Celeste & Inside Free On Epic Games Store

Last week I said, I expect these Epic Games store articles to kill me, with the double bills being the biggest reason. Clearly, someone at Epic saw the claim and took it as a challenge as both this week and next will be double bills, double kill bills if you will. Though looking forward to next week is a job for later in this article, if my formatting is anything to go by.

This week’s games are both games about small children, and platformers with death on every side. We’ll begin with Playdead’s Inside, as we’ve already covered Limbo, their previous child-murdering simulator. It is very much the epitome of what some thought Thatcher’s Britain was like, and if you are American and twelve just look at Orwell’s 1984 for reference. While Orwell: Ignorance is Strength is based on being at the top of the pile, Inside is about being a small child at the bottom of the social status.

Inside, notably features more color than its’ predecessor, but I’m sure that is to differentiate itself, along with a plot and some non-spider based puzzles. Inside certainly is more interesting than Limbo, though it lacks the punch that the latter had. Playdead has taken the FromSoftware mentality of making the same thing, doing it very well, and everyone mimicking that style doesn’t do the depression hard enough. Though Tarsier studios did attempt to make it a much bigger game with their Little Nightmares series.

Swiftly moving on, Celeste is the second game this week. A cute pixel-art and pixel-perfect platformer that I’m sure the hardcore Dark Souls community would roll their eyes at. However, much like Dark Souls, Celeste is looking back at those times when games were more rigged carnival games than shooting galleries for racists and action movie fans. With Celeste taking more of a direct story than Inside does of a small child/teenage, Madeline’s life isn’t as brutal as Inside does at throttling children. Just a lot harder.

While Inside looks to do the vague indie story over gameplay idea, Celeste interweaves story with gameplay. You play as Madeline, who is looking to climb Celeste, a mountain the size of Everest on psychotropic mushrooms. She looks to do so through pixel art and precision platforming, that which would make the smallest and most innocent of children combust into a swearing fit after three deaths to those damn spikes. Which isn’t to say it is impossible, just one of those games that builds frustration as you die to something you know not to do.

Jumping, dashing, and repeated death is both the fun and irritant of Celeste. A fun and interesting platformer that knows how hard it is with a great assist mode, allowing anyone and everyone to play it. Though the postcard on chapter three insists, “Be proud of your death count! the more you die, the more you’re learning.” Celeste is a platforming Dark Souls, which to me is like bashing myself in the groin with my favorite childhood teddy. I love it.

Both Inside and Celeste are available for free until the 5th of September. Though if your account is under parental control, you will only be able to get Celeste; which is in my opinion, the better of the two. With Inside being a grim, dark, and blood-soaked nightmare of my memories of what Britain is, I don’t blame the mature rating. Though next, we look on to what is indeed coming on the 5th of September.

It is another double bill of mature platforming BDSM with The End is Nigh. The End is Nigh is the latest video game from Edmund “Ed” McMillen, developer of both The Binding of Isaac and The End is Nigh‘s predecessor, Super Meat Boy. The second game, (i.e the one that’s not mature) is ABZU, the adventure game about looking at some pretty fish and avoiding the big sharks. Both ABZU and The End is Nigh will be available from the 5th of September until the 12th.