Old Site

Old Site 

Old Site
Chapter	2
Strawberries	18  • 3
Sides	2A  •  2B  •  2C
Characters	• Madeline  • Badeline  • Theo  • Bird (2B)
Level navigation Forsaken City ← Old Site → Celestial Resort

Old Site is the second chapter of Celeste. Preceded by Forsaken City and succeeded by the Celestial Resort, most of it occurs during one of Madeline's dreams. It introduces Badeline for the first time, and also adds several new mechanics, including Dream Blocks, Seeded Strawberries, and Touch switches (also known as coins or shields).

Plot

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After leaving the city, Madeline goes to explore some old ruins. Many things have changed since she woke up; the campfire is now green, the Celeste Memorial is now rearranging itself, and the sky has gained blue lights. After exploring the ruins for a bit, the player finds a mirror in which they see a twisted reflection of themselves. Attempting to leave the room afterward, the reflection breaks out of the mirror and runs away, activating the dream blocks, allowing Madeline to reach more places and explore much of the ruins. Later, after climbing up to a higher level of the ruins, she finds the reflection. Badeline introduces itself as a "part of her" (Madeline). She tells Maddy that it is a relief to finally get out of her head, and tells Madeline that they shouldn't climb the mountain. Badeline states that she is the pragmatic part and that she is trying to be diplomatic, but as soon as Madeline starts running afterward, Badeline starts chasing her, forcing her to move continuously. After a ten-room-long chase, Madeline finally escapes the ruins. Upon leaving the spire, Badeline stops, laughing at her, and then disappears. Not far away Madeline finds a station and a payphone, which starts ringing. Upon answering, a green-haired person, internally known as Madeline's ex, on the other side answers the call with a smartphone; they think Madeline called them from a payphone, but Madeline claims the opposite, that they are calling her. She explains that someone (Badeline) is chasing her and she doesn't understand what's going on. The green-haired person says that Madeline is making it up. Madeline describes what happened in more detail, soon realizing it's all a dream. She then hangs up and gets angry, Badeline appears and tells her to stop climbing the mountain, and upon her disappearing, the payphone turns into a monster that eats Madeline whole. Madeline then wakes up next to the campfire. Theo can be seen; Madeline may talk to her about her previous nightmare. He shows her pictures he took in the ruins, and then they take a selfie (against Madeline's wishes because she isn't photogenic). He describes how his grandpa was semi-famous in the photography world and that's why he tried photography. Once Madeline arrives at the payphone, she calls her mother and tells her she is a bit overwhelmed by everything that has occurred so far. “Oh! We need to formally commemorate this occasion... Take a selfie with me!” ~ Theo If Madeline has never seen Theo before, or has seen Theo but never talked to him, special dialogue references how it's their first encounter; apart from that, no narrative differences occur.

Gameplay

A-Side

Old Site A-Side
Level	2A
Strawberries	18  • 1
Soundtrack	Celeste OST: 03  •   Resurrections 04  •   Awake

Old Site A-side  • B-side  • C-side

Old Site's A-Side is of similar difficulty to Forsaken City and builds upon the same mechanics that the player was taught earlier. This is also the first level where the story is interwoven; this occurs in the form of Madeline confronting Badeline for the first time. Two new mechanics are introduced; dream blocks and touch switches, also known as shields and coins.

Three sub-chapters are present: Start, Intervention, and Awake.

Start

Old Site's A-Side starts with Madeline waking up after she heads to sleep following the events of Forsaken City. She arrives at an abandoned tower, where she can climb to find the Crystal Heart or head underground. Deactivated dream blocks can be seen throughout.

After making it to the bottom of the central shaft, Madeline can keep exploring or break a smashable wall at the bottom right. Progressing there will lead to two rooms containing spikes and a mirror. Madeline will see a reflection of Badeline within it; Badeline pops out, a jingle plays, the music becomes more lively, and Dream Blocks activate themselves; the level's core mechanic is now available.

A dream block in action.

Dream blocks have several useful properties, but none are really taught here; the primary fact used is that Madeline can dash through them and reobtain her dash afterward. However, if the dream block leads her straight into a wall, Madeline will end up dying. More dream tech is taught in 2B and 2C, but most are only used in mods.

From this point onwards, Madeline can explore the remainder of the underground section of the level. Strawberry Seeds are introduced for the first time; interestingly enough, there is a single zipper in this section as well. Using dream blocks to help her, Madeline can obtain all the strawberries in this area before heading back up. Near where the level started, a previously inaccessible section may now be accessed thanks to the dream blocks; this will bring her upwards to a spot where Badeline is waiting for her.

Intervention

After a (first) confrontation with Badeline, she will start chasing Madeline. This forces Madeline to be constantly on the move: Badeline replicates her actions from exactly three seconds ago. As Madeline progresses, more Badeline Chasers spawn, until there are five; each Badeline Chaser follows the previous one exactly one second behind. A few more strawberries can be found throughout the chase. Dodging Badeline Chasers requires making sure not to backtrack on the same path you previously took. Badeline Chasers cannot be defeated and can phase through walls.

After making it out of the tower, Madeline can continue throughout the remainder of the chapter. There are two more strawberries hidden in this area. Completing it by arriving at a payphone will lead to a cutscene.

Awake

Madeline wakes up again. Dream blocks have now completely disappeared. If Madeline climbs up the tower without having collected the Crystal Heart earlier, she will find it trapped inside unbreakable walls, with a poem nearby hinting at how to obtain it. Madeline can now complete the level by arriving at the same cutscene trigger (the payphone). Theo can be found in this subchapter. Interestingly enough, the checkpoint itself is two rooms after where Madeline first spawns when she wakes up.

B-Side

The B-Side introduces Dream Jumping, used to cross large pits and to get to certain areas faster. Most of Chapter 2 mechanics, such as Touch Switches and Badeline Chasers appear there, however, unlike the A-Side, they're used more randomly instead of in a single checkpoint. The final rooms feature mini-puzzles that require the player to collect switches in a specific order, allowing them to open the gate to progress.

Unlike every other B-Side, it's impossible to die in the cassette room unless the player presses "Retry" by accident.

C-Side

The C-Side showcases a new trick known as Dream Grabbing, which allows players to grab on the side of a Dream Block when leaving it. It's required to pass the first room. The second room is a short Touch Switch puzzle with chasers, and the final section is a long section with several tricky Dream Jumps. Grabbing the blocks can make lining up some timings a little easier, although the last room can be done in one go without having to break the flow, except for one dream grab near the end.

Strawberries & Collectibles

Main article: Old Site Collectibles

Old Site contains 18 unique red strawberries hidden throughout the chapter. This includes one winged strawberry and one seeded berry. Additionally, a Cassette Tape and Blue Crystal Heart are hidden within.

Speedrun strategies

As there are a lot of dream blocks, dream jumps and dream double jumps are used liberally in the speedrun.

A-Side

Start

In the room with the mirror, a cutscene skip is used. Skipping cutscenes only changes your horizontal position but not your vertical position, so runners trigger the cutscene and dash away, ending up inside the dream block instead of having to jump and dash into it.

Intervention

TAS Awake

In the long falling room with 5 Badeline Chasers is an alternate route allowing to skip most of the room, but it is much more hazardous than the intended path.

Awake

This subchapter has no hazards, but the layout makes it incredibly awkward to traverse cleanly. Ultras are commonly utilized in this subchapter. In this subchapter, there is also the iconic strategy known as "TAS Awake" where very high speed is kept through the entire subchapter using a delayed ultra to begin and a combination of ultras, cornerboosts and bunnyhops. It is incredibly complex as there are many variables affecting the speed.

Trivia

• In pre-release builds of the game, the post-chase section used to have spikes and hazards that made players much more likely to die in there, however, they were removed to give players a breather after an intense checkpoint.
• There's an unused dream stars background that was used in early versions of the chapter before the new background was created.
• You can complete 2B without ever using dream jumping, although this is very hard.

See also

Celeste base game chapters

• 

  Prologue

• 

  Forsaken City

• 

  Old Site

• 

  Celestial Resort

• 

  Golden Ridge

• 

  Mirror Temple

• 

  Reflection

• 

  Summit

• 

  Epilogue

• 

  Core

• 

  Farewell