Stellaris

Stellaris
Creator	Donker19
Map pack	Solaris System
Difficulty	Expert
Soundtrack	18  •   Bosozoku GF 19  •   Prom Night
Link	GameBanana

Stellaris: The C-Side is the third and final map in the Solaris System. Released in August 2023 as part of the Solaris System's Dark Side Update, Stellaris is, as its subtitle implies, a C-Side. Stellaris takes place in what is presumably another of Madeline's dreams, this time featuring a purple foreground with white grass and mostly yellow background objects. The sky is dark and filled with desaturated purple and yellow auroras, as well as stars arranged in the shape of constellations. It consists of three gameplay rooms, which contain "the ultimate jelly juggling puzzles", as well as numerous secrets such as a cassette tape, resprited moon berry, part of the mod's ARG, and a dragon bossfight. One of its songs also has lyrics, making Stellaris one of the few maps with lyrics in its music.

Plot

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Madeline ends up in what is presumably another of her dreams. After some difficult jelly juggling challenges, she remembers a time during her childhood in which she showed her mom a drawing she made which combined the sun and moon; this drawing is the inspiration for the dream that Solaris takes place in. Afterwards, she encounters a yellow Crystal Heart with sun-like rays coming out of it, and the dream presumably ends after its collection. “Creativity is a blessing, Madeline. Be sure to make the most of it!” ~ Stellaris' postcard The drawing Madeline made

Gameplay

Start

The first two rooms of Stellaris are, like most C-Sides, harder and tighter than the previous sides (Solaris and Lunaris). Midair superdashes are introduced at the start of the map, though they are only used in the first room. All three jellyfish variants and several other resprited entities seen previously throughout the Solaris System appear here as well.

The Cassette Tape is located here, in a secret passage near the end of the second room.

Take Me Up To Heaven

The third and final room of Stellaris is harder, longer, and very vertical. The lighting darkens and the color palette inverts, with the background mostly being light purple and the foreground consisting of a lot more yellow. Prom Night, a song which, surprisingly for a Celeste mod, has lyrics, plays. The gameplay is significantly more vertical, with sections based on the subchapters of Solaris and Lunaris each ended with a Badeline orb taking Madeline to the next one.

Secrets

Jash's mod

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After collecting all the touch switches in the first room, Madeline can fall back down instead of proceeding to the next room. She can then find a secret passage near the start of the room, which leads to the introduction to Jash's map. This map is dubbed the "Lenient Ludicrous Long Lost Laborious Laughable Legendary Lenticular Lengthy Levels of Lethargic Lawful Legends", and consists of purposefully bland and colorless art with an occasional large depiction of Jash's face (dubbed "jashcore") and poorly-made gameplay. Jash themself is a modder who speaks with improper English and the ability to insert themself into the textbox, with their design being a reference to the Jash NPCs from OMORI. The music which plays in their mod consists of the various Jash tracks from OMORI. They enlist Madeline to playtest their mod, which is claimed to have "wall bounce" and "decoration". The gameplay of these rooms are rather simple, only consisting of spinners and tiles. The first room is an introduction and only contains a wallbounce, which Jash thinks Madeline did very fast and thus assumes that she beat a map called "super difficult". The second room is claimed to have a demodash and wallbounce, though both of these are impossible to do and can simply be bypassed with regular dashes, which Jash will then call Madeline out for and proceed to let slide since they think it's funny. The third room is claimed to have spike jumps, though there are spinners instead of spikes and Madeline can simply dash over them. The fourth room is claimed to be the "ultimate jashside challenge", supposedly combining all the mechanics, themes, and decoration from the previous rooms into one. Jash also considers adding some funny dialog into the map, such as saying "is that a spike? ouch! that IS a spike!" when Madeline hits a spike. (This is a reference to what Madeline says when encountering fire in Solaris.) Upon proceeding to get no response from Madeline, Jash remarks that she has no sense of humor. After playtesting the map, Jash thanks Madeline for doing so and allows her to add them to her collectables list as a Moonberry. After this, Madeline can enter a portal leading to the end of the first room, allowing her to proceed to the rest of the map.

Jash's bossfight

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Upon completing a full clear golden (which basically just adds Jash's map and the cassette) of Stellaris, Jash will return and enlist Madeline to playtest the final map in their mod. The stylegrounds and decoration in this map are the same as the Jash map found earlier, though Jash appears in a larger size in front of a black background. The gameplay is rather simple, with the only difficult part being a precise wallbounce near the start. Upon finishing the room, Jash will ponder if Madeline is too good at the game to give good feedback for their mod, since she (apparently) finished it on her first try. Before proceeding to the next room, Jash will ask where Madeline is going, to which she gives no response. The next room is an elevator leading to the end, with a touch switch required to activate it. Before Madeline can activate it, Jash will stop her by moving the switch into lightning and refusing to move it back until she tells them how good the map is gives them feedback. Madeline then states that she doesn't think it was very good, telling Jash that the stylegrounds are bland, the gameplay is boring, and the dialog has no punctuation. She does, however, think the deco is unique, and with some gameplay polish, the map could be good. Jash gets angry at Madeline due to this, saying that she's just supposed to tell them the map is good. Madeline says that she was just giving her opinion and critique of areas that could be improved, which is what playtesting is for. Jash deflects, saying that she has insulted their work and must atone, intending to force Madeline to say that the map is good. Jash then begins their bossfight, and an introductory sequence showing Madeline (titled "Tenacious Traveler") and Jash (titled "Jas H") plays. The bossfight itself plays out similarly to those in Undertale, with a "fight" option that hurts Jash, a "plead" option that ultimately has no use, and "Mad Mew Mew" playing throughout the fight. The fight progresses by having Madeline shoot Jash with her bow from Towerfall upon selecting FIGHT, and Jash sending out attacks consisting of non-chapter-specific mechanics (spinners, dash crystals, crumble blocks, etc) that Madeline must survive. Between their attacks, Jash and Madeline will have various dialogs relating to the fight. Upon being brought to 1 HP, Jash will gain the ability to access their true form, turning them into "Jas H Dragon Form", which is just Jash with one wing on their right. (This form is also shown in OMORI as "One-Winged Jash".) World's End Valentine plays, and the bossfight continues in a similar manner as before. Fire now spreads throughout the box Jash's attacks take place in, and the attacks themselves are much harder. After being brought to 1 HP again, Jash will lose their wing and admit defeat. They will then pledge to work on the map further and move the touch switch out of lightning, allowing Madeline to proceed and finally get her full clear golden.

Trivia

• Donker19 has made several jokes about there being a dragon bossfight in Lunaris. While there unfortunately isn't a dragon bossfight in Lunaris, Stellaris has a secret dragon bossfight which even references the joke in the form of Jas H Dragon Form.
• The final subchapter name in Stellaris, "Take Me Up To Heaven", is a part of the lyrics of the song that plays during the subchapter.