those mechanics as it goes throughout the game.
00:03:09
Speaker
So it kind of starts off like a little bit slowly, as many of these games would. Slowly adds mechanics over time, which we'll get into. Like Dave said, platformer. It's kind of like pixel-ish art, but they have some scenes that are clearly like a different art style. It's smoother, kind of drawn.
00:03:29
Speaker
And it's got its own distinct vibe though, right? The whole theming and setup, which we'll break down a little bit later in the podcast. Let's keep telling them about things we're going to do later. But that's later. Check back a minute, 37. You have to have a table of contents, yeah. If you want to hear about the music, jump to a minute. Oh, about the intro. Oh, we did that earlier.
00:03:52
Speaker
Yeah, if you're curious about jumping to the intro, you can jump to, you know... Timestamp 00, probably the best. Yeah. That all being said, this game in particular, there's other games like it as far as the genre, kind of like very fast paced. Yeah, you have like your Super Meat Boy is another fast platformer. Yeah.
00:04:14
Speaker
That's really the only other one I can think of, to be honest. It's not tremendously explored. A lot of times, games will have platformers. We've got a health bar. You've got to make it through a level, things like that. This isn't that game. It's a success or failure. It's really easy to die, but it resets almost instantly, like Super Meat Boy. It also has this niche quality I found.
00:04:41
Speaker
where you find something that is challenging in it and you get frustrated that you're not making it past. You keep sucking, but you hit your wall. I don't feel deterred.
00:04:55
Speaker
I feel like I'm being pushed down by a father. He's like, no, come up. Try and fight me again. And you want to actually succeed. You want to beat up your dad. Fight your dad. Not my best analogy. You've showered with your dad. Now fight your dad.
00:05:13
Speaker
I am deterred. It is one of those types of games where until you get your aha moment and your moment of zen focus and clarity, it can be really rewarding to break through that and
00:05:32
Speaker
the air conditioning's off. Breaking through that kind of barrier that you've been stuck on for the last 15 minutes. Yeah, we were talking about how there's some parts that could be way more difficult than that. It's kind of rare in today's games that
00:05:55
Speaker
You have something with a difficulty wall like that. I think I really don't have, I don't see many games where they'll kind of take that risk of putting you up in a spot where it's like this person may have enough frustration that they stop playing our game right now. But in.
00:06:11
Speaker
Until last they balance it so anytime that you've got a wall like that it feels really good to break through But then they tend not to just stack up a bunch of really hard challenges unless you're playing like Some of the advanced content. It's not you know and then the main place. Yeah, it definitely slopes up overall Mm-hmm, but there's peaks and valleys along the way and
00:06:35
Speaker
like you said it doesn't feel like a constant why is this hard why is this hard i hate this part yeah it balances out some fun older mechanics as long as well as with current mechanics for the stage area and i think it's like an analogy might be like if you're climbing a mountain and then you reach the top
00:06:53
Speaker
and then you throw yourself off the mountain. It's way easier to hit the bottom than it thought it would. I don't know. Could be though. Right on that snake. All the way down.
00:07:12
Speaker
Another difference to Super Meat Boys and Super Meat Boy, you just play as a hunk of meat, right? Oh, a hunk of meat. Yeah. I mean, Super Meat Boys, you may not like it, but this is the peak of physical fitness. Yeah, and it's your classic save the damsel from an evil. Yeah, bandage of girls.
00:07:34
Speaker
But this isn't the Super Meat Boy episode, so in this case you get to, in some ways, play as the damsel, but you're also the hero. Yeah. Your character is Madeline. Your girl who's looking to go and go on a hike, aka scale a mountain. Somewhere in Canada. Yeah. It's the mountain that's called Celeste, not the main character.
00:07:59
Speaker
And you're going to scale it for your own reasons. You have some shit you want to work through. But you start out in the game, you're just kind of walking across the platform. You meet an old lady who's like, oh, you're going up Celeste Mountain. She laughs at you and you're like, why are you laughing at me? Got some stuff to do.
00:08:16
Speaker
She's just like, oh, you know, she's not fazed at all by this, this red haired girl, like short red haired girl showing up is going to climb the mountain. She's just like, yeah, good luck. And she laughs at you. Yeah, you go like 10 feet past your house and there's just.
00:08:33
Speaker
The road's missing. There's just like pieces of floating cobble. You're like, okay, I'm definitely platforming. Yeah. And you're going across and things are crumbling.
Unpacking the Story and Characters of Celeste
00:08:44
Speaker
And then you got the end, you see this big enough gap that you can't really make in the jumps that you've made so far. You're like, I'll never make it. Never make it.
00:08:55
Speaker
Never make it. And then as you make the jump, time kind of slows and a bird shows up and it's like, hey, press X or whatever your dash button is for your inputs. Yeah. And so you kind of dash towards the bird and you're like, holy shit, I can dash. It would be funny if it always said press X regardless of like what control scheme you had. You press X on your keyboard, you fall.
00:09:23
Speaker
So at this point you can do your standard move and jump like any platformer, but now you have an air dash, which is omnidirectional, but it will reset when you touch the ground. So normally if you jump and use your dash, your hair changes color. Because it turns blue inside red, right? And your dash is now expended until you stand on solid ground again. Yeah.
00:09:48
Speaker
Yeah, so you have your basic move set, like you said, you can grab onto walls at this point, and you have to kind of rely on the grabbing onto walls, jumping between different platforming elements and using your dash to make it through each challenge. And you're like, all right, let's do this, getting up that mountain.
00:10:07
Speaker
Also, wall grab does have limited stamina. So you couldn't, for a vertical section, just hog the wall and scale the whole thing. But what you can do is jump between walls and find other ways to keep your stamina not fully expended. Because a lot of times you'll have to clear in later parts of the game a lot of distance.
00:10:46
Speaker
jump off of a wall with a ridiculous amount of force, grab onto a wall, and climb a sheer face with no handholds or ledges. And I'm like, okay, it's pretty impressive. So we moved on from that.
00:10:52
Speaker
before you can stabilize.
00:11:04
Speaker
you've started your climb up to the top, right? And the mountain represents, or it has all of the levels necessary to get through the game here as you're working your way up to the top. But it's never just that easy, right? It's not like a pyramid or something like that.
00:11:23
Speaker
What? No, I was saying, the terrain tends to be pretty diverse. They're perfectly happy, like cutting the bottom of the level out from under you. You can fall out of it and like die, respawn. It takes like a second to respawn. You just, and like this pixel kind of explosion energy goes out, forms back up. Yeah, like Mega Man. Yeah, yeah.
00:11:46
Speaker
This is basically Mega Man, if the protagonist was female. That's all it is. It's just a reskin, really. That's not true. So you start out and you're working your way through this probably like lush green area and they start to introduce some mechanics to you, right? Like, hey, this isn't just going to be jumping and moving between platforms.
00:12:10
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like for each stage, they probably add three to four mechanics, which are each unique. So starting out in Forsaken City, you'll have these machine blocks. So you first come across this giant gap. Like Jake said, there's no ground beneath you. But in the distance, you see a wall and like a place to land. So you jump on the machine block, you hold onto it.
00:12:35
Speaker
and it kind of slides to the end of its track and then stops. Then you let go, use that momentum, and try and get to the other side. And they'll have side machine blocks or things that will launch you up or diagonally. And it's utilizing that and your wall climb and your dash to get from point A to point B. This game will use a lot of momentum modifiers. Things that will launch you to the side, like horizontally or vertically up in the air, if you jump off at the right time, right? Yeah.
00:13:03
Speaker
and they just continue to add mechanics like that level by level. So like another thing they'll introduce pretty early is these emerald crystals that can reset your dash. So if you catch one of those in the air, then you can make another dash. Your hair color will go back to red to indicate that you have a dash. Your hair is red. Your hair is red. Your hair is blue. That's amazing. You can make another jump at that point.
00:13:33
Speaker
Also, springs. Oh yeah, springs also. It's just like a springboard that pushes you off, but usually anything like that, it counts as you landing again, so that will also reset your dash. Yeah. There's a lot of things that if you catch it in the middle of some of your ridiculous park or traversal, it'll reset your dash and let you perform more superhuman feats as you're climbing this mountain.
00:13:57
Speaker
Which as it turns out is not completely mundane anyways, right? So the area after Forsaken City. Hold up, I feel like you're forgetting about another character. Theo? Is that the Raven thing, the bird?
00:14:10
Speaker
No, it's the other hiker who's here. Yeah, the game forces you to encounter Theo later, but I didn't see or I did see him, but I purposely was trying to like go through this game at a pretty good clip until I got too attached to it. Yeah. And so I didn't talk to Theo first time, but. How's Theo? What does he say the first time you encounter him?
00:14:34
Speaker
He's just a fellow hiker, like I said, but he's kind of a hipster guy. He's got like the gauged ears. He's got a flannel shirt. His hair is touslable. His hair is touslable. But he's just a nice friendly guy. He's like, Oh, what are you doing here? What's going on? Yeah. And you become pally to a degree. Yeah. He's incredibly chill. Um,
00:15:00
Speaker
And it's not obvious like when you encounter someone on the mountain, you're just like, oh, why are you here, right? Well, why are you here? And no one has super great reasons, but they're there for their own reasons. And yeah, I guess this introduces him and he'll come back up later in the story, right? Yeah, but he's a nice friendly chap, very lighthearted.
00:15:28
Speaker
I also want to retroactively pepper in. Celeste Mountain is said to have spiritual powers. Yes. Or having some other things going on besides you just being a mountain. It's the old Disney movie, Escape to Celeste Mountain. Oh, I thought it was that part in the Disney logo. You're like, that's the mountain. There it is. Got it. I'm climbing that. I'm going to climb that.
00:15:56
Speaker
but making your way through that area you eventually come up to is it a mirror i believe you encounter near the start of the next area that is yeah yeah yeah i think it's i think it's a mirror
00:16:15
Speaker
And, uh, when you walk in front of the mirror, you like walk past it and your reflection, uh, is visible in the mirror itself. Right. Which is, you know, games use this trope, but your reflection is like the opposite of, of your colors. So it's like, you've got like this pink hair and like dark eyes and like blue skin. You're just like, okay, you know, it's classic demon, right? Like I've played Dean. I know what this is. Yeah. No. Um, but if you walk past, uh,
00:16:45
Speaker
Madeline turns around, walks back to the mirror, and her reflection starts breaking out of the mirror, which is always gonna be awesome. I know if it's a trope, I don't care. Yeah. One thing I really like that they do when introducing characters, so the game is entirely pixelated, but when you have interaction between characters, it's kind of like a Dragon's Quest type dialogue, where you have the portrait and you have the text go out. Yeah, it's a classic RPG style.
00:17:13
Speaker
So you have different facial expressions for the tone of what they're saying. And the voices sound a little bit like Animal Crossing.
00:17:23
Speaker
Let's not do that the whole time. Yeah. I was going to just switch over to that mode, but if you want to use English for the rest, I guess that's fine. Another example would be something like Undertale. Yeah. Yeah. Like Sans has a particular voice and that's the same they'll use here. And initially, like when they started with the beeps, I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if I can do the beeps. Yeah. It does kind of come across a little.
00:17:49
Speaker
rough and grating. Yeah. Like I can't listen to this high pitch thing. But in the same way, similar to how Animal Crossing does it, it gives like a tone personality to each character. Uh huh. So Madeline at the start of the game is very meek and mild mannered and you kind of hear it in the notes that she's making. Right.
00:18:10
Speaker
And Theo's like, right? Yeah, man, whatever. Yeah, he's
Madeline's Journey: Overcoming Inner Demons
00:18:13
Speaker
kind of got this almost like jazzy kind of voices. Things just roll off and it's whatever. Yeah. And Madeline has a couple of moments. This is what kind of sold me on the beep. The beep dialogue system was a she has a tone specifically when she's being like sarcastic and dry. Yeah. I just like brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr brr. I mean, just listen to the sample.
00:18:43
Speaker
Yeah, I mean how do you not love that? That's great. That's great. If you don't put that in a post this way. Yeah, I'll probably remember to put that in.
00:18:53
Speaker
So now that you've, if we go back to the game itself, now that you've met your reflection, these certain blocks which were around you before are now alive and animated. And they kind of look like you're peering into space. They were blocking you before. Yeah, they were just solid objects. They had some transparency, but you couldn't interact with them in any way.
00:19:15
Speaker
But now you don't really have anywhere else to go in this room. So you try dashing through when they're called dream blocks. And it continues your dash, whatever you're doing in a straight line, and then also resets your dash. So it enables some really cool dash through something and then jump out and get a lot of distance and momentum. Yeah.
00:19:34
Speaker
But the thing is, if you dash into a wall, you die. Yeah. It's a high speed impact. Yeah. It's kind of, it's kind of, cause there's no space between the dream block and the wall. Yeah. So it's kind of like being in a situation where you are in a material that accelerates you and you are now placed exactly between that material and a solid wall. What's going to happen? You get splatted. It's a little rough.
00:20:01
Speaker
So you go through the level getting to play with a lot of these dream blocks. And then you come to a body that's kind of just slumped in the corner. This is where we get to... Oh, I'm shaking, sorry. I just passed by.
00:20:17
Speaker
There's a blood stain next to me. But you see a body of somebody who did not make up the mountain, but also there is your reflection, who's like, hey, how's it going? Are you still trying to do this? And she seems to be your doubt, your fear, your anger, all of your negative emotions kind of bottled into one. And she's trying to dissuade you from going up the mountain. Right.
00:20:43
Speaker
You're like, hey, fuck off, I'm going up the mountain. And she's like, really now? Yep. And so at this point, there's the dialogue between yourself and Dark Madeline or Badeline. Yeah, she's been called Dadeline. You're not my Dadeline. Or if you're an engineer, Cadeline. Anywho. Yeah.
00:21:06
Speaker
So like I said before, the dialogue is usually portrait form and you'll have like some text go across in that box. Yeah. And it's just static images. But at this point, she, it's animated. She sticks her head out of the box, kind of breaking that fourth wall. Yeah. And then her hair like droops or drapes out of the box box, like a 3d essence to it. Yeah.
00:21:30
Speaker
And then the music changes and she becomes animated and starts following you. Yeah. And you can tell by the change of pace of music that you're like, I gotta get the fuck out of here. Yeah. So the next series is essentially you running from your reflection, going through these areas, but she follows you three seconds behind. Yeah.
00:21:50
Speaker
Yeah, and it's your path exactly. So once you realize that she's always gonna take your path, she's not trying to, well, she is trying to catch you, but she'll always go exactly where you go. You can kind of like vary your path to...
00:22:03
Speaker
leave yourself time to open the pathway forward. And they introduced a new mechanic in order to spice things up just a little bit where you have to hit these shield key blocks basically that will open the door to proceed. So I remember there was one particular area here where there was a key up in like the top left and then a platform underneath it. And it was designed in such a way that if you jump straight for the key and your timing is like a little off and you haven't counted for it,
00:22:32
Speaker
she'll come up right behind you when you're leaving. And kind of just, sucky good. But yeah, you have to outrun it, right? But it's really cool to have to progress through an area where you need to get these checkpoints of these key blocks to open the door later on. But also trying to avoid yourself and not take your own path. Because if you get hit, you die. And then also going through these dream blocks at the same time. Yeah.
00:23:02
Speaker
The Dream Blocks are just really cool. They look awesome. You see space basically on the other side of them regardless of what the rest of the level looks like, which is just legit. But ultimately you do escape her.
00:23:18
Speaker
you find a resort in the mountains. It's a kind of retreat area. It's a hotel, right? So you walk in and there's like a guest book and there's two things you can interact with, I think. I remember the guest book, but there may have been one other thing. But you go to interact with the book and this ghost floats out.
00:23:43
Speaker
The show hero. Yeah and He's kind of got this this Well first Madeline's not sure how to deal with him, right? She's just like, well, it's a ghost that's bad, but he seems pretty amicable and Probably has more self-doubt than Madeline does he has this hilarious like so I think he's one of the funniest characters in the game and
00:24:07
Speaker
He's got this dual personality where he's got this confident kind of like, oh yeah, we'll find you a room. It'll be great. You can stay here. And she's like, I gotta climb the mountain. He's like, no, it'll be great. And then anytime she expresses doubt, he turns off to the side and he's like, oh, hero, you're not doing what you need to do. You're losing it. And it's just, it's so great. But you do have to follow him, right?
00:24:36
Speaker
Yeah, you go into the resort kind of, uh, I guess doing him a favor, like, yeah, I'll come through and check it out, but I'm on my way out cause I'm trying to climb up the mountain. Right. But as you go into the center of the resort, it's very cluttered. Yeah. Like there's just books and towels everywhere. Kind of strewn about kind of floating around too. Yeah. A little weird. It's like a maze. But the whole thing's in disarray.
00:25:04
Speaker
And you talk to him, he's like, hey, could you help me out? I don't know what to do with this mess. I don't know how it got so messy. Yeah. So you're going through sections of the level. I think she volunteers. That's part of her personality thing. Good on her. I wouldn't. Yeah. I projected myself. Yeah. And I'm sorry for that. I'm trying to find a way to leave. Let me out of here.
00:25:29
Speaker
But yeah, she starts helping him, right? And I remember at least the first, I believe it was the first room I entered after that, ran into Theo, actually. And from my play through, this is the first time I actually talked to him, because I ignored him the first time.
00:25:44
Speaker
They're just like, hello, stranger. And he's like opening a vent to climb out of the resort. And he was just like, oh. What was he climbing out of the vent? He was leaving the resort because he was just like, that guy, that guy is trouble. He's weird. He's a ghost. Let's just leave. You seem friendly. Let's get out of here. And Madeline's just like, nah, I'm going to try to help him. I think you got him wrong.
00:26:13
Speaker
But I think it was like, sure, I'll see it outside and opens it in the leaves. And I tried to crawl after it, but the game didn't let me. Yeah, game's broken, please fix. So what are some of the mechanics for the resort? So they introduce these, it's kind of like this red, like goo, kind of almost, I want to equate it to just like,
00:26:41
Speaker
cell-like creatures that float around. They've got like gunk all over the place. If you touch the gunk, you die and these creatures kind of float in patterns. And so you have to avoid them whenever you're traversing the level and make sure that you're timing things properly. So previously you had control over most of the variables or if things were moving, it didn't necessarily kill you. Yeah. Because you were typically triggering them to move.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah. And in this one, it's like, all right, more variables, more timing puzzles. And this is really like one thing the game does that it accomplishes really well is whenever it like introduces a new mechanic, it's like, hey, this is something you have to practice, something you have to learn. We're going to like add a layer to what the puzzles previously had. And this one's timing.
00:27:33
Speaker
Yeah, you still have some of your your spikes in your spring blocks and other things to utilize. But you know, at this point, I cannot touch these things. These things are bad. Yeah. And you can't just dash through usually without hitting them. Yeah.
00:27:49
Speaker
This is the first time you go through and help him clean up the hotel by completing each of these different sections. You can kind of go in whatever order you want. But there was one part that had a fountain leading into a pool and I went underwater and all the sound actually quiets when you're underwater, which I thought was a really nice touch.
00:28:12
Speaker
And the game doesn't actually have like underwater sections that I experienced at least. No, there just is water in like three pools of water, but they put that in, which is nice. Yeah. I'm a fan of like, there's a nice touch that you'll only see one or two places in the game. There's some games that all they have is mechanics that they just make for every situation and it feels super awesome.
00:28:35
Speaker
Um, yeah, this game does have a lot of unique portions, another piece of it, or there's a lot of optional content. So throughout the game, you can collect these strawberries. Oh yeah. And some of them are kind of along the path you're going. Other ones are in these often, often these side rooms and you don't get anything for getting them except the fact that you have them and you can brag to your friends. Yeah. I see how many strawberries. He got like a thousand point pop-up or something in a game where everything's made up and the points don't matter.
00:29:05
Speaker
But it is fun to collect those if you're looking for a little bit of an extra challenge or each stage has a blue heart you can get. What's your hidden, right? Yeah, they're all hidden. I didn't have to do extra challenges for and some of them are nuts and some of them I looked up for how to do it. Yeah, I still had to do it myself mechanically. Yeah, but just finding them is kind of nuts.
00:29:26
Speaker
And then they also have B-sides. Right, so those are cassette tapes you can pick up. And that's basically an unlockable level you can go and play. And they're more difficult than the standard levels. Yeah, it's kind of like a remix of the existing level. And they remix music too. Like we haven't gone into the music much yet where you're gonna
00:29:48
Speaker
Hit on that later. But you mentioned the music transition for the boss fight. Each of these levels has its own music, its own feel for it. And as the pace of the game changes, as things are speeding up or slowing down, the music follows along with that. And the B side, you showed me one of the songs for that. Because I haven't personally done the B sides. And they remixed the music. They mixed it up. There's some jazz in there. And I think it's pretty cool.
00:30:18
Speaker
Yeah, each one fits pretty thematically. I like it a lot. Yeah. But after you've finished helping Oh hero out, you're like, all right, it's complete. He's like, great. I'm taking you up to the presidential suite. And you're like, awesome. I'll jump out the window and continue to climb the mountain since it's all the way up there. He's like, all right, let's take the elevator.
00:30:36
Speaker
elevators they completely run down and broken you have to like parkour up the shaft and finally make it to your room and you're like oh this is actually really nice it's like a really nice room it's almost like a like imperial suite type thing and unfortunately it doesn't last right
00:30:58
Speaker
Your reflection shows up and is kind of like whispering over your shoulder. Like this guy's not worth your time. And you kind of get influenced by her a little bit and say something a little bit snippy. He takes it personally and is already dealing with his own stuff as he keeps talking to himself. Yeah. And he seems to hear like when your reflection makes fun of him and like calls him all this stuff, he seems to hear it from you. Yeah. Like he's like, I can't believe you say that. It's kind of interesting. It was something I caught on that first through.
00:31:28
Speaker
And you're kind of like, hey, sorry, this is a little awkward. I'm going to pee. Sorry about that, bye. Yeah. So you leave. Through the ceiling. As you all want to do. Yeah, the reflection's just like, all right, we're getting out of here. It just smashes the hole through the roof, which he just likes. So then you start to leave. But Misho Hero is angry that you are leaving. So he turns into like this super angry ghost version of himself. It's a giant head. Yeah.
00:31:58
Speaker
That demon thing. As you're going across, this is like the next boss fight. He starts like rushing across the screen at you. Yeah. But it'll kind of like draw a line from where he's going and it kind of tracks on you and then it'll just shoot off. Yeah. So you still have to go through, but keep in mind the timing of when he's flying at you.
00:32:16
Speaker
Right. Because if he hits you, you know, you get a restart from the last checkpoint. And this is the, I believe, the start of a mechanic they'll use several times throughout the game, which is there's an enemy that you can basically goomba stomp. Yeah. And so if you hit him on his head, he's like, oh, falls off this green has to reset. You like this.
00:32:37
Speaker
Noise. And it conveniently refreshes your dash as well. Yeah, because it technically counts as you standing on a solid surface for a brief time. And it's kind of like an extended chase section, but eventually you manage to escape them in the end rate.
00:32:56
Speaker
I like how you say each thing very optimistically. You eventually do it. Right. I eventually do it, yeah. Through trials, tribulations, and watching guides on YouTube, I have found out how to escape Ashira. But yeah, the next area after that, after you manage to finally escape
00:33:16
Speaker
is probably my least favorite, but that's fair. One of the main mechanics they add here is it's very sky-based. They have clouds all over the place you can jump on. That's fine. I can jump on clouds. I played Yoshi's Island, I understand. But they'll have wind blowing at you that severely hinders your forward momentum.
00:33:40
Speaker
So now you have to deal with changed distances for how you can reach basically. Like you won't be able to move forward as much as you expect. If you like dash into this, you can't get as much distance. Yeah, you pretty much when you're in midair, you only have your dash. Yeah. And then once that's expended, you kind of drop. So you have to line things up to make sure you are getting to the next platform.
00:34:06
Speaker
Otherwise you kind of fucked. It's something you kind of have to adapt to. And they introduce a couple other blocks here and things you can use. They have green bubbles. They're just like, alright, now that you can barely move while you're in the air, here's a bubble that will launch you in a direction. Basically gives you another dash and you get to hold which direction you want to launch in. And that also resets your dash too.
00:34:29
Speaker
So they'll have you chain those together sometimes. And they also introduce arrow blocks, which it took me. So basically it's just a large block with an arrow on it. And when you interact with it, is it just when you touch it, is it activate? I think you have to actually grab onto it. Yeah.
00:34:49
Speaker
Yeah, when you grab onto it, it starts moving in the direction it's facing. And I probably used a lot of these blocks before I realized that you can manipulate the direction. Yeah. So if it's like a left-right block that's sliding to the right, you can actually hold up while you're holding onto it, and it will drag the block up. So you can kind of go diagonally.
00:35:10
Speaker
It wasn't until I encountered a problem where I literally had to move the block that I figured that part out. Yeah, same It's not obvious on its own. Yeah, this is probably the one thing where I was like I I think they could have conveyed it a little bit easier or maybe a little earlier, but I Don't know. I mean if you have one exception like that in a game of all of these mechanics that they're adding That's pretty good record. Yeah
00:35:38
Speaker
Did you at least, so we were talking about like the wind on coming towards you. It was very debilitating. Yeah. There's a later point in Golden Ridge
Advanced Mechanics and Challenges
00:35:45
Speaker
where the wind's blowing the other way. Yes. So I love that comparison because I'm just like, gotta go fast. It's like, uh, now you're going like super meat boy speeds and just clearing the level as quick as you possibly can. That feels good. I did enjoy that. Yeah. It's just.
00:36:00
Speaker
For me, it's so difficult to balance that momentum because you're like, oh, I jump straight up, I dash straight right. But with all the momentum you have, you still have control over it. But you have to be careful because you're sometimes going through spikes or ice shards or other things that would kill you. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes the game makes you go really fast and you have to evaluate your
00:36:21
Speaker
Environment really quickly or if you're like me die and then know what the environment looks like But yeah moving against the wind. Is it who is that Naruto character? Is it Rock Lee with the art the leg? Yes races. It's basically putting those on like Sonic the Hedgehog like I want to go fast I can I need to take them off you go fast, but That's my analogy Nothing like bringing Naruto into a
00:36:50
Speaker
I mean, that actually is his own series of games, but I hope we never come with this. Yeah, I don't think that's on my list. But if you want it, then send it in, request it, and maybe we'll take a look. No, we're not going to. Send a good game. Eventually, making it through the level you encounter Theo again, though, right?
00:37:11
Speaker
And he's got some ideas. He's going to get you out of there. So there's a cable kind of extending up to a trolley, kind of like a ski lift type thing, like a enclosed ski lift. And he's like, all right, let's do this. I have faith we can get across this.
00:37:32
Speaker
Like we've said, he's very carefree. Nothing's going to go wrong. And it does. It's whatever, man. It's all good. Yeah. Incredibly chill. But it's Madeline. You're very anxious. Yeah. And Madeline's anxiety has come up a little bit before this. There's a part where you have a phone call with your mom. And you kind of, it's...
00:37:59
Speaker
I would say throughout the game, you have these out of body experiences sometimes where you have like a dream or something like that. And Madeline will wake up and she's like really, really anxious. And this is the part where they kind of like home in on exactly why that is. And, uh, basically your reflection shows up while you're taking this, uh, trolley up the mountain and is like, Hey, I'm just going to like jump, right? Like I'm going to jump on top of this trolley and like stall it in the middle here.
00:38:28
Speaker
At which point Madeleine loses it, right? Yeah. She starts having a straight up panic attack and she feels panicked and claustrophobic. But thankfully Theo is there to kind of talk to her and say, Hey, it's going to be fine. We'll make it up. The trial will restart shortly. I'm sure.
00:38:47
Speaker
Yeah, and like one thing the game does is it will modify like the terrain or the lighting or something like that based off of her emotional state. So when she's having the panic attack, the world actually visibly darkens. There's like tendrils coming in the side and it's like, yeah, you know that this mountain's got some nonsense. But he tells you about a method he knows about to calm down and tells you about the feather.
00:39:15
Speaker
Yeah, something he learned from his grandfather was just thinking about a feather, mentally visualizing it. And it goes up when you breathe. You're in charge of keeping that feather afloat. Yeah. You don't want it to blow away. You just want to keep it aloft. Let it float down gently and go up slowly.
00:39:36
Speaker
and to kind of like put you in Madeline shoes here and help you empathize with what she's feeling. They have you, they basically give you a focus and you have to slowly move this focus up and down with like slightly delayed momentum. So you have to maintain a rhythm of kind of slowing your breathing and keeping the feather in focus to calm her down, which is really cool. I like that. That's another example of like, here's a mechanic, right? Yeah. Just like a one-off thing. So, hey, there you go. Yep.
00:40:06
Speaker
But after calming her down, they do manage to proceed on the trolley the rest of the way over this expanse to the drop-off. So you arrive at the top, and there's this big temple. And you kind of camp out for the night, chat with Theo a bit. But then when you wake up, he's already gone inside. And you're like, well, I better go find him quick. So you walk in, and there's a mirror.
00:40:34
Speaker
And in the mirror, you see Theo. And he's like, oh, are you trapped in a mirror? This seems weird. And she's like, no, I think it's I think it's you. He's like, it is dark in here. So you now have to go save Theo who's trapped in this mirror dimension of sorts. He's the damsel.
00:40:54
Speaker
Actually, yeah. For a fair amount of this level. Yeah. You're actually going to save Theo in various ways. Yeah. As he gets into shenanigans.
00:41:05
Speaker
And part of this starts her emotional understanding of what the mountain's doing because she realizes when she feels really distressed, when she starts to lose it, that manifests in the mountain. And she starts to feel responsible because she's like, Theo's trapped because I did this. Yeah, I couldn't deal with my problems. I couldn't handle the dark parts of me. Now he's being affected by it. Yeah, exactly.
00:41:33
Speaker
But she eventually makes it through a bunch of puzzles sheer force of will You find Theo and he's kind of like suspended in this he's in a crystal on top of this like larger crystal structure and
00:41:49
Speaker
You see him first, have a little chat with him, and just like, hold on, I'll get over there. Backtrack around, find a way to him, and basically break the crystal pedestal that he's on. And his crystal falls down. I thought it was going to be freed at this point. That's not the case. It was a really fair assumption. But no, now you have to carry around Crystal Theo as another mechanic. And she picks him up in three frames of lifting or something. It's really, really fast. And he's just like, wow.
00:42:17
Speaker
You're really strong. Just carries him over her head. She can chuck him too, which becomes a mechanic lady. She's actually physically kind of nuts, but I really like how the game will kind of break fourth wall and put these human interactions in there. It's not just for the mechanics or anything else.
00:42:39
Speaker
Yeah, and the next series of rooms is, they've introduced at this point these seeker enemies that'll basically charge at you if they see you, try to chase you down and kill you. You can jump on them, you can goompa stomp them just like anybody else.
00:42:55
Speaker
there's some special lines where you're carrying the crystal through here and if you throw the crystal to a switch that you have to hit to open a door to continue on if you throw the crystal and it hits the switch with Theo and the crystal he's just like i'm helping and i just i love that humor yeah it's very cute uh Theo's just got a great personality and he he stays positive in like the worst situations um
00:43:22
Speaker
But it takes a while, but you can adapt to those puzzles, learn how to use Theo, resist the urge or mistake to throw him off the level. If he dies, it does kill you right afterwards. Yeah, that happened to me, I believe, the very first time. Like, I can throw him. Oh, he's gone. Snake, snake, snake. But you eventually do get him all the way out there and
00:43:52
Speaker
you break him free by throwing him at like a manifestation of his, uh, the issues he's dealing with, right? Cause there's a giant eye that represents his kind of introspective, uh, feeling that he, he's always being watched, that he's not living up to his sister who's named Alex. And, uh, he's kind of in her shadow, which he doesn't really, he doesn't talk about that at all, but this is his inner fear. This is the reason he's on the mountain. Um, so you're kind of like helping him through that, right?
00:44:22
Speaker
But you throw the crystal at the eye, the eye shatters, it's your way forward now, and you carry him out of the temple because the crystal breaks at the same time. Carry him out of the temple and set up camp.
00:44:39
Speaker
After you set up camp, it enters this dialogue phase where you can actually choose, and I think it starts with Theo, you can choose which question. You want to ask Madeline to get to know a little bit more about her and just see how she's doing, what she's thinking.
00:44:56
Speaker
And this is one of those things where I appreciate this dialogue system is never used again in the game. It's literally just here, but it's a nice touch. It's nice to have that little feature that kind of draws you in.
00:45:12
Speaker
i don't know i really just appreciate it you can back out early you can just be like oh i'm too tired to talk about like i want to sleep but they have like this nice uh touching kind of like thank you for listening moment if you go through the all of their dialogue which i also really like i of course did yeah it's also at a point where you've just gone through five major areas so it's nice to have a break and get more
00:45:37
Speaker
introspective dialogue between characters and kind of flesh out the game plot-wise
Personal Growth and Resolution
00:45:43
Speaker
yeah they give you a much better idea of like what Madeline's dealing with and like her inner struggles and Diogo you know gives her some advice and uh Madeline takes this as she needs to let go of the bad parts of her the parts that are like cynical say she can't make it
00:46:03
Speaker
Yeah, because it's holding her back as she views it. So she falls asleep next to the campfire. They each have their sleeping bag things. She falls asleep and has a dream where
00:46:18
Speaker
she's in the sky with her reflection she's just like i need to i need to let you go like you're everything bad in me we'll both be happier yeah you can be separately here and i'll just continue up the mountain
00:46:35
Speaker
But the reflection feels bad for being rejected. Yes. And kind of freaks out. Now, again, you have that angry dialogue of the reflection and she literally takes her arms and kind of pushes herself out of the dialogue box. So you would reject me and kind of just smashes the ground. And you see, as she pulls herself out of the dialogue box, she
00:47:01
Speaker
She's incredibly swole. I'm not sure if it's just done for this one thing, but... She has a lot of power here. Yeah. In this realm. So she knocks down the ground from under you and you're both kind of abruptly awoken and Madeline falls down. Yeah. The entirety of the mountain. Yeah. So breaking through. Yeah. It's absolutely great. You fall for like a good 20 seconds. Yeah.
00:47:28
Speaker
And it's also shown on the map itself. So as you're progressing through the game, there's this 3D mountain, you're kind of going up, you're like, oh, I'm going to do the next level here. Yeah. So you get to see that visual progression. But with this, you see everything kind of reset back as you fall to the very base of the mountain.
00:47:47
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's a pretty intense sequence. And you're like, well, great. I'm not redoing those levels. I don't even like stage three. I was a pain in the ass. Yeah. But eventually you do land and a body of water miraculously survive because this is Celeste and this magical mountain. But, you know, you've got some thinking to do. You're like, this may be a little bit rough. They add a couple more.
00:48:14
Speaker
mechanics they have these I guess they're called Kevin blocks the reason they're called Kevin blocks the mechanic first is um it's a static block
00:48:25
Speaker
Static block is a great show. If you dash into a side of the block, it will come alive, get angry and go, which is one of the developers, Kevin recorded that, and it will slide in whichever direction you hit. So you can use that mechanic to essentially move anywhere if you time your dashes correctly. And they'll like break some barriers that are in your way. These like crystalline barriers.
00:48:51
Speaker
And it's just another mechanic to chain it together to everything else that you have and master it. But after making some progress with that you, and the music here is really somber, but you start to, you know, she has some introspection and the next time she encounters her reflection she's like, you know, I was wrong.
00:49:13
Speaker
I shouldn't have rejected you. We are in this together. You are a part of me that I need to accept and we need to work together as opposed to separately. Because like her reflection at this point like she did basically exactly the wrong thing because her reflection represented her fear of being rejected.
00:49:34
Speaker
So she literally rejected her fear of being rejected and tried to like bury that yeah, which Personification of her rejection is not gonna take very well
00:49:46
Speaker
So at this point you offer to work with your reflection. She says, no, it kind of runs off. And you're like, no, we're doing this together. So you start following her and she's like, Hey, stop. Like, let, let us be separate. You were right. No. And you're like, Hey, if you keep chasing me, there's going to be a throw down. And you're like, let's go. Yeah. I like how my description is always not remotely the tone of what the game's going for. It's just my version of it.
00:50:15
Speaker
I'm kind of imagining this, she's always the opposite of what you do, and you're just like, huh, I don't want to reform and work together. She's like, no, no, we're going to work together. So your reflection goes another demon form. And now instead of her chasing you, you're chasing her. You're trying to close that gap. Yeah.
00:50:38
Speaker
Meanwhile, there's other platform mechanics going on and she's shooting projectiles at you. Yeah, or screen lasers. Yeah, full-on laser beams You so the mechanic is basically you reach her in area after area and every time you touch her she moves further down Yeah, like you're trying to you know, make contact with her again and it's a hard process for sure because it takes a while she resists you at every turn until you you finally close in and she's like
00:51:09
Speaker
Fine. Right. Yeah. Reluctantly agrees. Very reluctantly. Reluctantly crouched. At the starting line. I wish I knew the rest of the cake lyrics right now. I have a lot of hands, but I do not. That's all right. But she decides to give it a shot at least, right? And work with you. So now you're joined together with your reflection version of you.
00:51:34
Speaker
What changes? Hair. What color is my hair now, Jake? I think it's pink. It's pink. Why is it pink? Because now we have two dashes. So you can jump, dash in the air twice before it resets on the ground again.
00:51:50
Speaker
and all of those things that refreshed your dash, like the bubbles you could jump in, everything like that, it gives you two dashes now. So they're like, all right, training wheels are off. Let's just rub their hands together. Let's make this tough.
00:52:07
Speaker
So what sucks though, is you're still at the bottom of the mountain. You're gonna have to go through everything again. Or are you? So now we come to the summit, where you do go through every area again, but you do snapshots of the area. You kind of revisit the mechanics, but they're also tying in. Madeline does not just have one dash, you have access to two. So they'll make you rely on that with everything else.
00:52:34
Speaker
This is both your victory lap and your masterclass. You get to revisit everything and do it better. The music is hype. Right. I mean, you're listening to it, right? Yes, I am. Sorry, I'm distracted.
00:52:50
Speaker
But it's really fun to go and basically show off what you know. And then after you've gone through... Show me your moves. Show me your moves. After you've gone through everything and you've redone the reflection section, what else is there? The actual summit itself. There are 30 different flag checkpoints where you are scaling the very tip of the mountain. And a lot of times you're not going
00:53:17
Speaker
Kind of like skilling pyramid. It's more like a reverse pyramid. Yeah, it's like this is the most vertical It's just straight up climbing the mountain
00:53:30
Speaker
Sometimes the clouds, things like that, you're gonna throw all the mechanics back at you, but it feels remarkably good to make some progress and use all of your abilities and all of the skills you've developed at this point to just straight up climb. Oh yeah. That's nice. Recommend it. In the speedrun,
00:53:49
Speaker
I will say I really did enjoy watching G.D. Q and they did this because you have the fans who are also invested and watching somebody just blaze through these checkpoints and they're counting down the checkpoints. 30, 29, 30. And then certain ones get skipped because people are just flying through because they know the mechanics so well.
00:54:12
Speaker
And it's just, it's really fun. It's still challenging. The whole game is very challenging, for me at least. But whenever you do successfully complete something, and you've proven you know the mechanic, it can do it. Or maybe you've just done enough times and it worked randomly, it feels really good. You know this game is going to be the last one to be by speedrunners for like, years to come. Because it is so, so freaking challenging.
00:54:39
Speaker
But it's also, there is some emotional investment there. I think characters are very likable. The music, I think, gets you a lot more invested in the journey, all these characters doing things after the end. Yeah, it's very paced, the music. Each time you have a different stage, music is done very thematically, and it's enough to encourage you
00:55:07
Speaker
But like, that's it. It's not overly hype music. It's not trying to get that BPM up.
00:55:12
Speaker
Yeah. There are some parts that are really hype, but they are followed by the somber, the quieter tones, and slower pace. But yeah, once you make it to the top of the summit, it's you and your reflection up there. And the reflection's like, all right, I mean, now that this is done, when we leave this mountain, I'm going away.
00:55:42
Speaker
I'll lose my body right like she won't be her own personification anymore she's gonna have to just rely on you on Madeline to remember you know remember her and not box her away like she was afraid of.
00:55:59
Speaker
And Madeline's like, you know, we can do that. Like, we can work together. We don't have to stop here. She's like, oh, well, what do we do now? That's what the reflection asks. And Madeline's like, oh, let's just take a break. You know, watch the sunset at the top of the summit. And it's just a really nice moment. That's all. I just really like that.
00:56:18
Speaker
No, it's really sweet and you can kind of just sit back and relax and take in the view of everything you have achieved so far as you are looking off from the top of the fucking mountain. You did it. It's in but everything the light time. It's awfully dark here.
00:56:36
Speaker
what it's nighttime dad i know i know what i said after that you uh head back down meet theo at the uh there's like the cabin of the old woman who's kind of been slowly pushing you through the game you encounter in a couple places and uh she usually heckles you a little bit like
00:57:00
Speaker
Yeah, she reminds me of the witches in Legend of Zelda, the hags that I was like... But she kind of goads you in the right direction as throughout the game. Yeah, she acts as an antagonist to push you towards a resolution. Yeah. I have her in my notes as the guide. She's really obnoxious though, I didn't like her until closer to the end.
00:57:23
Speaker
And then once everybody's there together, you have this final congratulations, you've done it. And Madeline makes a strawberry pie that apparently has different graphic for depending on how many strawberries you got.
00:57:39
Speaker
How many did you have like four? so my Screenshot at the end or my graphic that loaded up was just everyone kind of awkwardly Standing around and like Madeline was like rubbing her arm and there's just a pie with absolutely nothing I think one of them said like it is Technic. I think it was Theo is like it that is technically a pie I
00:58:05
Speaker
How many did you get? I wasn't tryharding it, but I did want to grab some along the way if I saw them. I could do it under like five minutes. Yeah, humble break. No, there's so much. Took way too long. But I had enough that it looked like a strawberry pie. It was a modest pie. It was a modest pie.
00:58:28
Speaker
It's a nice touch, and I believe that's the end of the main story. Yes. But they have plenty of content for people that hate themselves. If you're me. Like I said before, there are the B tracks which you can unlock for each level, and they are harder remixes of the bass level.
00:58:49
Speaker
And then there's apparently, I recently found out, seasides by the seashore, which are even more difficult versions of these levels, where the developers are like, hey, you really trying to prove something? Here you go. Yeah. The developer just was like, I think that they made all the seasides probably when the level designer was having a really frustrating day. They're just like, man, it kind of sucks. We don't have this done with the engine. I am going to murder the players.
00:59:19
Speaker
That's my theory. I don't know if it's true. They probably had the best intentions. I don't know. We'll have to ask Kevin. Yeah. So just reach out to us, Kevin. Let us know exactly how you thought about that. What was going through your mind when you made the seasides?
00:59:34
Speaker
But all in all, I mean, when I got through the game, I was very satisfied with it. This is one of those games where I'm not huge on platforms, platformers, platformers. I don't play a whole lot of platformers. I did play Super Meat Boy because it was so fast that like the difference between failure and losing was almost instant.
00:59:56
Speaker
Yeah. And it's like $2 on Steam. Yeah. Everybody has that game by now. You can just, you can actually just send the developers like some meat in a pouch and they'll give you a key for the game. Don't do that. Um, but, uh, I starting off on this, I was like, yeah, it's kind of, it's a little bit slower. And then it just got its hooks into me and I really enjoyed the experience. Um, so the game gets bonus points for me coming in and being like, I'm not sure it's like another platformer. And then me enjoying it a lot at the end.
01:00:24
Speaker
Yeah. My exposure to it was, Dunkey did a video game review of this and I was like, oh, that seems kind of interesting. Let's check it out sometime, but I'm not a platform tryhard by any means. I haven't beaten Super Meat Boy. I'm semi okay at Mega Man at best. And that's not really a platform as much as it's kind of like a side scrolling jump shooter. It's got platforms.
01:00:47
Speaker
Like I said, I felt challenged and encouraged the whole way because it would like swat me down and be like, get back up. Yeah. And I would, and I would learn the mechanic and be able to complete that section. And now when I go back to redo things, do collect strawberries or other things which don't matter, I can kind of navigate through a lot easier and I feel good that I've made that progression. You developed as a player. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
01:01:14
Speaker
Think that's definitely it. Like there's parts in this game where I ran up into a wall and I'm like this It's like I'm you know, really struggling to get past this part considering quitting. I'm like, there's all these other games I want to play but as soon as I push through Then it's so much better for it. Like when you're developing difficulty for the kind of game like this It's got to be really hard because you're like
01:01:39
Speaker
I need to challenge the players without causing them to absolutely hate me, consider it impossible. And then I need to have a payoff after that. Because you could also make everything really hard with no breaks. Make difficult for difficulty's sake. Yeah, without breaks in between. So the fact that there's breaks in between the really hard points means they knew what the really hard points were. They didn't just throw a bunch of stuff at the wall, and then the player has to navigate it.
01:02:07
Speaker
And that, like, designed difficulty really comes through because it gives you that moment where you can be like, that was awesome. I just destroyed that puzzle. And then I'm like clearing these puzzles. I'm like picking a momentum. And then you encounter like another roadblock and be like, oh, crap. But you're like, let me use the skills I've learned earlier. Yeah. And you get through it. It's like a gate where it's like, oh, you managed to get this whole way without figuring out your timing exactly. Fix that.
01:02:37
Speaker
Now the pacing of the game is great as far as story and definitely difficulty as well. Is there a certain section that you preferred over others? Obviously you hated the win section. Yeah, that was my least favorite, but I still... I hate it personally, I don't hate it from a game design standpoint.
01:02:58
Speaker
And hate is a strong word. It's like your least favorite level out of a game that you completely enjoyed But like the least yeah, so so that one I like the least but The mirror temple it was my favorite thematically. It was just really awesome It's like really dark. They had a bunch of mechanics they vary at the gameplay and Make it very suspenseful Also, they introduced like this is one of the rare parts. You're not trying to get to the top of the mountain You're now trying to say to you
01:03:26
Speaker
Um, so they kind of vary, um, uh, the, the protagonists motivations of it. Yeah. Add some depth because it's not just her climbing for no reason. She'll stop to help someone. Right. She does that a couple of times. Yeah. Like I said, most things are typically vertical or linear, but here you are actually exploring the temple, looking for keys and doors to be able to rescue CO. Yeah. Yeah.
01:03:55
Speaker
And, uh, I think if they took out all of the story and like the bonus character, like the other characters you're involved with, they could, they could have taken all of that out and it would have been a very positive game on Steam, I think.
01:04:06
Speaker
Yeah, it's a solid platform all around for sure. Mechanics were all there. They didn't need any of that, but they did add it. And that's the reason it's overwhelmingly positive on Steam is because you do get those feel good feelings and you get like a little bit attached to characters and you start to actually like their beep voices.
01:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's it is a game, but it is also a story. And the mountain is supposed to be a representation of overcoming your struggles and challenges. And in the game, they have certain things kind of brought to life to show that where it's Madeline's reflection or the eyes in the temple looking at Theo.
Praise for Developers and Conclusion
01:04:47
Speaker
It's basically a much less depressing, eight bit Silent Hill.
01:04:55
Speaker
OK. It is definitely an analogy. Don't ask me to justify that. I'm sure some of our listeners will appreciate that. Yeah, I hope. We have listeners? I'm just kidding. And then also, we still have to mention the game looks beautiful. All of the individual sprite animations were done really well. It feels good. Yeah.
01:05:24
Speaker
Controls were never bad. Like if something happened and I died it was always my fuck up It's not like certain things handle a little bit wonky or you have certain unity games, which are unpolished yeah, I think the only thing that I remember was there was one point in the game where I Lost a couple frames and it was probably just due to my computer because it only literally happened once I Died and I'm like crap. I lost one second of progress
01:05:51
Speaker
Let's try again. Yeah. Like that doesn't that doesn't bother me when you can reset so easily. And the I agree on all the points. The music is amazing. The graphics, it's easy to be really lazy with eight bit like there's a lot of eight bit games out there. They're just like, it's eight bit because I didn't want to do anything. You know, this is not that game. They have a lot of effort into all of it. And it just feels like an incredibly polished game for such a small group of developers. You can tell they really care about it.
01:06:22
Speaker
And I really care about you guys, developers whose names I don't know outside of Kevin. Yeah. Also just a great development name, Matt Makes Games. I guess the rest of Matt's team does not get as much credit in the name, but definitely a polished product. It's an abbreviated title, the full one is Matt Makes Games Only Matt, Matt All The Time, No One Else Just Matt. Fort Matt, get out nerds.
01:06:52
Speaker
Your authority is not recognized in Fort Matt. But I'd like everyone to thank me for sticking around for such a long time. Wait, no, that's not right. I'd like to thank everyone for sticking around with the podcast. That sounds better. Till the very end. Seems like we're hitting these longer podcasts more often now, and the fact that I'm discussing that actually makes the podcast even longer, but
01:07:17
Speaker
That's okay. It's fine. We've been around an hour for most things Yeah, and I think we it gives it enough time to cover some of the key points of the game generate interest not spoil the entirety of it, right? But at least get to share our experiences as well. Yeah, everybody I think it's fine that we're basically 60-minute men at this point
01:07:40
Speaker
It's a song. Yep. It's a song. All right. We're still still padding out time here. Thank you everybody. Uh, I appreciate your continued listening. If you have any requests for episodes, um, a game you may want us to play or talk about, feel free to send them in at soapstone podcast at gmail.com.
01:07:58
Speaker
And for those of you who are lazy and hate Gmail, or any other type of email, you can use our Facebook page instead. Yeah. Go like it and check it out, and weekly I'll post when the new episodes are, which are typically Sunday. Yeah. I think we've basically hit Sunday for a while now. Yeah. It was pretty good. Technically Sunday. The best kind of Sunday. All right. Well, thank you again, and I'll see you in the next one. Good night, Gracie.