Celeste - Chapter 1 CCST Analisys

Celeste is an incredibly well crafted 2D platformer with a simple to grasp but deep movement system and a high skill ceiling. Mastering different mechanics while climbing the mountain and surpassing tight challenges grant a great sense of satisfaction. Or at least that's what I and a bunch of other players felt when playing and eventually completing Celeste. But is the game accessible to everyone? Does its difficulty progression accompany what’s learnt through the game? And are non habitual gamers able to complete it?

Using Patrick Holleman framework known as the Nintendo Method we will be challenge, cadence, skill-theme or CCST to look deeper into Celeste.

Before looking into the challenges the games throws at the player, let's discuss the mechanics first.

Player Mechanics

The player character, also known as Madeline can do the following actions:

Jumping

Madeline can jump and has control over her own inertia on the air.

Dashing

Madeline can dash once on the eight cardinal directions once before touching the ground again.

Climbing

Madeline can climb up to 16 tiles before getting exausted and sliding down until landed.

Delta Height & Delta Width

To know which challenges Madeline can tackle and which would result in an impossible to complete we will use some game metrics combining the different abilities from Madeline’s toolkit. We can gather Madeline’s delta height (how much she can jump vertically) and delta width (how much she can move horizontally before touching the ground) so we know how lengthy or high an obstacle can be.

Delta Height

  • Jumping Madelain gains a height of 3 tiles.
  • Dashing Madelain gains a height of 6 tiles.
  • Jumping and Dashing Madelain gains a height of 9 tiles.

Delta Width

Jumping Madelain can move 8 tiles horizontally.

Jumping and Dashing Madelain can move 16 tiles horizontally.

All the individual jumps the player encounters should be restricted under these parameters or have an aditional mechanic that lets Madeline go further than the basic movement kit if the jumps is bigger and there is no external factor the game would be imposible to complete.

Enviromental Mechanics

Certain objects on the map change the gameplay, either aiding or stoping Madeline while climbing mount Celeste.

  1. Spikes: when touched Madeline dies and spawns back at the start of the screen.
  2. Spring: when touched they send Madeline flying at a great vertical distance and reset dash.
  3. Zipper: when touched they move rapidly through their tracks and slowly come back afterwards.
  4. Disappearing Platform: when touched trembles for a few seconds before disappearing.
  5. Gem: when touched Madeline regains the ability to dash and resets stamina to climb.
  6. Falling Platform: when touched trembles before falling to the ground and stays or falls to the void

Challenges

Now that we know the mechanics and systems that will appear during the level the next step is to dissect every challenge the player will find while playing.

But what exactly is a challenge? A Challenge is a short task, surrounded by periods of relative safety.

With this in mind let's look at all the challenges a player will take when doing the critical path of the level and not completing any optional content.