CELESTE: The Unofficial Port Jam

You know that feeling, right? That exact mix where you're staring at the screen thinking «This is impossible» but you still go for just one more attempt until it all clicks and you nailed it? That «YES, I DID IT!» rush? That's the magic of the Celeste Mountain.

CELESTE: The Unofficial Port Jam

So, welcome to something special. This is a hub where the most dedicated fans in the community decided to build new experiences. We're talking about unofficial ports and demakes, passion projects where fans rebuilt the games from the ground up, just to see it live on hardware it was never meant for. They’ve captured that perfect punishing flow and translated it into the language of old cartridges and handheld screens.

The pixels might be chunkier, the music might be a simpler cover, but that tight struggle is completely intact. It's all still here: the precision, the challenge, that need for just… one… more… try. So if that climb still calls to you, you're in the right place. Let's see how high we can really go.

The original CELESTE is a prototype that eventually became the huge emotional game we know. It's a super tight platformer built for the PICO-8 and you can find it tucked away as a secret in the main CELESTE game, which is a lovely touch. The whole thing is just climbing a mountain, screen by screen, with one simple goal: get to the top.

You control Madeline (I guess) and she's got a jump and her snappy air dash that recharges when you touch the ground. That dash is everything and the levels are clever bite sized puzzles made of spikes moving platforms and tricky gaps, it starts off friendly but gets seriously intense, asking you to chain moves together perfectly. The checkpoints are generous tho, so it's all about that «one more try» feeling. There's a hidden cheat that gives you a second dash which totally changes your movement and makes you feel unstoppable.

Visually, it's got that crunchy PICO-8 style with limited colors and chunky pixels that somehow feels pleasant and the music is a simple upbeat chiptune track that perfectly fits the quick paced climbing. You can beat the whole thing in under an hour if you're good but hunting down all eighteen hidden strawberries adds a lot of replay for the determined. It doesn't have a story but it doesn't need one, the challenge and the pure joy of movement are the whole point.

CELESTE 2: LANI'S TREK takes the core idea of climbing a mountain but flips the entire feel on its head by giving you a grappling hook instead of a dash. You play as Lani and her tool completely changes how you move. The hook fires straight forward, letting you latch onto walls or special points to whip yourself around. It's a totally different kind of rhythm compared to Madeline's air dashing, where you're learning to swing, let go at the perfect moment and launch yourself through these narrow spaces.

The level design is built entirely around this new mechanic and once more, it gets seriously clever. You're using the hook's pull to build speed, jumping midswing to cross huge gaps and figuring out how to navigate rooms where touching the ground is almost a last resort. It feels amazing when you get a sequence right. They also brought back the strawberries from the big CELESTE, where you have to land safely after grabbing them, which adds this extra layer of planning. It's arguably even tougher than the first CLASSIC, demanding really precise timing, especially if you go for everything.

It's got that same limited PICO-8 aesthetic with a fresh color palette and a new chiptune track from Lena Raine that's a banger, it's energetic and keeps you pumped through all the retries. Since it was made in just 3 days, it's another short adventure, maybe you can beat it in half an hour once y'know what you're doing, maybe less since it gets easier with the autosave patch, but it still packed with some neat ideas.

GAME DATASHEET
Name	CELESTE 2: LANI'S TREK CELESTE CLASSIC 2: LANI'S TREK
Genre	Platformer
Console	PICO-8
Released	2021
Developer	Maddy Thorson Noel Berry
Publisher	Maddy Makes Games
Language	English

GBA PORT
Released	2025
Author	Skale

AUTOSAVE PATCH
Released	2025
Authoress	Elie P.

CELESTE ADVANCE

CELESTE ADVANCE is a fangame that instead of trying to port the exact levels from the big game, this one is a brand new adventure built from the ground up for the GBA's hardware but using the same visuals and mechanics of said game.

Madeline controls just like you'd hope with her dash and climb, but the challenges are new designed around the GBA's screen resolution and buttons. Those pixel art sprites look fantastic on the screen but the main compromise is the music 'cuz due to copyright, they couldn't include the original soundtrack, so it has its own chiptune tracks that fit the handheld's soundchip.

The charm here is that it feels like an official title, it's a new mountain to climb with the same tight controls crafted with clear love for both CELESTE and the GBA library. It's not a shortened version of the story y'know, it's a whole new platforming campaign that stands on its own.

GAME DATASHEET
Name	CELESTE ADVANCE
Genre	Platformer
Console	GBA
Released	2020
Developer	IsaGoodFriend
Publisher	IsaGoodFriend
Language	English

PORTUGUESE TRANSLATION
Released	2022
Author	Ulkes

English

 

Português

CELESTE

Okay, so what's the closest experience to the big CELESTE game is on the 3DS family of systems? Obviously there's no official port, but there's this passionate fanproject for the NES that kinda nails that vibe in a totally different way.

Think about it like this: the PICO-8 CLASSICS are their own unique condensed thing. This demake is a totally separate fan effort to actually squeeze the full modern CELESTE experience; the story, the chapters, the precise physics, onto a real NES game. It's a massive technical undertaking. The dev's recreating the game from the ground up in 6502 assembly language, which is the deep ancient code of the NES, trying to keep Madeline's movement and dash feeling as accurate as possible. That's a wild challenge given the hardware's huge limits on memory and processing power.

Right now, it only covers the first two chapters, Forsaken City and Old Site. Playing it is a fascinating mix of familiarity and new old aesthetic. You've got the same level layouts, the same strawberries to collect and the same tough platforming challenge, but it's all rendered in this authentic crunchy NES palette with fitting chiptune renditions of Lena Raine's amazing soundtrack. It's a seriously impressive WIP that gives you a profound appreciation for both the original game's design and the sheer skill required to bend such old hardware to its will.

GAME DATASHEET
Name	CELESTE
Genre	Platformer
Console	PC, Switch, PS4, Xbox One
Released	2021
Developer	Maddy Thorson
Publisher	Maddy Makes Games
Language	English

NES PORT
Released	2025
Author	iProgramInCpp