Two weeks ago I wrote about one of my favorite games from the past few years, Celeste. I finally made it past the one section after leaving the game behind for over a year, so I had to share the highlight. This week I’m talking about another game by Matt Makes Games (aka Extremely OK Games) Towerfall.

Getting back into Celeste brought to mind Celeste’s predecessor — Towerfall. The funny thing is that although Towerfall was released five years before Celeste, I never played it until after I had defeated Celeste. I ended up playing a whole lot of Towerfall.

I first downloaded it as a free Epic Games Store game and beat it on Normal mode in about a week or two. Later on, I also bought it on Nintendo Switch (on sale). I beat it there too. The Switch version came with a few additions including the previous DLC and Madeline (the main character from Celeste).

Usually when you play two games made by the same developer you notice a few similarities and influences from one to the other. The cool thing about Towerfall and Celeste is that both use the same movement, dash and art style. However, they are both very different games. I like that they took the basic mechanics from Towerfall (minus the archery) and put it into a very different genre.

Towerfall is an action platform fighter where players must use their movement and archery skills to defeat tons of enemies. Celeste is more of a platform adventure game where you make your way though different puzzles and areas. WhileTowerfall is very focused on multiplayer modes, Celeste is a single player experience where you try to make your way to the top of a mountain.

When I first started myVGBC I was posting video game highlights most Fridays, and while I’ve had many great achievements in Towerfall it’s also a great game to celebrate your failures — especially with it’s post-death replays. So this week I’m celebrating failures and the weird with two silly deaths and one strange blooper.

The Self-Inflicted Deaths

Blooper – The Crow

While big wins and highlights are always fun to capture and celebrate in gaming it’s also always fun to record a great failure. Towerfall and Celeste both are games that celebrate failure with Towerfall’s slow-motion death replays and Celeste keeps a record of your death count. Gaming is great because games can be fun whether you’re great or you suck at them.