Hands of stone
Pure execution, from generous to frame-perfect. Almost nothing here punishes you for failing; it just asks you to hit it.
Start at the bottom: Super Mario Odyssey. Where you get on is the rung after the deepest one you have marked beaten.
1 rung sits easier for you than the one before it. The order is authored for an average player and your aptitudes disagree with it here. It is left as written rather than re-sorted: the curator’s claim is about what each game prepares you for, which is not the same claim as “this one scores lower”.
These numbers are for an average player. Calibrate and the whole path re-reads itself against you.
- 1Super Mario Odyssey
2017 · Nintendo EPD · ~20h
3.5EXEPrecision with a wide net under it. The inputs are real but the game is actively trying to let you land them, which is the right place to find out what your hands can already do.
Start here - 2Ori and the Will of the Wisps
2020 · Moon Studios · ~14h
5.3EXEChaining moves instead of performing them one at a time. First rung where a sequence has to be held in your head while your thumbs are busy.
+1.8 jump - 3Hollow Knight
2017 · Team Cherry · ~30h
6.5EXEExecution under pressure from something that hits back. The same demands as the rung below, minus the assumption that you are safe while you think.
+1.2 jump - 4Celeste
2018 · Extremely OK Games · ~10h
6.4EXEFrame-perfect inputs, half-second respawns. It belongs here because it is brutal on exactly one axis — everything else about it is kind, which is what makes the practice bearable.
−0.1 stepEasier for you than the rung below - 5Cuphead
2017 · Studio MDHR · ~12h
7.5EXEThe same precision with pattern recognition bolted on and a much longer retry. These fights are memorised rather than solved.
+1.1 step - 6Super Meat Boy
2010 · Team Meat · ~12h
7.9EXEThe ceiling. Nothing is asked of you here that Celeste did not introduce; there is simply no slack left anywhere in it.
+0.4 step
