Chapter Five – Troll Forest

Well…

I pretty much lost my chance to earn this achievement during this playthrough:

Yes, I got Olle killed. I accidentally drowned him. I’m so sorry.

But we really need to practise Olle’s landings and swimming.

I also lost my chance with this achievement:

This one is tough because it doesn’t count if you restart from a checkpoint. So either you need to restart the whole level(?) or the game.

Eventually, I got them all across safely and then (spoilers!) they all died anyway.

This was another night chapter so there aren’t that many screenshots I can show. But last time Olle’s sister, Lillemor, got kidnapped by a troll. Olle ran away and jumped into a river, and then had a dream-like interlude. The Frog King rescues him and brings him to shore.

But without his sister, he felt like the loneliest child in the world.

Aww. I hope he and Lillemor had all the hugs after this is over. ❤

These screenshots are pretty dark, but I don’t think they’d look better if I brightened them. I do feel bad that they don’t really show how pretty this game is.

He climbs up some ledges and eventually comes across a ruined gnome house. There’s a door that won’t open and a small baby gnome conveniently with the key. He’s crying because his little toy is stuck on a ledge.

Cuteness overload. *dies*

Olle, being the precious sweetheart that he is, gets the toy and in exchange he gets the key. I think he’s holding a straw pig. They’re these straw decorations that are usually sold during Yule. I’ve never bought one so I’m not sure if they have an “official” name?

They come to this pretty little area and the small baby gnome helps Olle open the doors.

After the doors is this area. I really like that rock, ha ha. In indigenous beliefs everything is alive so I really like the idea of even rocks becoming alive at night.

And it’s not like they’re bad rocks, they’re just a little eerie. ❤

Well, you basically can’t make out anything in this picture but there’s a lantern, an upturned carriage, and a dead hedgehog. I didn’t even notice the hedgehog during my first playthrough because I dropped down so fast. I felt so bad when I spotted it.

When I was a kid, I wanted a hedgehog as a pet. Among other animals, ha ha.

More rocks staring at Olle, ha ha.

There’s a second lantern on the upper left. There’s a small gnome dangling on it as a trap. As far as I know, you can’t save him.

By the way, there’s a reason for all of these traps and baits, and the reason is really dumb, ha ha.

On the right, there’s a little gap between the rocks. It leads to a branch that you can cross to an area with many traps and climbable trees. I died a couple of times here too which made me feel so bad for Olle. I’ll try to do better, I promise.

I wish these screenshots were a bit brighter. *cries* Well, the next chapter is going to be daytime again so I can post a lot of pretty pictures. ❤

Once you get down on the left side, Olle falls through a trap on a dead moose. After his very real reaction of distress and disgust, Olle walks across the leg to some cages and then climbs on some more lichen to reach a tunnel. This tunnel leads to the first boss battle of the game, shall I say?

It’s full of gore so I’m kind of hesitant about posting pictures of it. But there was this one part that gave me trouble on my first playthrough.

The picture’s too dark to see anything but after Olle has climbed on some cages and waded through some gore, he can jump on this cage. There’s a wall of lichen in front of him. At some parts, the game is honestly so dark that even I can’t see anything (which might also be because of my settings). Somehow I managed to fall between this sliver of gap between the cage and the wall on my first playthrough, which made me mess up the jump. Then I got so annoyed that I increased the brightness and I was like, “Oh. That’s what it was.”

So anyhow~ Olle climbs some lichen and then jumps across some cages until he slides down the top of one. This leads to the first boss battle with what I — think is a troll? Again, I’m kind of hesitant to post pictures because of all the fake gore.

The troll is pretty easy. All you need to do is avoid the butcher’s knife until — something drops from somewhere and Olle can throw handfuls of it in his eyes. There are two phases; in the second phase, the troll slams the table with his fist and all you need to do is jump up at the exact moment so Olle won’t stagger (and die). It actually took me a couple of tries before I figured it out on my first playthrough. I don’t know why my wires have been so long and slow recently, ha ha.

I can post this picture. ❤

He escapes and falls into the sewers (because every video game has to have a sewer, ha ha).

Now, he had almost died several times, his sister was gone and he was soaked in smelly sewer water.

Well, I’d imagine sewer water is better than gore?

And sorry, Olle, you did die a couple of times already. I’ll try to do better, I promise.

The sewers lead to a room with a couple of crossed bones and huge steps outside.

After dropping down, there’s a cage full of gnomes. You can actually find quite a few gnomes in distress throughout this area but sadly, you can’t save all of them.

The small cuties help Olle open the door and then.

The trap area. My nemesis. For some reason, the gnomes kept walking into the traps this time around. So I failed the achievement and even though I know it’s pointless to try to keep these particular gnomes alive, I still kept re-loading the last checkpoint because I just. I couldn’t, ha ha.

Eventually, I got all the little ones across safely and then home!

Forget about the trolls and the traps, I want a cute little house like that. *sighs* Small baby gnome friends would be nice too.

Then a troll comes around and stomps the house and all the gnomes inside to death. Olle hides behind a rock and cries, and Olle’s crying makes me want to cry. This leads to a stealth sequence where you have to avoid the troll’s light so he won’t capture Olle and squeeze him to death.

*squints*

You kind of can’t see it but there is actually a single gnome on Olle’s left. I have no idea why he didn’t go into the house or what happened to him after the stealth sequence started. I hope he survived, though.

The stealth sequence is pretty easy too. There are three phases; in the first one you walk from one tuft of grass to the next, in the second you end up in this watery area with traps (the troll’s light shows them), and in the third you climb around lichen again.

This honestly looks pretty cool.

I think it’s a petrified troll hand.

There’s some more climbing around and then a bit of a reprieve when Olle falls on top of the pine cone king, ha ha.

There are actually a few of these kinds of morbid humour instances that I’m convinced were totally deliberate, ha ha.

One achievement is kicking one of the pine cones out of the cave and it was surprisingly difficult. And right afterwards, Olle falls into a puddle of gore. And something is moving around in it and that something will gobble Olle up if given the chance. There’s a cage on one of the safe spots and on my first playthrough I didn’t see or hear at all that there are gnomes inside it. So when I pushed it into the gore, the game was all “congrats! you sacrificed the gnomes! :3” and I was like, “I did what in the what now?”

You know what that meant. Re-loading a checkpoint. Though, I’m not sure if it would’ve been better to just shove them into the gore to be eaten. Because you can’t actually open the cage and unless someone else comes around to rescue them, they’ll just starve to death so…  it’s kind of “which is worse”?

So after the puddle of gore, there’s the third wooden figure on top of a cage. And really, the third one? I hope I didn’t miss any already.

There’s some more climbing and then another troll house. Olle gets captured but luckily the troll didn’t just immediately toss him into the pot and instead locked him up in a cage. Olle manages to make the cage drop off the ledge and somehow doesn’t concuss himself to death.

A pretty screenshot. ❤ Or it would be if it wasn’t so small and dark, ha ha. I should’ve invested in a better picture blog.

You can’t really see him but there’s Lemus! ❤ He’s being bullied by pine cones (I did say they are mean, ha ha). Of course, because Olle is the most precious sweetheart, he saves him. ❤ And they become friends. ❤

Lemus might be big, but he had a warm stone heart.

I adore this game.

All he longed for was a friend, but his face scared away most.

Even so, it seemed like had found one…

Oh, this game is doing its damnest to make me cry.

Pretty screenshots. ❤

Olle finds the light stone again and hugs it to his chest because he’s adorable. Sadly, his moment of distraction gets him captured by a troll — again, ha ha.

It’s okay, though. The game isn’t over yet and Olle gets saved by daybreak (trolls turn to stone in the sunlight).

It still doesn’t get better for him from here.

I really wish the game gave you the option to save all the gnomes but I guess the lesson is that you can’t save everyone.