Celeste Mods - bone skull by Donker19 (Full Clear)
i like me better when i'm plasticine too!
thumbnail art by dewie [social media link]
bone skull was a map made for the second Music Translation Contest, where you take a song and try to interpret its vibe into a Celeste map. I'm a pretty big fan of Glass Beach myself (rumor has it if you look hard enough you can find concert footage on this channel), so I've been meaning to play this map for quite a while now, and it really did not disappoint. The storytelling is great, although absolutely not what I was expecting - I've been told that each of the 7 creatures remaining on the beach represents 1 of the seven deadly sins. bone skull is ultimately a song about what once was, and how it is now; I think donk did an excellent job of conveying that, as they so often do.
The third checkpoint represents a gameplay high point as you toggle between the beach and the abyss realm. I could go on about this for so long - the room design, the aesthetics matching each glass beach album, how seamless it all is - but in the interest of brevity, I'll leave it at that. I mentioned how most things in this map were unexpected, and that also applies to the secret route showcased in the last third of the video.
When I heard it was about the seven deadly sins, I assumed that the secret route was going to feature the 8th sin of despair that was included in the older 4th-century version of the text. To that end, I'll say my expectations were once again subverted, with the theme of sins being thrown aside for a bunch of Omori references. I like it quite a lot, but it is a bit distant from the rest of the story except for one specific scene you'll have to watch the video to see. I really wasn't a fan of the whole ARG in Lunaris, one of Donk's previous maps, because I felt it entirely invalidated the (very serious) main story; the equivalent side content in bone skull is much better executed, if not yet perfect. At the very least, I'm excited to see what happens next.
Download the map: https://gamebanana.com/mods/514212
Listen to the song: • glass beach - bone skull
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