After looking at both the Celeste image and yours for a while, I'd say I like a lot of the same things about both of them. The characters in both have a lot of personality in a way that makes me want to know more about them. Before I actually played Celeste, seeing this image made me want to know more--why's that guy in a mirror? What's up with the ghost dude in that little...whatever you call that zipline thing? Their expressions and the way they're drawn give them enough personality that I want to play the game (which I did) and see more of them.
And your image gives a lot of the same vibes! I have at least a vague idea of who these characters are, of course, but I still want to play the game and find out more about them, and I feel like that would be the case even if I were just scrolling through Steam and seeing this picture with no prior knowledge. I get a basic idea of their personalities--one more goofy and lighthearted, the other more serious and perhaps melancholy. It's enough to get invested in them with very little information.
And although I didn't really notice it at first, I can definitely see the crescent moon and eye motifs, which I like. If I had only one suggestion, it would be to highlight those patterns more; I like them a lot now that I've had them pointed out, but I didn't really see them on my first glance.
1
Tobias 1104~1Y
I appreciate the positivity.
Since I've never played Celeste, I'm assuming the characters in the image are specific quirky NPCs you briefly meet along the way, solve some quest thing for, then move on? That's how a lot of those games tend to work, after all. How much of the overall plot - if any - is communicated there? Is it anything more than "these are some things you'll see along the way"?
I suppose I was approaching mine like some kind of pretentious ~artist~, hiding meanings that'd require more of an in-depth or later look, though maybe that's not wise for something meant as a marketing tool. The point should be to present something the player wants to find out more about, but it should probably be more clearly presented as such. I don't know. It's difficult.
1
360K11~1Y
Well, avoid reading this comment if you don't want spoilers for Celeste, although (spoiled or not) I'd recommend playing it because it's a really fun game.
The overall plot is relatively simple: the woman in the middle is Madeline, who has decided to climb Celeste Mountain as a way of essentially escaping her dead-end life and giving herself a meaningful goal to work towards. The other characters are:
Granny (in the lower right), an old woman who lives on the mountain who you'll run into a few times over the course of the game.
Mr. Oshiro, lower left, the ghost of a hotel owner who refuses to accept that his once-popular hotel on Celeste Mountain is now a ruin and that he's dead. He's the boss of one of the levels.
Theo, upper right. He's another mountain climber. Madeline runs into him several times over the course of the game, and one of the later levels centers around helping him escape what's called the Mirror Temple (thus the mirror around him).
Upper left is "Badeline" (although that's more of a nickname, and I don't think it's ever used in the game itself). She's probably the most important of these four characters; the idea is that Celeste Mountain is magical, and that it brings the fears and thoughts of those who try to climb it to life--not unlike the way miasma works in Taming Dreams and Mardek. "Our internal battles become external," that sort of thing. Badeline, who refers to herself as "part of you", is made up of Madeline's anxiety, gender dysphoria, and all the other parts of herself that she's trying to escape by going on this whole mountain climbing trip in the first place. She serves as a recurring boss for the first half of the game, chasing you through platforming areas and killing you on contact, at the end of which she knocks Madeline back down to the base of the mountain. The second half of the game is essentially about Madeline realizing she has to accept and deal with those parts of herself, with a level where you chase down Badeline while she fires projectiles and runs away. In the end, Madeline catches up to and accepts the parts of herself that she's been trying to avoid, which (in terms of gameplay) gives you new abilities that you need to learn to use to reach the top of the mountain.
All of which is a long way of saying that no, the plot is not really shown in this image at all! You can tell that something mirror-related happens to the guy in the upper right, and you could probably guess that the character in the upper left is an "evil twin" or something of the main character, but outside of that it doesn't really give away much detail about the plot. I don't know if that's the sort of thing you want to go with, and I don't know the story of Atonal Dreams well enough to say whether your image shows the plot or not, but it's something to consider.
And your image gives a lot of the same vibes! I have at least a vague idea of who these characters are, of course, but I still want to play the game and find out more about them, and I feel like that would be the case even if I were just scrolling through Steam and seeing this picture with no prior knowledge. I get a basic idea of their personalities--one more goofy and lighthearted, the other more serious and perhaps melancholy. It's enough to get invested in them with very little information.
And although I didn't really notice it at first, I can definitely see the crescent moon and eye motifs, which I like. If I had only one suggestion, it would be to highlight those patterns more; I like them a lot now that I've had them pointed out, but I didn't really see them on my first glance.
Since I've never played Celeste, I'm assuming the characters in the image are specific quirky NPCs you briefly meet along the way, solve some quest thing for, then move on? That's how a lot of those games tend to work, after all. How much of the overall plot - if any - is communicated there? Is it anything more than "these are some things you'll see along the way"?
I suppose I was approaching mine like some kind of pretentious ~artist~, hiding meanings that'd require more of an in-depth or later look, though maybe that's not wise for something meant as a marketing tool. The point should be to present something the player wants to find out more about, but it should probably be more clearly presented as such. I don't know. It's difficult.
The overall plot is relatively simple: the woman in the middle is Madeline, who has decided to climb Celeste Mountain as a way of essentially escaping her dead-end life and giving herself a meaningful goal to work towards. The other characters are:
Granny (in the lower right), an old woman who lives on the mountain who you'll run into a few times over the course of the game.
Mr. Oshiro, lower left, the ghost of a hotel owner who refuses to accept that his once-popular hotel on Celeste Mountain is now a ruin and that he's dead. He's the boss of one of the levels.
Theo, upper right. He's another mountain climber. Madeline runs into him several times over the course of the game, and one of the later levels centers around helping him escape what's called the Mirror Temple (thus the mirror around him).
Upper left is "Badeline" (although that's more of a nickname, and I don't think it's ever used in the game itself). She's probably the most important of these four characters; the idea is that Celeste Mountain is magical, and that it brings the fears and thoughts of those who try to climb it to life--not unlike the way miasma works in Taming Dreams and Mardek. "Our internal battles become external," that sort of thing. Badeline, who refers to herself as "part of you", is made up of Madeline's anxiety, gender dysphoria, and all the other parts of herself that she's trying to escape by going on this whole mountain climbing trip in the first place. She serves as a recurring boss for the first half of the game, chasing you through platforming areas and killing you on contact, at the end of which she knocks Madeline back down to the base of the mountain. The second half of the game is essentially about Madeline realizing she has to accept and deal with those parts of herself, with a level where you chase down Badeline while she fires projectiles and runs away. In the end, Madeline catches up to and accepts the parts of herself that she's been trying to avoid, which (in terms of gameplay) gives you new abilities that you need to learn to use to reach the top of the mountain.
All of which is a long way of saying that no, the plot is not really shown in this image at all! You can tell that something mirror-related happens to the guy in the upper right, and you could probably guess that the character in the upper left is an "evil twin" or something of the main character, but outside of that it doesn't really give away much detail about the plot. I don't know if that's the sort of thing you want to go with, and I don't know the story of Atonal Dreams well enough to say whether your image shows the plot or not, but it's something to consider.