WARNING: This page assumes that you have played and beaten Celeste in its entirety. As such, all spoilers for the base game are unmarked.
"You do not understand! A literal Part of Me is gone. I am incomplete. Broken."
— Madeline to Theo at the start of the mod
Shrouded Thoughts is a Game Mod of Celeste created by KaydenFox, with original music by MastarMusic. It released on November 3, 2019. The mod takes place after Chapter 9 from the base game and contains a single chapter, "Old Factory", complete with its own series of collectibles and brand-new mechanics exclusive to Celeste mods. One of the first serious mods for the game, Shrouded Thoughts received considerable acclaim. It won the "Best of the Banana" award on November 6, 2019, and has been viewed more than 48,000 times.
In the brief story at the beginning, Madeline and Theo are arguing over the phone after Granny's death. Stressed and bereft without Granny or Badeline, she decides to return to Celeste Mountain in search of guidance. She discovers an old factory covering the mountain in a cloud of smoke on her return trip, and she resolves to shut it down so that things will return to normal.
Shrouded Thoughts is available for download here
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Shrouded Thoughts contains examples of the following tropes:
- Advancing Wall of Doom: At the end of the chapter, Madeline must break the Machine Heart, which creates a huge, hazardous wall of steam that chases her all throughout the level. On top of killing Madeline on contact, the steam will deactivate or destroy all of the level elements it touches, which means she needs to move quickly or she won't be able to survive.
- Anti-Frustration Features:
- Some rooms in the mod can't be cleared until Madeline disables the electric hazards by breaking certain switches on the wall. If she needs to backtrack into those rooms (say, to grab a strawberry), those hazards remain disabled so she isn't barred from doing so.
- If you mess up trying to collect the Rust Berry, the game provides a checkpoint right next to the box you need to carry across the level to get it, so you don't need to backtrack through the previous rooms to pick the box up again. The moment you die, you'll respawn at that checkpoint.
- The Artifact: Although it's possible to collect a Cassette and Crystal Heart in Shrouded Thoughts, just like the base game, the Old Factory has no B-side or C-side, making collecting them more of a Bragging Rights Reward.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
- Boom Boxes, introduced in this mod, have a colored dot at the center. If it's green, then the Boom Box isn't active. If it's yellow, the Boom Box has just activated and will take a few moments to recharge. If it's red, the Boom Box is active and will launch Madeline with a small explosion if she grabs or steps on it.
- By bringing a battery to a battery box, the power lines connected to the battery box will glow, indicating which parts of the room the battery has turned on. If there are multiple batteries in one section, the power lines are color-coded to show which elements are active (i.e. if you've turned on the green power lines with a battery, only the stuff connected to the green lines will be activated, not the blue or red ones).
- Conspicuous Electric Obstacle: Sparks of electricity appear as a common hazard in this mod, though not in giant fields of lightning like in Chapter 9.
- Dark Reprise: After a mostly minimalist soundtrack, breaking the Machine Heart at the end of the chapter changes the BGM to the opening scales of "Resurrections" played repeatedly on an electric guitar, interspersed with snippets of the main theme and bits of "Farewell" that are completely outside the rhythm.
- Double Unlock: The secret 26th strawberry, the Rust Berry, is hidden in a room that requires you to follow the green power lines in the first section of the level through a fake wall that isn't too hard to find. But it's locked behind an electric field. To actually get it, you need to bring the box at the very beginning of the factory across several screens and then up a wall using advanced movement techniques, then break another fake wall and throw the box into the narrow, spike-studded cavity behind it to disable the electricity. Oh, and if you break the box, you die.
- Easter Egg: One of the first times you get a metal crate to place on an electricity-disabling switch, if you place it on the "wrong" one and go past the newly disabled electricity, you'll find a suspiciously small room with a strawberry. Head right and it'll reveal the other side of the room, with a giant statue of Lugia inscribed with the message, "—TDS Statue— To Lugia, The Guardian Of [sic] our Peace of Mind."
- Eternal Engine: The game takes place in the "Old Factory", which comes with several brand-new factory-themed obstacles that are added to the game via the "Factory Helper", a dependency modnote made by the same creators.
- Gusty Glade: Several sections of the Old Factory have enormous fans. These can be cosmetic, but many of them create a localized "wind tunnel" effect — the second section of the factory mainly revolves around Madeline platforming against the fans' wind effects.
- Inconveniently-Placed Conveyor Belt: Being a factory-themed level, the Old Factory has conveyor belts as obstacles. Sometimes, they can help the player by sending crates her way.
- It Was with You All Along: In the ending cutscene, Madeline has successfully shut down the Old Factory, and realizes that if she could do that without Badeline's help, maybe she can continue on with her life. Just before the Iris Out, you can see Badeline floating at the left edge of the screen, revealing she'd been watching Madeline's progress the whole time.
- Laser Hallway: Laser turrets called "Dash Negators" are one of the obstacles introduced in the Old Factory. Normally, they only shine a harmless red light down, but if Madeline dashes while inside that light, they'll fire and kill her instantly. Emphasis on "while inside" — if she's already dashing before she touches the laser light, it won't trigger the turret, which is necessary to progress and obtain one of the strawberries at the beginning of the chapter.
- Malevolent Architecture: Where to start with this factory? There are walls of electricity, thickets of lethal rust, pistons that may or may not be covered in Spikes of Doom, functioning laser turrets, wind tunnels to blow you into any of the above... the list goes on.
- Original Flavor: Shrouded Thoughts is billed as a short sequel to the original Celeste. The bit of plot at the beginning has her return to Celeste Mountain, now feeling incomplete without Badeline to guide her.
- Product Delivery Ordeal: One of the gimmicks of this level has Madeline carrying a box across hazards so she can hit a switch. The secret Rust Berry involves a very lengthy version of this where accidentally breaking the box will kill her.
