The Art of Games: How Celeste Encourages You to Try

At first glance, Celeste appears to be a very straight-forward game: a 2D platformer about a girl climbing a mountain, where the aim is to get to the top of the mountain. It’s a borderline cliché. So why is it that this game is considered to be one of the best of all time?

Join us this episode as we delve into the philosophy of games, with big thanks to the work of C. Thi Nguyen. Why do we play games? And more than that, why do we play hard games? What even is a game? We’ll consider that the genius of Celeste isn’t the premise, the story, or indeed even the platforming, but how all of these elements come together to encapsulate a very particular experience, allowing the player to embody a particular agency, one in which you, if you try and keep trying, can do anything.

Music by Max Elliott

Bibliography

• Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays. Vintage International, 1991.

• “Episode 117: Time is a Child at Play: On the Mystery of Games”. Weird Studies from SpectreVision Radio, 2 March 2022, https://open.spotify.com/episode/4AS7TrNkjjwWhgflEwqDb4?si=b4fa4685f8e34c75&nd=1&dlsi=ee8ac8a181b64ea3

• Game Maker’s Toolkit, “What’s the Point of Hard Games, Anyway?” YouTube, 16 September 2025, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ip5pYl-MuYs

• Game Maker’s Toolkit, “Why Does Celeste Feel So Good to Play?”, YouTube, 31 July 2019, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yorTG9at90g&t=710s

• Game Maker’s Toolkit, “What Makes Celeste’s Assist Mode Special”, YouTube, 21 February 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NInNVEHj_G4

• Nguyen, C. Thi. Games: Agency as Art. Oxford University Press, 2020.

• Nguyen, C. Thi. "The Arts of Action”. Philosophers’ Imprint, vol. 20, n.14, 2020, pp. 1-27.

• Screen Therapy, “Celeste: Growing Stronger & Healing Anxiety”, YouTube, 30 December 2020, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=On_gtBhjpos

• Shepherd, Nan. The Living Mountain. Scribner, FIND YEAR

• Skyhoppers, “Celeste Proves That You Can Do Anything”, YouTube, 18 June 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TJkCcvqZBY

• Suits, Bernard. The Grasshopper: Games, Life, and Utopia. University of Toronto Press, 1978.

• Transparency Boo, “Understanding Celeste: A Reading of a Masterpiece. YouTube, 21 January 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhL4fLiX3d4

• unajoy, “Celeste: The Trans Odyssey", YouTube, 5 December 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ys4iew6GC_0

• “169: C. Thi Nguyen on Games, Art, Values, and Agency”. Sean Carroll’s Mindscape: Science, Society, Philosophy, Culture, Arts, and Ideas from Sean Carroll and Wondery, 18 October 2021, https://open.spotify.com/episode/5fOYEKR4Nndl0syhIs1FX5?si=448eff5522484381&nd=1&dlsi=df6dfe345f2d4983