CHROZONE TYPE-C

CHROZONE TYPE-C is a standalone song. If you wanted me to be completely honest with you, it's literally the C-Side of CHROZONE.

idea

"But Mint, 'C-Sides' aren't a real thing!" I hear you say. I hope.

Of course I know that. I made this song a while after beating (and completing) "Celeste 64: Fragments of the Mountain" only a few hours after it dropped. I also made it with a broken scroll wheel, if that matters much. (Hated it.) I don't exactly recall what went through my mind while making it, but I could hazard a guess and say that I really just wanted to make another CHROZONE.

Why is this relevant? Whenever I get into a big "Celeste phase", I think of that song. I always tell people that that song is just my "Celeste song" because of how inspired it was. The idea overall has a special connection to me, but I'll tell you about it when you go read that one instead.

The idea of the song is pretty simple. It's just CHROZONE fused with CHROZONE TYPE-B. To save you and I some time, I'll just refer to "CHROZONE" as TYPE-A from here on.

We all know why. CHROZONE is very clearly inspired by Celeste.

Of course, this version of the song has to follow this. It does what TYPE-B did, being 5 BPM faster than TYPE-A. So, of course, TYPE-C follows by being 5 BPM faster than TYPE-B, at 180 BPM, so it's slightly more intense. This also made it the shortest CHROZONE; whereas TYPE-A is 3m57s and TYPE-B is 3m50s, TYPE-C is 3m40s.

If you asked me if that was intentional or not, I can already tell you: no, it wasn't. Purely accidental. Oops!

I'll tell you what wasn't accidental. Since TYPE-B is a semitone above TYPE-A, the original idea was to just make TYPE-C another semitone above TYPE-B, but I didn't think that'd be cool enough. Bb is just a cool key, and TYPE-B is a bit too iconic. So, I did some weird chord progression stuff by starting the song in a wildly different key—Gmin—and having it swing back to Bbmin at the same time. That way, it doesn't start the same way as the others!

All of this helps build the idea of what TYPE-C is: something faster and completely different, yet composed of the same stuff you knew. Quick and challenging, it makes you think in a completely new way than before, and it's drastically obvious from the start... like a C-Side!

song

After the intro comes something familiar: a chord progression similar to the one in TYPE-A, except in the key that TYPE-B was in. The "CHROZONE" arp starts off normally (like TYPE-A), but it gradually gets more and more broken (like TYPE-B).

This is all done while the song continues to "build" the TYPE-C idea at the start (including a different pattern of drums).

The piano stays (of course), because it's a big part of CHROZONE as a whole. It is what I like to call the "celestiano", after all. After the intro, it comes back later (@ 1:05) to dance around the "new" arp, serving as the other main melody. If you listen closely, you'll even hear the careful nods I made to a couple of other songs: both "CHROZONE TYPE-B" and Celeste's "First Steps"... oooooooh...
(that's going to happen a couple of other times)

Afterwards, it repeats the intro of the song, with slower, more padded-out drums to trick you into thinking it's going at 90 BPM instead of 180 BPM. It's like you're getting a bit of time to actually slow down and keep your focus.

The second "big" part (@ 01:48) is the more intentional nod to TYPE-B. It mimics the same style while still working with the unorthodox energy of TYPE-C overall. It repeats the buildup present near the start... except there's no other drums to back up the song. This gives everything else room to develop the atmosphere, and lets the melodies breathe... especially the piano.

This is important. The piano is important. Why?

All versions of CHROZONE have had that section in the middle where the piano takes center and just flows. It goes off to do its own thing—to create something memorable. In TYPE-C, it does so while referencing the usual: it mimics the piano solo from TYPE-A, but pulls over melodies from TYPE-B, as well as referencing "First Steps" one more time. It shifts around all these parts to make something even more unique while staying recognizable.

Directly after that, a longer version of the intro plays. The first half takes the structure and instruments of the last part of TYPE-A (from its 2:32), while the second half is a slight fusion of the last two iterations of the intro: it's just... the same, but with only slower hats and kicks.

And then, the song ends with the same buildup from the intro, almost as if the song was about to loop, yet it ends on only the arp playing. That way, the song can be looped easier, in case it was used in a Celeste mod!

...oh wait right

epilogue

About a week or so after I finished TYPE-C, I found the actual Celeste level mod I was working on, titled "CHROZONE", named after the song! I had originally come up with the idea for the mod back on October 31st of 2021, and created it way back around November of 2021. I miraculously found it again, and decided "hey it'd be really cool if I actually finished it and got the music to play in there"

... so, I did. I opened Loenn (one of the community Celeste map editors) and spent the next week working on CHROZONE (the mod), which then released February 15th of 2024. The "v2.00: TYPE-B" update, which added the B-Side, released a week later.

By that point, I knew that I had to make the C-Side real, so I continued to work on that for a couple (several) months... very on and off. Finally, conveniently released on the three-year anniversary of the mod's existence (technically), "v3.00: TYPE-C" was released on October 31st of 2024, putting TYPE-C—the song—to proper use!

(Fun fact: if you've ever wondered where the TYPE-C album art comes from, it's just a super-blurred version of the endscreen of that level.)

If you want me to be honest, I feel like the existence of CHROZONE (and all its four versions) is just my way of fully expressing my adoration for the style of Lena Raine's work as well as many other composers seen in the Celeste modding scene. I've played a ton of Celeste—base game and level mods—since 2021, and I heard and took inspiration from so much music. In regards to those mods, it's amazing to witness the feelings they invoke, not only imitating the style of Celeste, but also developing their own style at the same time.

I always wanted to be part of that group, personally. I wanted to make music for a Celeste mod. I had hoped, sometime in the future, I'd combine my music with something that I loved very dearly, whether it be through someone else's level-making skills or my own.

So I picked up Loenn. And what used to be simply a song is now a full-scale mod for the game that I love.