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Here is a collection of thoughts and experiences, musical and otherwise. Stay a while, and get in touch if you’d like to discuss any of the ideas here further!
This post aims to share my experiences and observations on the game Celeste. For those that have not heard of it, Celeste is a challenging platformer, released in 2018 and created by a small indie team – writer, director, designer Maddy Thorson, and programmers Thorson and Noel Berry. The game was critically acclaimed being nominated for countless awards and winning several for its music, controls, and even taking some Game of the Year awards.
My first experience with Celeste was just this year, and while I can hardly call myself a platforming veteran, I found myself compelled to complete the main story (I’ll get to the B-Sides one day…) despite the gruelling challenge. Of course, the gameplay, art style and story drew me in, but what really propelled me was the soundtrack and sound design.
Lena Raine was the composer for Celeste, and her work is an inseparable part of the distinct personality and aesthetic for the game. Her score has very clear motifs, and a holistic approach that ties each level’s track to each other. To give a general idea of the aesthetic of the soundtrack, it has been described as ‘piano + chiptune’. Chiptune is a little bit of a misnomer, as the synthesis used and overall textures do not conform to the inherent limitations of chiptune, but as a summary I think it is apt. Piano is the feature, as are synthesisers. To add to this summary, I will flag a few other musical elements that I think are core to the soundtracks identity;
Upward arpeggios- Reverb and Delay
- Hip-hop-esque drum samples/chops
Firstly, can anyone think of a better musical simile for climbing a mountain than an upward arpeggio? Didn’t think so.
Secondly, reverb and delay are a key part of Lena’s tracks, and she often accommodated for these effects when writing her melodies. Reverb and delay are what you could call ‘space’ effects – the offer a sense of space to a sound – a fitting effect for the side of a mountain, no?
Thirdly, drums and percussion are used to drive a player forward. They are often the last element to enter a track, and often begin sparsely, slowly building into a full, driving beat. This propels the player on and ramps up the intensity as the challenge of the level increases.
With these broad musical elements noted, I’ll now speak more specifically in particular I’ll be focusing on the track Resurrections, from the level Old Site.
It is at once simple, sophisticated, and resourceful. With only a handful of motivic ideas she constructs tracks that can loop infinitely while the player struggles against the challenges.
To make loops interesting enough to not get tedious as they repeat is no mean feat. This is especially true for Celeste, as due to its difficulty you may not be progressing through the game particularly quickly, therefore listening to the same track for quite some time (for context my playthrough of the main 7 levels took ~9 hours).
To both avoid too much repetition, and to propel a player through a level, the music is closely tied to the players progression. Elements are introduced or changed as the player gets further through the level, or as new mechanics are introduced. The sound design and music implementation were handled by Kevin Regamey and his team at PowerUp Audio. They did a masterful job, as again with such difficulty and repetition, if a sound was irritating it could destroy a players experience entirely.
To give some examples of Lena’s economy of motives, I would like to focus on the track from Old Site, Resurrections. The soundtrack release of this piece is around the 9-minute mark, and I consider it to consist of three main parts. As mentioned earlier, each part can loop infinitely, until the player reaches the next stage of the level.
This post aims to share my experiences and observations on the game Celeste. For those that have not heard of it, Celeste is a challenging platformer, released in 2018 and created by a small indie team – writer, director, designer Maddy Thorson, and programmers Thorson and Noel Berry. The game was critically acclaimed being nominated for countless awards and winning several for its music, controls, and even taking some Game of the Year awards.
My first experience with Celeste was just this year, and while I can hardly call myself a platforming veteran, I found myself compelled to complete the main story (I’ll get to the B-Sides one day…) despite the gruelling challenge. Of course, the gameplay, art style and story drew me in, but what really propelled me was the soundtrack and sound design.
Lena Raine was the composer for Celeste, and her work is an inseparable part of the distinct personality and aesthetic for the game. Her score has very clear motifs, and a holistic approach that ties each level’s track to each other. To give a general idea of the aesthetic of the soundtrack, it has been described as ‘piano + chiptune’. Chiptune is a little bit of a misnomer, as the synthesis used and overall textures do not conform to the inherent limitations of chiptune, but as a summary I think it is apt. Piano is the feature, as are synthesisers. To add to this summary, I will flag a few other musical elements that I think are core to the soundtracks identity;
- Upward arpeggios
- Reverb and Delay
- Hip-hop-esque drum samples/chops
Firstly, can anyone think of a better musical simile for climbing a mountain than an upward arpeggio? Didn’t think so.
Secondly, reverb and delay are a key part of Lena’s tracks, and she often accommodated for these effects when writing her melodies. Reverb and delay are what you could call ‘space’ effects – the offer a sense of space to a sound – a fitting effect for the side of a mountain, no?
Thirdly, drums and percussion are used to drive a player forward. They are often the last element to enter a track, and often begin sparsely, slowly building into a full, driving beat. This propels the player on and ramps up the intensity as the challenge of the level increases.
With these broad musical elements noted, I’ll now speak more specifically in particular I’ll be focusing on the track Resurrections, from the level Old Site.
It is at once simple, sophisticated, and resourceful. With only a handful of motivic ideas she constructs tracks that can loop infinitely while the player struggles against the challenges.
To make loops interesting enough to not get tedious as they repeat is no mean feat. This is especially true for Celeste, as due to its difficulty you may not be progressing through the game particularly quickly, therefore listening to the same track for quite some time (for context my playthrough of the main 7 levels took ~9 hours).
To both avoid too much repetition, and to propel a player through a level, the music is closely tied to the players progression. Elements are introduced or changed as the player gets further through the level, or as new mechanics are introduced. The sound design and music implementation were handled by Kevin Regamey and his team at PowerUp Audio. They did a masterful job, as again with such difficulty and repetition, if a sound was irritating it could destroy a players experience entirely.
To give some examples of Lena’s economy of motives, I would like to focus on the track from Old Site, Resurrections. The soundtrack release of this piece is around the 9-minute mark, and I consider it to consist of three main parts. As mentioned earlier, each part can loop infinitely, until the player reaches the next stage of the level.