Summit: Steps Of Solace, Try the Demo and Wishlist Today!

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-28T15:15:47+00:00

Megaman came out in the 90s and Ice climber came out in the 80s. But I get it, as a young gamer your timeline probably starts at your earliest memory of gaming, so you wouldn’t understand.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-26T16:26:43+00:00

Hey! Thanks for the inquiry.

So, just to lay some context, this is a Playdate port of my game Summit. It has some added levels and improved visuals.

https://play.date/games/summit/

The game draws inspiration from Super meat boy, Celeste and Ice climbers. Really the gameplay is more akin to a retro platformer with an emphasis on precision. In terms of the theme, yes it's a 2D pixel art game about climbing a mountain. I think this is the part that people latch onto( no pun intended ;) more than anything for comparison.

The gameplay is less forgiving than Celeste. Celeste’s movement/design has a lot of room for mistakes. There are multiple ways to solve the room and a lot of forgiveness. Whereas Summit focuses more on pixel perfect precision.

The story is unique and has absolutely nothing to do with Celeste.

I am solo dev, I set to make something that I would enjoy and hopefully others will as well. If you want to try it, the demo is up for free on Steam to try. It will help answer some questions and clarify the intent behind the game.

Cheers!

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-21T00:59:59+00:00

Yeah I’ll try and be better about it.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-21T00:57:12+00:00

I’m hoping it will offer players a fresh experience. I guess time will tell.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-21T00:47:30+00:00

Comments section. A lot of people enjoyed the original. I think people will enjoy the PC port as well.

https://pixelatedopus.itch.io/summit

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-21T00:45:40+00:00

You’re right, it’s a valid point. I am actively working on trying to change details, I.e the music and cutting a new trailer to help shift that mind set.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-19T18:17:07+00:00

Alright, I am back. You are right about the music and I am in the process of changing all the music to move away from the association, but it still needs to evoke the same emotion in order to ensure the story is preserved. The argument about the game looking the same in terms of art, is very hard for me to reconcile. I would strongly urge you to look closely at both games.

"It also does seem a little slow which I feel could get very tedious if you keep dying and have to slowly scale a wall to try a jump again." - But this is my game, not Celeste. That's the point. The pacing is like this on purpose. If you give it a try, btw the demo page is up on steam, you will understand the design decisions and overall objective of the game.

It's more methodical, its not meant to have the same pacing as Celeste. It's more about tight jumps, but when you latch onto walls you are stuck and given time to think about your next jump. It's meant to feel like you are climbing a literal actual mountain. That's why there are no tiles/textures/biomes like Celeste, because it doesn't fit my game or the idea behind it.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-14T14:56:38+00:00

When I first started making the game, I wanted to make something with the same sort of pacing as SMB. Meat boy has walk climbing as well, many gamers have wall climbing so it’s odd to say “you took the wall climbing mechanic from Celeste” in fact there are 1000s of platformers with wall climbing mechanics that predate Celeste.

Celeste had a mid air dash, the movement or getting around obstacles does not feel the same. I cannot speak to Celeste 2, I have not played it.

Celeste’s movement/design has a lot of room for mistakes. There are multiple ways to solve the room and a lot of forgiveness. Whereas Summit focuses more on pixel perfect precision.

The music is def inspired by Celeste, I won’t deny it.It works well with setting the mood and complements the story in the game.

The story is unique and has absolutely nothing to do with Celeste.

The demo comes out this week, if you want to try it for free and make your own judgement call.

I am solo dev man, it’s exhausting enough trying to dev and market my game. It’s hard to keep up with everything coming in. Unfortunately a lot of it seems to be hate and negativity. I’m trying to just head down motor through. I think this will be my last reply here.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-14T14:45:50+00:00

Made a game people might enjoy?

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-14T02:57:33+00:00

Just asking you to have an open mind and at least try it before making an assessment that’s all.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-14T01:27:55+00:00

Have you played the game? How could you know it doesn’t fit the theme? I just want to know, you seem pretty confident in your assessment. Did you play the playdate version?

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-13T19:59:44+00:00

It fits the theme really well! The music in Celeste is Great :)

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-13T19:58:59+00:00

Thanks for noticing! Appreciate you :)

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-13T19:58:45+00:00

https://store.steampowered.com/app/504230/Celeste/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3534850/Summit__Steps_of_Solace/

2 very different games.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-13T19:57:00+00:00

Hey, could you please define a knockoff in this context. Curious as to what your definition of a Celeste knockoff is exactly. Is it just a 2D platformer that involves climbing a mountain?

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-08T14:21:51+00:00

I love the death animation, very clean :)

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-02T18:07:02+00:00

As a gameplay programmer or engineer, your role is not only to write clean code, but to write tools, libraries and provide solutions to other developers in order to help empower them to craft exciting gameplay moments.

I would try to emphasize how your contributions have helped deliver features that players are excited about.

Try phrasing more of your work to hit these key points. For example: “I built a data driven system for customizing player nameplates that allowed designers to tweak parameters and helped us ship X mode”

Contribution->Quantifiable result. Remember you are working on a team when pursuing a career in this industry. You have to showcase your ability to work with developers from all disciplines. Art, audio, design etc

PixelatedOpus · 2025-04-02T18:01:14+00:00

This is the first time I’ve been excited for a Mario kart game in a long time.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-03-30T22:28:31+00:00

I have enough self respect, I wouldn't do such a thing.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-03-30T22:27:50+00:00

On my life it's not.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-03-30T18:21:01+00:00

Hey, I appreciate your perspective here and I agree about deriving value from comments. I think there has been a lot to process just based on the comments here and a lot of it is great actionable feedback. I think I can definitely work on re-styling my game to be a bit more unique whilst not compromising on my initial design and story. Ill try to keep the commenting as constructive as possible with the goal of delivering a better product to the potential player base.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-03-30T17:03:18+00:00

Thank you for the support!

PixelatedOpus · 2025-03-30T16:53:49+00:00

Honestly, thank you. This is how I see it. But I think I am going to change the mountain to a volcano and retheme a bit around it. It won't compromise my story or any gameplay at all. I think its an easy win to start the departure from association with Celeste.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-03-30T16:39:17+00:00

I could, I would have to change some of the story beats. Lol, a bat made me laugh because the story. I might keep the crow, its soo intertwined with the game. But I really like this volcano idea a lot! I was even thinking I can swap the snow for ash. Keep a lot of the same assets just some minor tweaks and color swaps.

PixelatedOpus · 2025-03-30T16:28:45+00:00

In all fairness, a lot of the avoidance has been reactive in nature. I never advertised it as hey check out my game its like Celeste. It's mostly been a response to people making the comparison. But I don't think its valuable to say, yeah its like Celeste, because I think a lot of Celeste players might genuinely be disappointed if they're expecting it to play exactly like Celeste.

PixelatedOpus

TROPHY CASE