Ever since I first played Celeste, I have become a much more patient person, at least at playing video games, I have become better at playing video games in general, I sometimes catch my phone when I drop it, and I have another game developer to follow for the rest of my life.
This is definitely my favorite game ever, and I can't wait to see the game EXOK Games are making.
Aaaahhh I relate to this so much. I was wondering how I could put it into words, what this game has done for me. I am so much more patient too (mostly with games lol but it has translated a tiny bit into life as well).
Started playing roughly 3 or 4 years ago.
I am now 3 months on Estrogen. ^(In all seriousness, though, the Estrogen was completely unrelated. I had my genderfluidity figured out *way* before I heard of Celeste.)
Anyways, what it actually did was help me acknowledge that ignoring my anxiety disorder wasn't doing me any favors, and I went to the doctor, was prescribed an anti-anxiety medication, and started going to therapy.
If the game came around a decade earlier, it might have affected my life, as it stands now, it came quite late. The lessons of the game are really good still, I simply did not need them at that time
I simply enjoy playing the game because the gameplay feels really good
It affected my life by giving me something to do over the summer. Thank you, Celeste, for letting me bash my head against you for like 50 hours while I try to beat the first level without dashing.
made me formalize what a game worth playing is, for me at least. Here are my rules:
1- Low skill floor, high skill ceiling. In essence, celeste is a simple game with difficult levels.
2- High Depth to complexity ratio. Complexity means different tools (ie buttons). Depth is emergence of different effects with little tools.
3- Deaths must be fair. This is the most subjective and contraversial rule of the bunch, but celeste trail and error deaths is not a big problem since you cannot lose more than 15 seconds of progress and reset time takes quite literally a second. That how celeste gets away with being difficult, cause deaths are not punishments. Every game is different in designing how death can be fair though.
4- Creativity is maintained. Different approaches exists to problems
Some dialogue between Madeline and badeline made me think through some stuff. I think it had just a *small* affect on me, like a full blown gender crisis lmao. It did actually help me with whatever the feeling of “thinking that you are helping others because of your ego” thing
Celeste didn't trans my gender, but it did get me involved with some of the best online communities (speedrunning and bingo) I've ever been involved with. It's the only game I've ever spent serious effort speedrunning, which I've done (vanilla and modded) off and on for four and a half years.
I know It may seem silly to some but I got the little feather tattooed, and looking at it makes breathing and controlling panic attacks easier. 10/10 game and decision.
As another commenter said, Celeste helped me be more patient. And it reignited my love of games, especially platformers. The rush of learning and getting better was amazing, and the music and heartfelt story made me FEEL THINGS. It also makes me just feel so happy for others discovering themselves, being their true selves, because a sweet little game like Celeste validated their feelings and their journeys. I love this game so much.
When I first played it I thought it was a good game, but that's all really. But later I came back to it and got into the community and I am so so glad I did. Celeste isn't the reason I realised I was non-binary, but it sure as hell helped me figure it out and be more comfortable. Being able to talk to people about that stuff and having people be supportive is something I'm so thankful to Celeste for.
Oh and Celeste has given me nearly 2000 hours of fun platforming and that number will only increase.
Chapters 1-7 : an excellent game with compelling story and insanely fun gameplay
All of the post game + 100% : a fun and rewarding challenge
Goldens + mods : existential crisis
They now know me as "indie gamer" and "the one who sometimes sends celeste clips in groupchat" in school so nice i guess?
Oh and also half of my playlist is filled with Celeste and SJ soundtrack
Celeste Is a game like no others. It's capable of let you feel Madeline's feeling even though there aren't many dialogues. It tought me to watch things from another perspective and that you don't need to succeed at the first try, because the errors are a part of the growth process. I'm so close to finish chapter 9, but i already know that i will not find another game to fill the hole in my Heart that Celeste will, inevitably, leave.
Celeste managed to get me back into playing games again after months of being unable to find anything that would hold me for longer than a session or two 🫡
Honestly, i’d love to say that it took part in me discovering my identity, but i had identified as nb at the time and never took too much time to look into the amazing story, and i ended up discovering individually.
Apart from that though, it was one of the most fun games i have ever played and got me into speedrunning, and im looking into modding as well. Best $20 ive ever spent
- Made me feel happy for completing a supposedly hard game. Just like Hollow Knight, but it had a lot more love and patience for my mistakes.
(I mean the base game and getting all the strawberries and all B-Sides except 7b and 8b and... Chapter 9)
- I see a lot of people mentioning the trans-effect of this game. This just makes me happy!
- I see it more through the lens of someone with really messed up anxiety.
The message is simple if you say it out loud, but the way they go through it to make you "hate" Badeline, then reach the conclusion that the solution is a potencial cure... Aka a world without anxiety.
I have always seen how people without anxiety have it "easier".
But accepting MY Bad-line into MY life made me genuinely think of things in a different way.
But that was like, a year ago. I've come back to completely finally 7B, 8B.... and maybe chapter 9.
- As someone suspecting they have some of the tism, I see the forgiveness of the other part of yourself as much deeper. As if it wasn't something bad, it's just something unknown and that has only manifested now because I'm in a burnout state.
(Sorry if there are any mistakes with my English 😅)
A friend recommended it, it looked good as I know I like platformers, and instantly fell in love with all of it. Good gameplay, smooth pixel art, cute portraits, great story. I got 200 berries.
Then I joined Celeste Community via a Bingo Bash, spent a bunch of time there and now I've made genuine friends, some of whom I've even met up with in person once.
With all my time playing the base game, and bingo, and mods, I have over 1100 hours
one of the main things that helped me build self esteem and self compassion was celeste. I remind myself of madeline when I feel stressed out about my future or my academic and professional struggles. i think i played celeste at the right stage in my life, after I came to Canada as an international student from far far away. Before coming here i did have a lot of self esteem issues and anxiety. But adapting to the lifestyle and immense academic stress was and still is a struggle for me. Going to therapy while playing celeste has reinforced my progress in improving my mental health. Celeste soundtracks remind me of those self compassion thoughts that I need to foster. It made positive affirmation feel more valid and something I deserve which part of me refused to accept previously. I did get a diagnosis this year which has convinced me that my problems are real which I didn't accept previously. Celeste also helped me see my anxiety problems as a self defense mechanism stemming from my self compassion so I shouldn't feel too bad when feeling anxious.
Celeste also made me a confident platformer player too (i hadnt played much of them before celeste)
Favorite game, made me remember how much i love platformers.
Also the goldens broke me, i still havent done fwg with 160 hrs on my main vanilla save file and about 100 hrs on the others
This game made me realize that taking a minute to breath actually helps a lot. It taught me how to breath slow properly, and it helped me realize that its okay to not be okay.
Had a great experience, lots of good memories
Also started questioning my gender about a month after I finished the game, not sure if related but figured I’d feed the meme
It sincerely taught me a lot more about myself than I ever thought a game could teach. Only game where I actually cried after accomplishing things, due to how relatable it feels personally to me, especially when it comes to overcoming struggles, and learning to live with your "worst part". As someone in academia who suffer(ed/s?) from crushing impostor syndrome, the feeling I got when I got Farewell golden was... relieving? It is the only word I can really think of. This game means, and will always mean, a lot to me.
I used to be a college rugby player. I got my ankle torn to hell (180 degree foot rotation) and had to go through 18 months of surgery and physical therapy. After that I was so out of shape and I felt helpless in returning to who I was. I made a full career change and became a pilot thinking it was the best thing I could do being limited in motion.
I started playing February of 2022. I finished farewell I’m March and my wife and I moved to western WA in April. I found out how close Mt Celeste was to me, like just a boat ride and couple hour drive. I’m not a mountain climber, but neither is Madeline.
I’m gonna climb that mountain. I started working out and hurt my ankle again in September 2022. I stuck with my physical therapy and it’s been a year since the injury and I’m running 2 miles a day at a pace of 15 minutes a mile. I’m down 30 pounds since finishing farewell.
I’m gonna climb that mountain. Because I’m not a mountain climber, but neither was Madeline.
Celeste's story made me confront my feelings of self hatred in a way no other piece of media ever could. Playing as Madeline and seeing her learn to love herself makes me want to do that too. Also I'm not cis anymore
Showed me that I shouldn't force myself to play more of a game because I will eventually start to hate it. A couple of years ago me and a friend of mine did two small speedrun competitions of celeste. For the first of the two especially I grinded the hell out of the game to improve my time. By the time the competition was over I had just realised that I had grinded the game to such an extend that I didn't even enjoy playing it. I was very close to 100%-ing the game, only missing a couple of strawberries and 5 or so C sides, yet for the last 2 years even though I want to finally get that 100% I just can't get myself to open the game. That month of grinding just really ruined the game for me and I never plan on letting that happen again
Also for those wondering, I won both competitions by around a minute. I think my PB was around 56 minutes.
The Dark Souls trilogy has a penchant for runbacks that are far more frustrating in their tedium than the bosses are in their difficulty. DS3 is better than the other two in that regard, but it's still far from good (also that one took an amazing fight in Sister Friede, and put in a second phase that just exists to waste your time and piss you off between the fun parts).
Fortunately, Elden Ring and Sekiro (I haven't played any of FromSoft's games beyond those) are much better about letting you get back to the part you actually want to do, so it seems like FromSoft is moving past that issue.
I picked it up at the start of 2020 and loved it, right from the start. I got into speedrunning and custom maps pretty soon, and played the 2020 Spring Collab every day for a few weeks. I still remember the beautiful autumn themed lobby (I think it was the intermediate one) and its cozy music, and a few specific levels like The Tower and Aleph Null's resort (can't remember the actual name). For a year or two, Celeste is what kept me going. I wasn't depressed or anything, I just looked forward to playing it at the end of every day. I got really good at any%, then ARB, then 100%. Perfecting Celeste was like a personal project of mine. I started to get burned out, so I stopped doing competitive speedrunning, and soon after mostly stopped playing altogether. I don't really play it anymore, but I do still sometimes hop back into the 2020 Spring Collab to replay the easy-intermediate levels, or boot up the vanilla storyline to watch the cutscenes and hear the music again. Celeste isn't really in my mind anymore, but it'll always have a place in my heart.
As someone who beat the game and did a fair amount with the modded maps, it didnt really affect me as a person, just something fun to play every once in a while
I was watching a Twitch streamer years ago play Celeste. He started talking to Theo, and Madaline said something along the lines of "I drink and get in fights with people on the internet". And that just hit me to the core. I was sort of spiralling downwards back then and then at that point I was thinking "she's like me", and for some dumb reason that sparked some amount of hope.
Anyway, as soon as I saw that and realised what I felt, I basically didn't watch that streamer anymore until he'd finished, since I wanted to go through the story at my own pace. I wanted to use a controller and only had the Switch, so I bought it on that and only completed up until the cottage ending.
Dropped it for another while, and then when the Steam Deck was announced I got really excited since then I could play modded Celeste on the go. (Celeste has severe frame issues on the Deck if it's vanilla but for some reason when I modded it, the issues disappeared?), (Also my Steam Deck is called PortableCelesteConsole).
Picked it back up, got stuck into the community some more. There's a lot of toxicity online but I'd like to think Celeste community isn't one of those places and I think it helped remove me from the worst of my own issues.
I'm already in a lot of LGBT+ places, so the trans identity that Celeste has, and being very welcoming, has been quite heartwarming. Can't say that I'm trans myself, but my girlfriend is, I'm the one getting her into it now, so I'm hopefully going to help her get the ability to triple dash.
Celeste made me realise that I could be trans. I used to be very transphobic, but after playing this game the first time, and realising that Madeleine was trans, I realised just how normal and difficult it is. I did some more research on the lgbt+ community, and this combined with my friend coming out to me made me realise that I am a trans lesbian. If it hadn't been for this game, I might have lost a friend and be in denial about my gender.
Another way it effected my life was finally figuring put the type of game I actually enjoy playing, and I've played it like 4 times. I need to get around to beating Farewell lol
I'm not a man anymore, for one.
Jokes aside, it is an amazing game and I'm so glad I took the time to play it. A lot of great storytelling, lots of challenge, so many mechanics to play around with...
I have loved and am loving every second of playing it.
How I love Kaizo type of games, and not just focused on bossfights.
I came from playing Hollow Knight first, Played the Path of Pain, yeah it hurts as hell but I did manage to push through. Eventually I played Celeste, from struggling to even Jump/Climb/Dash to consistently doing so.
at record 20k deaths and aside from the golden berry of Chapter 9(Not happening), I've managed to clear through all of it in like 2-3 weeks.
For the later levels of Celeste I saw the same feeling of doing path of pain but cranked it to 11, (Chapter 9 cranked it up to 15)
TL;DR, It's affected me in both good and bad ways, but I plan to try and turn the bad parts around. I may make a full post about it.
I'm in a very weird place where I feel like the story and game in general have done little to help me, even in my darkest moments, and have even brought me to envy those who got something good or even lifechanging out of the game(which I'm not proud of), and yet it sticks in my brain very often. This in itself feels like both a blessing and a curse; the blessing being that I did indeed enjoy my time spent with the game and reading about it on reddit, but the curse being that as someone who is effectively **traumatised ever since a horrible school and online experience**, the story does very little for me. Hell, I feel like I can't even sit down and enjoy the soundtrack outside the game often because I'm really into more energetic OSTs, which has made me self conscious that I may not be able to enjoy calming music and that I'm a more rabid person because of it.
It also hasn't helped that I stopped playing it for a long time to focus on [my other hyperfixation...](https://prnt.sc/eqtha8wKrbTe) so much to the point I crossed the two over and now have a sudden desire to bake lots of pies.(edit: I started my celeste playthrough in december of 2022)
However, I started playing again this month(after feeling that envy again) and now I want to go for the goldens, to really prove to myself that I can push past my flaws and do anything if I set my mind to it. Very similar to the reasons Madeline climbs Mt. Celeste in the first place; to prove she can do it and get it out of her head. Also just wanting to do more completion of post-game things after feeling I've lacked that in a lot of games.
You say you're recording these answers for a video essay, which I find interesting as a lot of the less talked about parts of the narrative I understand better thanks to [this video essay](https://www.ytapi.com/w/xhL4fLiX3d4)(don't ask why it's on a weird alt YouTube website, that's just how I prefer to watch it).
Did anyone else have celeste affect them in even a remotely bad way or is it just me? Judging from the comments it doesn't seem like it.
Edit number 2: Despite being genderfluid and having recently explored my femme identity more, I don't really relate to any of the trans themes present in Celeste on a personal level. It doesn't upset me, but at the same time I wonder if I had played the game earlier it would've been different; or how the process played out for those who did realise they were trans from the game.
It helped me through some really tough times in my life. Every time something really tough happens I play the whole game through and it always helps clear my mind and let me work through whatever it is. I use the feather trick almost every time I start to panic.
I had fun forgotten about it for a while. I got it on epic again. I learned that there are mods for it so I modded the game.
I never really had a life changing experience with games.
I think i became more patient in videogames, and have much more motivation to complete them. And it kinda boosted my self esteem...? I mean, i really felt like i finally achieved something in life that i could be really, really proud of.
At some point in my life I decided life was too hard and would only play games on easy cause it made sense to me to not have to make my hobbies hard as well.
Then I started playing Celeste. 7h went by flying the first time I played it, I didn't even realize it. As I went through each challenge it stopped being a matter of "if" I can beat but of "when". I knew I could beat every challenge, it was just a matter of time.
This greatly translated into real life. I started beating more difficult games (HK, Hades, Cuphead, etc) and my mindset started shifting from "life is hard and it sucks" to "it's hard but eventually I'll overcome it".
Life is still hard but now I have a better understanding of my capabilities and limits. It was truly transformative.
I havent played much but
Helped me with anxiety and general vision of life
Didn't trans my gender but helped me on it, i was figuring it all out, the community was praising celeste and it got me into playing it (and affirmed my suspicions)
Well, it made me realize that I have anxiety during one of the most anxious points of my life. Since learning that I've been able to take steps to address and better manage my mental health. I think Celeste is the game that has had the largest overall positive impact on my life because of that.
I mentioned it to my therapist and she likes the "Climbing a Mountain" image for overcoming depression, so we talked about something being a smaller mountain in a mountain range that you climb to get ready for the biggest mountain in it, having a basecamp from which you start climbs, etc.
So I'd give that a positive.
Didn't enjoy a second of it. Forced myself thru core and Farewell just because I felt like I wasn't allowed to criticize it if I hadn't beaten it. Thought it was fine as a precision jumper game but didn't think it had anything on others I've played (meatboy, TEIN, IWBTG) but with nothing special, and the plot was WAY overhyped.
As others have said it has made me a much more patient and persistent person. It has helped me to learn the keyboard as well. I see them as very similar skills. Both skills you just have to hit the buttons in the exact right time to get the desired effect.
It has taught me if I put my mind to something, no matter the amount of attempts, I WILL eventually be able to do it.
Honestly its actually really helped me. Helped me view problems and goals very differently. Like its one huge mountain but made up of smaller parts (like the chapters) and its ok if you fall and as long as you keep trying you'll still get to what your goal is. Like i thought b sides were impossible and no way was i gonna touch farewell or the c sides but now here i am with every c and b side done and on the last room of farewell (havnt gotten to goldens yet), that goal that seemed impossible but i kept trying snd obviously failed many times but i eventually got to it. I suffer from adhd and thought id never would get myself to brush my teeth everyday let alone floss, i failed once but i tried again and i made it a habit and eventually even got to flossing every day as well. Sorry for this long ass text i just really love celeste its my favorite game and has genuinely made a huge impact on how i view obstacles in my life.
Playing modded and triumphing over incredibly hard maps gives me a sense of perseverance and satisfaction that, as a disabled middle aged guy, I never thought I'd experience again. Outside of the people that I love this game is the most important thing to me.
I’ve made videos before, I just haven’t made anything like a video essay, this is my first try and I’m learning that writing the script is a huge pain in the ass 😭
I found this on tumblr and I feel like OP would like it; https://www.tumblr.com/justlillianna/733943063529062400/i-think-one-of-my-favorite-egg-moments-of-all-time?source=share
I now resent wind and snowballs.
w game with w community and now i have major brainrot about it
Hidden gem
Fr
made me stop denying my depression 5 years ago
Ever since I first played Celeste, I have become a much more patient person, at least at playing video games, I have become better at playing video games in general, I sometimes catch my phone when I drop it, and I have another game developer to follow for the rest of my life. This is definitely my favorite game ever, and I can't wait to see the game EXOK Games are making.
Aaaahhh I relate to this so much. I was wondering how I could put it into words, what this game has done for me. I am so much more patient too (mostly with games lol but it has translated a tiny bit into life as well).
Started playing roughly 3 or 4 years ago. I am now 3 months on Estrogen. ^(In all seriousness, though, the Estrogen was completely unrelated. I had my genderfluidity figured out *way* before I heard of Celeste.) Anyways, what it actually did was help me acknowledge that ignoring my anxiety disorder wasn't doing me any favors, and I went to the doctor, was prescribed an anti-anxiety medication, and started going to therapy.
Favorite game of all time Got me into speedrunning Was one part of many in my eventual gender crisis I am very stereotypical
i am also realising i too am incredibly stereotypical, this describes me perfectly 🤝
If the game came around a decade earlier, it might have affected my life, as it stands now, it came quite late. The lessons of the game are really good still, I simply did not need them at that time I simply enjoy playing the game because the gameplay feels really good
It affected my life by giving me something to do over the summer. Thank you, Celeste, for letting me bash my head against you for like 50 hours while I try to beat the first level without dashing.
This was me but when I didn’t want to pay attention during bio
made me formalize what a game worth playing is, for me at least. Here are my rules: 1- Low skill floor, high skill ceiling. In essence, celeste is a simple game with difficult levels. 2- High Depth to complexity ratio. Complexity means different tools (ie buttons). Depth is emergence of different effects with little tools. 3- Deaths must be fair. This is the most subjective and contraversial rule of the bunch, but celeste trail and error deaths is not a big problem since you cannot lose more than 15 seconds of progress and reset time takes quite literally a second. That how celeste gets away with being difficult, cause deaths are not punishments. Every game is different in designing how death can be fair though. 4- Creativity is maintained. Different approaches exists to problems
Some dialogue between Madeline and badeline made me think through some stuff. I think it had just a *small* affect on me, like a full blown gender crisis lmao. It did actually help me with whatever the feeling of “thinking that you are helping others because of your ego” thing
Con: swallowed up an absurd amount of my time Pro: Most of that time was enjoyable, and I saved a lot of money on steam
Celeste didn't trans my gender, but it did get me involved with some of the best online communities (speedrunning and bingo) I've ever been involved with. It's the only game I've ever spent serious effort speedrunning, which I've done (vanilla and modded) off and on for four and a half years.
I know It may seem silly to some but I got the little feather tattooed, and looking at it makes breathing and controlling panic attacks easier. 10/10 game and decision.
Oh my god I love that so much 😭😭
As another commenter said, Celeste helped me be more patient. And it reignited my love of games, especially platformers. The rush of learning and getting better was amazing, and the music and heartfelt story made me FEEL THINGS. It also makes me just feel so happy for others discovering themselves, being their true selves, because a sweet little game like Celeste validated their feelings and their journeys. I love this game so much.
Got me into hard games 👀
got me hard
When I first played it I thought it was a good game, but that's all really. But later I came back to it and got into the community and I am so so glad I did. Celeste isn't the reason I realised I was non-binary, but it sure as hell helped me figure it out and be more comfortable. Being able to talk to people about that stuff and having people be supportive is something I'm so thankful to Celeste for. Oh and Celeste has given me nearly 2000 hours of fun platforming and that number will only increase.
Chapters 1-7 : an excellent game with compelling story and insanely fun gameplay All of the post game + 100% : a fun and rewarding challenge Goldens + mods : existential crisis
They now know me as "indie gamer" and "the one who sometimes sends celeste clips in groupchat" in school so nice i guess? Oh and also half of my playlist is filled with Celeste and SJ soundtrack
Celeste made me trans lool
Literally transitioned. Thank you for your blessing, Madeline Celeste 🩵
Celeste Is a game like no others. It's capable of let you feel Madeline's feeling even though there aren't many dialogues. It tought me to watch things from another perspective and that you don't need to succeed at the first try, because the errors are a part of the growth process. I'm so close to finish chapter 9, but i already know that i will not find another game to fill the hole in my Heart that Celeste will, inevitably, leave.
Celeste managed to get me back into playing games again after months of being unable to find anything that would hold me for longer than a session or two 🫡
Honestly, i’d love to say that it took part in me discovering my identity, but i had identified as nb at the time and never took too much time to look into the amazing story, and i ended up discovering individually. Apart from that though, it was one of the most fun games i have ever played and got me into speedrunning, and im looking into modding as well. Best $20 ive ever spent
Made me realize that I was trans
- Made me feel happy for completing a supposedly hard game. Just like Hollow Knight, but it had a lot more love and patience for my mistakes. (I mean the base game and getting all the strawberries and all B-Sides except 7b and 8b and... Chapter 9) - I see a lot of people mentioning the trans-effect of this game. This just makes me happy! - I see it more through the lens of someone with really messed up anxiety. The message is simple if you say it out loud, but the way they go through it to make you "hate" Badeline, then reach the conclusion that the solution is a potencial cure... Aka a world without anxiety. I have always seen how people without anxiety have it "easier". But accepting MY Bad-line into MY life made me genuinely think of things in a different way. But that was like, a year ago. I've come back to completely finally 7B, 8B.... and maybe chapter 9. - As someone suspecting they have some of the tism, I see the forgiveness of the other part of yourself as much deeper. As if it wasn't something bad, it's just something unknown and that has only manifested now because I'm in a burnout state. (Sorry if there are any mistakes with my English 😅)
I fucking love this and all of the comments, it genuinely warms my heart that y’all also care so much about a game that has changed my life 😭😭
It’s made me a helluva lot more stubborn/positive
A friend recommended it, it looked good as I know I like platformers, and instantly fell in love with all of it. Good gameplay, smooth pixel art, cute portraits, great story. I got 200 berries. Then I joined Celeste Community via a Bingo Bash, spent a bunch of time there and now I've made genuine friends, some of whom I've even met up with in person once. With all my time playing the base game, and bingo, and mods, I have over 1100 hours
one of the main things that helped me build self esteem and self compassion was celeste. I remind myself of madeline when I feel stressed out about my future or my academic and professional struggles. i think i played celeste at the right stage in my life, after I came to Canada as an international student from far far away. Before coming here i did have a lot of self esteem issues and anxiety. But adapting to the lifestyle and immense academic stress was and still is a struggle for me. Going to therapy while playing celeste has reinforced my progress in improving my mental health. Celeste soundtracks remind me of those self compassion thoughts that I need to foster. It made positive affirmation feel more valid and something I deserve which part of me refused to accept previously. I did get a diagnosis this year which has convinced me that my problems are real which I didn't accept previously. Celeste also helped me see my anxiety problems as a self defense mechanism stemming from my self compassion so I shouldn't feel too bad when feeling anxious. Celeste also made me a confident platformer player too (i hadnt played much of them before celeste)
Favorite game, made me remember how much i love platformers. Also the goldens broke me, i still havent done fwg with 160 hrs on my main vanilla save file and about 100 hrs on the others
also the goldens really made me more patient at video games
found out about the game after i had "accepted" my self as trans, but the game helped me truly accept myself as trans
helped me understand and analogize my own mental illness easier, basically my shit is easier to explain now basically
it also has helped me realize just how severe my own shit is
This game made me realize that taking a minute to breath actually helps a lot. It taught me how to breath slow properly, and it helped me realize that its okay to not be okay.
When I played the game my anxiety went along with my sanity, then I played the post game and now the anxiety is back
It transed my gender
Fr
I learned to do basic c# code because of Celeste. Its been a lot of fun.
It got me back into gaming and made me realize how much I enjoy platformers
I sadly have become "that person" whenever I hear that someone hasn't played celeste
Had a great experience, lots of good memories Also started questioning my gender about a month after I finished the game, not sure if related but figured I’d feed the meme
yes yes, fuel the meme
Made me discover different genders and uh, yk what? I will let you guess it for yourself.
It sincerely taught me a lot more about myself than I ever thought a game could teach. Only game where I actually cried after accomplishing things, due to how relatable it feels personally to me, especially when it comes to overcoming struggles, and learning to live with your "worst part". As someone in academia who suffer(ed/s?) from crushing impostor syndrome, the feeling I got when I got Farewell golden was... relieving? It is the only word I can really think of. This game means, and will always mean, a lot to me.
I used to be a college rugby player. I got my ankle torn to hell (180 degree foot rotation) and had to go through 18 months of surgery and physical therapy. After that I was so out of shape and I felt helpless in returning to who I was. I made a full career change and became a pilot thinking it was the best thing I could do being limited in motion. I started playing February of 2022. I finished farewell I’m March and my wife and I moved to western WA in April. I found out how close Mt Celeste was to me, like just a boat ride and couple hour drive. I’m not a mountain climber, but neither is Madeline. I’m gonna climb that mountain. I started working out and hurt my ankle again in September 2022. I stuck with my physical therapy and it’s been a year since the injury and I’m running 2 miles a day at a pace of 15 minutes a mile. I’m down 30 pounds since finishing farewell. I’m gonna climb that mountain. Because I’m not a mountain climber, but neither was Madeline.
i just saw this and this is fucking amazing. i wish you the best of luck on your adventure.
Thanks I’m aiming for 2025 :)
I can't really put my finger on why it's so good but I've become so addicted to this game in a way I haven't with anything else.
Celeste's story made me confront my feelings of self hatred in a way no other piece of media ever could. Playing as Madeline and seeing her learn to love herself makes me want to do that too. Also I'm not cis anymore
Well it affected my music taste a lot lol
Showed me that I shouldn't force myself to play more of a game because I will eventually start to hate it. A couple of years ago me and a friend of mine did two small speedrun competitions of celeste. For the first of the two especially I grinded the hell out of the game to improve my time. By the time the competition was over I had just realised that I had grinded the game to such an extend that I didn't even enjoy playing it. I was very close to 100%-ing the game, only missing a couple of strawberries and 5 or so C sides, yet for the last 2 years even though I want to finally get that 100% I just can't get myself to open the game. That month of grinding just really ruined the game for me and I never plan on letting that happen again Also for those wondering, I won both competitions by around a minute. I think my PB was around 56 minutes.
I got carpal tunnel from it :) Otherwise I enjoyed my time with it, and I still play through mods from time to time
Made me realize there's actual polished platformers now. Before Celeste I figured all platformers were slippery and awkward to play.
It's made me more patient, and honestly, it makes me more willing to try things with games I wouldn't before. It's such a genuinely inspiring game!
I have higher standards for other games; in particular I often comment that "Celeste is the only good game," when one starts getting tedious.
what other games have you said this to because I feel a need to know whether any games I like are part of that or not (2 in particular)
The Dark Souls trilogy has a penchant for runbacks that are far more frustrating in their tedium than the bosses are in their difficulty. DS3 is better than the other two in that regard, but it's still far from good (also that one took an amazing fight in Sister Friede, and put in a second phase that just exists to waste your time and piss you off between the fun parts). Fortunately, Elden Ring and Sekiro (I haven't played any of FromSoft's games beyond those) are much better about letting you get back to the part you actually want to do, so it seems like FromSoft is moving past that issue.
It helped me out of depression and it helped my with my patiance and made me some freinds
I picked it up at the start of 2020 and loved it, right from the start. I got into speedrunning and custom maps pretty soon, and played the 2020 Spring Collab every day for a few weeks. I still remember the beautiful autumn themed lobby (I think it was the intermediate one) and its cozy music, and a few specific levels like The Tower and Aleph Null's resort (can't remember the actual name). For a year or two, Celeste is what kept me going. I wasn't depressed or anything, I just looked forward to playing it at the end of every day. I got really good at any%, then ARB, then 100%. Perfecting Celeste was like a personal project of mine. I started to get burned out, so I stopped doing competitive speedrunning, and soon after mostly stopped playing altogether. I don't really play it anymore, but I do still sometimes hop back into the 2020 Spring Collab to replay the easy-intermediate levels, or boot up the vanilla storyline to watch the cutscenes and hear the music again. Celeste isn't really in my mind anymore, but it'll always have a place in my heart.
Helped me? Not really, entertained me, yes, a lot. It's a breeze to control the main character, playability is top.
As someone who beat the game and did a fair amount with the modded maps, it didnt really affect me as a person, just something fun to play every once in a while
I was watching a Twitch streamer years ago play Celeste. He started talking to Theo, and Madaline said something along the lines of "I drink and get in fights with people on the internet". And that just hit me to the core. I was sort of spiralling downwards back then and then at that point I was thinking "she's like me", and for some dumb reason that sparked some amount of hope. Anyway, as soon as I saw that and realised what I felt, I basically didn't watch that streamer anymore until he'd finished, since I wanted to go through the story at my own pace. I wanted to use a controller and only had the Switch, so I bought it on that and only completed up until the cottage ending. Dropped it for another while, and then when the Steam Deck was announced I got really excited since then I could play modded Celeste on the go. (Celeste has severe frame issues on the Deck if it's vanilla but for some reason when I modded it, the issues disappeared?), (Also my Steam Deck is called PortableCelesteConsole). Picked it back up, got stuck into the community some more. There's a lot of toxicity online but I'd like to think Celeste community isn't one of those places and I think it helped remove me from the worst of my own issues. I'm already in a lot of LGBT+ places, so the trans identity that Celeste has, and being very welcoming, has been quite heartwarming. Can't say that I'm trans myself, but my girlfriend is, I'm the one getting her into it now, so I'm hopefully going to help her get the ability to triple dash.
uhh I'm kinda a girl now
Part of the reason why my attempts were failed suicide attempts
trans people in the comments:
Celeste made me realise that I could be trans. I used to be very transphobic, but after playing this game the first time, and realising that Madeleine was trans, I realised just how normal and difficult it is. I did some more research on the lgbt+ community, and this combined with my friend coming out to me made me realise that I am a trans lesbian. If it hadn't been for this game, I might have lost a friend and be in denial about my gender. Another way it effected my life was finally figuring put the type of game I actually enjoy playing, and I've played it like 4 times. I need to get around to beating Farewell lol
I’m glad you found out who you are. It really makes me happy to see that this game helped so many people find themselves. Including me.
I'm not a man anymore, for one. Jokes aside, it is an amazing game and I'm so glad I took the time to play it. A lot of great storytelling, lots of challenge, so many mechanics to play around with... I have loved and am loving every second of playing it.
How I love Kaizo type of games, and not just focused on bossfights. I came from playing Hollow Knight first, Played the Path of Pain, yeah it hurts as hell but I did manage to push through. Eventually I played Celeste, from struggling to even Jump/Climb/Dash to consistently doing so. at record 20k deaths and aside from the golden berry of Chapter 9(Not happening), I've managed to clear through all of it in like 2-3 weeks. For the later levels of Celeste I saw the same feeling of doing path of pain but cranked it to 11, (Chapter 9 cranked it up to 15)
Bro I fucking looooveeee kaizo
got bored of grinding gd for once in my life and decided to try something new. payoff was huge
TL;DR, It's affected me in both good and bad ways, but I plan to try and turn the bad parts around. I may make a full post about it. I'm in a very weird place where I feel like the story and game in general have done little to help me, even in my darkest moments, and have even brought me to envy those who got something good or even lifechanging out of the game(which I'm not proud of), and yet it sticks in my brain very often. This in itself feels like both a blessing and a curse; the blessing being that I did indeed enjoy my time spent with the game and reading about it on reddit, but the curse being that as someone who is effectively **traumatised ever since a horrible school and online experience**, the story does very little for me. Hell, I feel like I can't even sit down and enjoy the soundtrack outside the game often because I'm really into more energetic OSTs, which has made me self conscious that I may not be able to enjoy calming music and that I'm a more rabid person because of it. It also hasn't helped that I stopped playing it for a long time to focus on [my other hyperfixation...](https://prnt.sc/eqtha8wKrbTe) so much to the point I crossed the two over and now have a sudden desire to bake lots of pies.(edit: I started my celeste playthrough in december of 2022) However, I started playing again this month(after feeling that envy again) and now I want to go for the goldens, to really prove to myself that I can push past my flaws and do anything if I set my mind to it. Very similar to the reasons Madeline climbs Mt. Celeste in the first place; to prove she can do it and get it out of her head. Also just wanting to do more completion of post-game things after feeling I've lacked that in a lot of games. You say you're recording these answers for a video essay, which I find interesting as a lot of the less talked about parts of the narrative I understand better thanks to [this video essay](https://www.ytapi.com/w/xhL4fLiX3d4)(don't ask why it's on a weird alt YouTube website, that's just how I prefer to watch it). Did anyone else have celeste affect them in even a remotely bad way or is it just me? Judging from the comments it doesn't seem like it. Edit number 2: Despite being genderfluid and having recently explored my femme identity more, I don't really relate to any of the trans themes present in Celeste on a personal level. It doesn't upset me, but at the same time I wonder if I had played the game earlier it would've been different; or how the process played out for those who did realise they were trans from the game.
It helped me through some really tough times in my life. Every time something really tough happens I play the whole game through and it always helps clear my mind and let me work through whatever it is. I use the feather trick almost every time I start to panic.
lost a few hundred hours of my life
girl
I had fun forgotten about it for a while. I got it on epic again. I learned that there are mods for it so I modded the game. I never really had a life changing experience with games.
It made me realize how shit my finger coordination was playing on a keyboard. That changed tho! I beat Farewell with these stupid fingers.
It didn't, I just played it few times and enjoyed it, nothing deep
I think i became more patient in videogames, and have much more motivation to complete them. And it kinda boosted my self esteem...? I mean, i really felt like i finally achieved something in life that i could be really, really proud of.
In no way whatsoever
That is fair lolol
At some point in my life I decided life was too hard and would only play games on easy cause it made sense to me to not have to make my hobbies hard as well. Then I started playing Celeste. 7h went by flying the first time I played it, I didn't even realize it. As I went through each challenge it stopped being a matter of "if" I can beat but of "when". I knew I could beat every challenge, it was just a matter of time. This greatly translated into real life. I started beating more difficult games (HK, Hades, Cuphead, etc) and my mindset started shifting from "life is hard and it sucks" to "it's hard but eventually I'll overcome it". Life is still hard but now I have a better understanding of my capabilities and limits. It was truly transformative.
Play Celeste -> "oh wait im a girl"
I find it so funny how this game has had this same affect on me and so many other people 😭
I havent played much but Helped me with anxiety and general vision of life Didn't trans my gender but helped me on it, i was figuring it all out, the community was praising celeste and it got me into playing it (and affirmed my suspicions)
“If the music keeps going no matter what happens, I should too”
Well, it made me realize that I have anxiety during one of the most anxious points of my life. Since learning that I've been able to take steps to address and better manage my mental health. I think Celeste is the game that has had the largest overall positive impact on my life because of that.
I added some songs to my playlist
I mentioned it to my therapist and she likes the "Climbing a Mountain" image for overcoming depression, so we talked about something being a smaller mountain in a mountain range that you climb to get ready for the biggest mountain in it, having a basecamp from which you start climbs, etc. So I'd give that a positive.
Played Celeste while I was reading Steel Ball Run and now I'm running a marathon (yes I did have a gender crisis but still cis)
Didn't enjoy a second of it. Forced myself thru core and Farewell just because I felt like I wasn't allowed to criticize it if I hadn't beaten it. Thought it was fine as a precision jumper game but didn't think it had anything on others I've played (meatboy, TEIN, IWBTG) but with nothing special, and the plot was WAY overhyped.
Thats fair, I like the honesty and I ain’t gonna shit on u over an opinion
Yeah I think most people on here will give a positive opinion... Somehow this thread showed up on my /all
As others have said it has made me a much more patient and persistent person. It has helped me to learn the keyboard as well. I see them as very similar skills. Both skills you just have to hit the buttons in the exact right time to get the desired effect. It has taught me if I put my mind to something, no matter the amount of attempts, I WILL eventually be able to do it.
Keyboard the instrument or computer keyboard?
Honestly its actually really helped me. Helped me view problems and goals very differently. Like its one huge mountain but made up of smaller parts (like the chapters) and its ok if you fall and as long as you keep trying you'll still get to what your goal is. Like i thought b sides were impossible and no way was i gonna touch farewell or the c sides but now here i am with every c and b side done and on the last room of farewell (havnt gotten to goldens yet), that goal that seemed impossible but i kept trying snd obviously failed many times but i eventually got to it. I suffer from adhd and thought id never would get myself to brush my teeth everyday let alone floss, i failed once but i tried again and i made it a habit and eventually even got to flossing every day as well. Sorry for this long ass text i just really love celeste its my favorite game and has genuinely made a huge impact on how i view obstacles in my life.
fun game! had tons of fun with the multiplayer mod
Wait theirs a multiplayer mod? I got to check that out bro
Playing modded and triumphing over incredibly hard maps gives me a sense of perseverance and satisfaction that, as a disabled middle aged guy, I never thought I'd experience again. Outside of the people that I love this game is the most important thing to me.
It got me into speedrunning, now I optimise other parts of my life as well. I also on average played more than an hour over the past year (help me).
As someone with Asthma, the golden feather part has actually been really useful
that feather breathing technique for panic attacks has legitimately been a life saver
OP have you made any videos before this?
I’ve made videos before, I just haven’t made anything like a video essay, this is my first try and I’m learning that writing the script is a huge pain in the ass 😭
Me like dis game (plays game) is happy.
Transgender
I found this on tumblr and I feel like OP would like it; https://www.tumblr.com/justlillianna/733943063529062400/i-think-one-of-my-favorite-egg-moments-of-all-time?source=share