Hacker Cinema
Celeste
2018 · Film · 105 min
Directed by Ben Hackworth
Celeste is a renowned opera diva who retired early for the man she loved to live on a crumbling and beautiful estate in the heart of a rainforest in Far North Queensland. Ten years after the tragic death of her husband, Mateos, in a boating accident, Celeste is set to return to the stage for her final performance. Her husband’s son Jack, still haunted by the past, arrives amidst the preparations for the performance and finds Celeste is as he remembered – beautiful, intoxicating and dangerous. Celeste wants Jack to stay at the estate, but needs him to perform one last request.
2 positivefrom 2 commenters
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2 comments on Hacker News
Well, there are already high-quality films / games by small teams with no external funding, like https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsGZ_2RuJ2A, Braid, and Celeste. But for long form stuff like these, the tools don't matter as much, it is more like writing a novel where the key is to get something done every day. The main issue is perseverance - a tool dropping the workload from 100 days to 10 days is nice, but it doesn't change the fact that most people will get bored and give up in 10 minutes.
Edith Finch is one of my favorite games of all time, as well.
I debated not including it on the above list, because one of the things it does absolutely fantastically well is, lets call it, ludonarrative resonance. The opposite of ludonarrative dissonance; it synergizes gameplay and story to such an incredibly powerful degree, that its story is made better by the gameplay, and its gameplay (what it has) is made better by the story.
That being said, its gameplay is more in the Firewatch/Telltale category than, say, Mass Effect.
Another game which feels squarely in the ludonarrative resonant category is Celeste. If you've played Celeste, you know: its a hell of a frustrating experience. Your experience clearing those platforming challenges precisely mirrors Madeline's experience scaling the mountain. You'll have moments where you'll tell yourself "this game is too hard for me", "I can't do this", just like how Badeline tries to convince Madeline that she isn't good enough to climb the mountain. In the end, you never stop feeling frustrated; you learn to live with the frustration, as it pushes you to be a better player; just as Madeline learns to live with her ugly side, and it makes them both better for it by giving you a double dash for the last level.
Celeste could never be a movie; its narrative is too simple to work outside a form of interactive media, where the interactivity empowers the narrative by creating in you the same emotions being narrated through the main character.