The Spiral

The session I had playing this game with friends a couple days ago was god-tier.

The way the conflict between Madeline and Badeline is framed fundamentally contradicts with my self-perception. Celeste's parable suggests that we learn to love and accept our flaws, and it does this through the reconciliation between Madeline and the manifestation of her darker emotions... But I can't view my flaws as separate from me. So I can't fight them, can't learn to love them. They *are* me, and rather it's the "good" parts of me that feel distant. Anger, anxiety, fear, spite, those are all me. The "good" in me is all learned behaviours. Coping mechanisms, carefully studied masking techniques... The more I try to get "better" the more I just end up learning to hide myself.... So I can't relate to any framework that assumes I identify with the "good" half of myself. I find that... precludes me. I don't have a good nature. I know that very intimately. When I try to find it, I grasp nothing. So Celeste was like.... a slap in the face. It felt like a game aimed at people who are already, inherently, better people than me. It makes me upset, and that causes me to judge it unfairly. I don't like how it makes me feel, and so my mind races to find a reason why. I honestly somewhat loathed it. I last played it in 2019, and those feelings festered ever since.

Only after last night, sitting through all of it with Ruby while she patiently explains everything, do I sort of understand what the game was going for. My media literacy is nothing before hers.... The game is a lot more sympathetic to Badeline than I remembered. I remembered her being consistently framed as the bad guy and then just kind of having a change of heart at the end... but I guess that's not really what happens... It's more nuanced than that.... It doesn't really condemn Badeline or state that she has to change... In fact it's Madeline who ends up admitting she was wrong...

*heartbeat sfx* *sudden strong colors*

Your most anticipated game of 2026 (probably, right?) is now available for wishlisting on Steam.