Overcoming the Mountain of Celeste With Speedrunner Champ TGH

Taking the platformer gaming scene by storm is a humble little title called Celeste, developed from the same team that created Skytorn and TowerFall. A small team with big dreams, Celeste was originally planned as a launch title for the Nintendo Switch, but didn’t quite make it. However, the game quickly became a hit on the Switch, where it remains as one of the most popular games on the console as of this writing. The game’s theme of overcoming challenges by climbing a mountain, even though there is tons of opposition to that task, resonates with players in ways that most modern games haven’t. Celeste also just so happens to be an incredible speedgame, making it one of the most played speedruns at the moment.

For those that have yet to try out Celeste, the game is a challenging platformer comparable to games like Super Meat Boy or Slime-San. Precision platforming makes all the difference when narrowly avoiding death with death being everywhere on this massive mountain. Players utilize an air dash and a climbing ability to manage a few basic skills to reach new heights. Danger aside, making a mistake in Celeste is fairly easy to recover from, as the character respawns quickly. This also means there would be fewer resets for speedrunners, as the time loss of a mistake is minimal. Wrap the whole package up with an inspiring narrative and relatable characters and Celeste is a game that will likely see play for quite some time. It also looks like speedrunners will be messing around with it for a while too.

One of the most prominent runners of Celeste is TGH, who is mostly known for his Undertale speedruns. With Celeste continuing to evolve as more and more runners get ahold of it, this sounded like a perfect time to talk to him about his experiences with hitting the top of the leaderboards and get to know the runner a little more. TGH is currently the top runner in the Any% category of Celeste.

Note that this speedrun record is being tracked with Speedrun.com and not official Twin Galaxies leaderboards as of yet. 

Like most speedrunning origin tales, TGH picked up Celeste after playing it casually, getting the game as a present from his girlfriend. Celeste, he said, “had a really satisfying feel to the movement and overall feel of the game. As soon as I finished the main story, I was eager to start speedrunning it and ran individual levels on my own and found my own strats even at first, which was fun.”

The initial excitement of learning a newer release as a speedrun can be infectious, especially when there is a ton of other players also figuring it out. TGH ended up enjoying the run even more as the community developed the route, “I looked into the actual techniques that had already been found for the run, and fell in love with everything about it.”

Like many of the other runners we’ve talked to, TGH was inspired by the popularity and excitement of events like Games Done Quick; he’s been running games since October of 2015. “I've always been a really competitive person and always enjoyed video games a lot so decided to try it. The first speedrun I got into was Pokémon Red, and Undertale was the first speedgame I took really seriously. There's something about essentially competing against yourself and dedicating to improving your skills and times that hooked me really quickly.”

Outside of gaming, there can be quite a few benefits to learning a speedrun as MGH explains. “Being a successful speedrunner requires a lot of patience, an intense work ethic, and an even-keel focused mindset. It also requires a process-based way of thinking and going about your business; it's not always about going fast, but about efficiency and cleanliness of play most times, which leads to speed. I think most people will agree that these are positive qualities to have for everyday life, and I believe everyone can develop or strengthen these qualities by applying themselves to a speedgame.”

Speedrunning a game is about taking a challenge, or as in Celeste a mountain, and finding hidden strengths within oneself to get to the top. It’s not always about being the absolute best by beating the times of all other runners either, sometimes there is something special about steadily getting better, slowly beating one’s own times.

That, and Celeste makes speedrunning fairly easy to grasp. We asked Punchy about Celeste, who we’ve talked to in the past about his Silent Hill speedrun from AGDQ 2018, since he has also been steadily chipping away at the leaderboards. “It's really good and the devs have done an astoundingly good job of getting players into speedrunning it in a very frictionless way that very few games have ever successfully pulled off,” said Punchy. As an aside, he admitted that there is a ton more he could talk about in regards to the speedrunning ease, but has yet to truly collect his thoughts on it.

Anyone who finds themselves struggling with the game’s difficulty also have the option of playing with assists, like slowing down the game’s time or adding more boost jumps. This makes it incredibly accessible, giving players the option to tune in a difficulty that works for them. Of course, players like TGH take things to the extreme, but there is definitely a wide spectrum of folks who can complete Celeste.

For those looking to experience a journey of betterment or are searching for a new speedrunning community to participate in, Celeste isn’t a bad choice. Either way, there is something for everyone to pull from it, even if just taking the game’s general themes.

Even if there is adversity on all sides, never stop climbing mountains.

Want to see TGH in action? You can catch him streaming various games on Twitch. If you'd like to give Celeste a go, you can find it on the Nintendo Switch, as well as Steam.