Impeded | Celeste: Strawberry Jam | WMGSO's Fall 2025 Full Ensemble Concert

Impeded - Celeste Strawberry Jam: The Summit Down-Side (2023) By: Aidan Gold Arr. David Crisler Since its 2018 release, the platformer Celeste has enjoyed a thriving scene of fanmade maps built within its engine, many of which feature custom art, gameplay gimmicks, and music. Strawberry Jam is a fanmade map pack with more than 350 contributors, featuring 116 individual maps and more than 9 hours of original music. "Impeded" is heard in The Summit Down-Side, a notoriously challenging map inspired by Getting Over It and similar games. A player's mistake results not in death, but worse: a long fall down the checkpoint-less mountain, watching as all their hard-earned progress slips away. To accompany this gameplay, composer Aidan Gold delivered a striking track that has become as memorable as the level itself. "Impeded" opens with an intense melody delivered by a solo violinist over an austere accompaniment. As the player climbs, the music shifts through a series of five loops that ratchet up the drama, until the full orchestra is unleashed for the terrifying final climb (of course, the music also deescalates if the player falls down). Like the soundtrack release of this track, this arrangement presents those five loops in consecutive order, followed by a brief coda that plays if the player completes a bonus climb for a hidden collectible. Video Producer: David Werner Video Director: Jarel Jones, David Werner Camera Operators: David Cleckley, Joshua Ellis, Michelle Eng, Hillary Reskin, Erik Sharar, Jeffrey Thomas Audio Recording Engineers: Michael Gebhart, Cory Lemons, Jimyo Lin Video Editing: Sheldon Zamora-Soon Audio Editing: Jimyo Lin Audio Mastering: David Werner Additional Onsite Crew: Jodie Johnson Thumbnail Photo: Gary Jared #videogamemusic #celeste #celestestrawberryjam