Gnarled Forest

"Here, thar be pirates. And Maelstrom. Lots of Maelstrom."

―Captain Jack Knife


Gnarled Forest



Major Characters in Location	Captain Jack Knife
Main Location of	Pirates
Enemies	Stromling Pirates, Stromling Admirals, Stromling Apes

Gnarled Forest is the fifth world in LEGO Universe, based on the pirates theme.

Players are first directed to go to Gnarled Forest by Nexus Jay after choosing their Faction. After blasting off from the Gnarled Forest Launchpad in Nimbus Station, players make a landing on an elevated landing pad, with the treetops surrounding them. Down the launchpad's ramp they meet Hugo First, who informs them that the pirates "really made a mess of things here" and that they could use some help.

Continuing on, players come to The Ravine, where, due to a broken bridge, they must build bouncers on top of stone spires to cross the ravine without falling into the rapids far below. Once at the other end of the broken bridge, they can either visit the nearby Tortoise Terrace and tame a Tortoise pet, or smash the broken Pirate Archway and continue on into a cave.

There, they find Toby Squidbarrel, who tells them that Maelstrom infected treasure transformed most of his crewmates into Stromling Pirates and Stromling Admirals. He then asks players to smash ten Stromling Pirates at the nearby Maelstrom Trench, an infected clearing with a rock mutated into a giant skull, glowing with Maelstrom. After doing so, Toby directs players to Renee Tombcrusher, a Venture League explorer assisting in fighting the cursed pirate crew. She asks players to Quick Build a Siren Stunner for her, a robotic Mermaid device which entrances any nearby Stromlings, rendering them unable to fight. She then sends players deeper into the forest to find Arrrthur Arrrbuckle, a pirate near the Elephant Escarpment in need of help building a Siren Stunner.

Arrrthur explains that the Siren Stunner is missing a piece, the head, which can be found in a nearby crate. After building complete Siren Stunner, Arrrthur remarks hearing gunshots further into the forest, at Brig Rock, and sends players to investigate. On the way, they meet Merciless Ned, who was told to shoot and detonate some of the explosive, infected treasure chests, but is unable to do so as he can't find his gun. In return, Ned offers players a bag of peanuts, which can be used to tame the nearby Elephant pets.

Arriving at Brig Rock, players find the ninja-holding jail overrun with Stromling Pirates and Stromling Admirals. Speaking to Bert Scurvyburp, players find that a "mad gunman" has pinned the pirates down. Climbing what remains of some stairs to a higher level of the brig, players find that the "mad gunman" is Swabbie the Monkey, who has somehow found a gun, likely the one Merciless Ned lost. Swabbie asks players for five bananas, which can be found by attacking nearby banana trees. In return for the bananas, he hands over the gun.

Just around a rock from Swabbie and on a wooden platform built into the cliff face is Ralphie Brig-Eyes, the pirate jailkeeper, who is unable to feed the captive ninja prisoners due to being gunned down by Swabbie. He then asks players to feed bananas to the four ninjas - Hashi, Zashi, Mashi, and Steve - and rewards the player with an Imagination point for their work.

Continuing past Brig Rock, players reach the Pirate Camp, and find the leader of the pirate crew, Captain Jack Knife, as well as his ship, the Black Seas Barracuda, oddly sitting in a tree on the beach. Jack Knife congratulates players on their success, and challenges them to get 25,000 points or more in Cannon Cove Shooting Gallery. However, in order to enter the shooting gallery, players must gather ten cannonballs for Black Hearted Kevin, who mans the cannon. In order to get the cannonballs, players must use the pistol gained from Swabbie to shoot caught sharks hanging on rope from the rocks overhead the camp, with the cannonballs - and several bones - falling from their stomachs.

Also at the Pirate Camp, players find the complete story of Gnarled Forest on a Nexus Force Plaque: Captain Jack Knife and his crew of pirates somehow found a collection of Maelstrom crystals, and, mistaking them for valuable gems, loaded them onto the Black Seas Barracuda. The Kraken sensed the Maelstrom inside the ship, and flung the entire ship out of the water, landing in a tree. The pirates set up a camp around the tree, and took the "treasure" inland. However, they became corrupted by the Maelstrom in the treasure, and the now zombie pirates packed the treasure chests with explosives as traps. The Maelstrom also began seeping into the ground itself, and formed the Maelstrom Trench. The Venture League arrived to assist the pirates, but only gave them a launchpad to Nimbus Station.

After getting the required score in Cannon Cove Shooting Gallery, Jack Knife gives players a pirate hook, which can be used to build Crow's Nests which reach special pirates-only areas. Players then use their new hook to reach Crocodile Corner, through the Brig Rock Tunnel or another Crows Nest near the Elephant Escarpment. Here, players can tame a Crocodile pet, and race at Keelhaul Canyon Raceway under the instruction of Swifty McGurk.

Locations[]

The Ravine[]

A large ravine, most notable for the massive tiki head carved into the cliff side and large stone spires that players must use to cross the rapids below.

Tortoise Terrace[]

A small area on the side of the Ravine, featuring a small pond, a waterfall, and a large rock carved in the shape of a tortoise.

Maelstrom Trench[]

A heavily Maelstrom infected area, with a tiki carving corrupted by the Maelstrom and transformed into a stone skull.

Elephant Escarpment[]

A peaceful pond area between a ledge over the forest and a giant tree stump.

Brig Rock[]

A pirate jail holding several ninja prisoners, and overrun by Stromlings emerging from cracks in the rock wall.

Crocodile Corner[]

A lighter area with a pond, crocodile pets, and most noticeably, the entrance to Keelhaul Canyon Raceway.

Pirate Camp[]

A pirate base set up around the Black Seas Barracuda, which is stuck in a tree by the beach.

Properties[]

Chantey Shanty
Mountain View (unreleased)
Gnarled Forest Large Property (unreleased)

Beta Information[]

Gnarled Forest and Forbidden Valley were initially designed as a single pocket of Wonderland, with a pirates vs ninja theme.^[1] It was soon split into two pockets, with the Gnarled Forest Ninja pocket becoming Forbidden Valley.

Gnarled Forest was the first area of Wonderland to be fleshed out as a vertical slice, and went through several iterations even early in development. In general, it consisted of winding pathways through dense forestry. Some elements of the final world existed, such as the Ravine (then just a smaller bridge going across a river), pirate archway, Ninja jail cells, and the Pirate Camp, but the world was largely different from the final design. Enemies at various points in its development included Maelstrom Ninja and various Darklings such as Hyper Darklings.

While Gnarled Forest went through several revisions early on, minimaps for two particular versions can be found in older game clients, displaying some differences between them: The shooting gallery had been located in a bay to the east of the Pirate Camp that connected to the river crossed at the beginning of the pocket, but at some point was relocated to the pirate ship in the camp. The path to the bay was removed, and a new beach was added to the previously landlocked pirate camp for the shooting gallery to take place in. The northern side was seemingly blocked off or removed, and the west side expanded with a new path. Video of a playtesting session in Germany also shows Jack Knife at a different part of the Pirate Camp than he appears in a demo at a 2008 LUP event. The playable space in these versions of Gnarled Forest also took up only a portion of the terrain - the rest, intended for the Ninja portion of the map, had been left largely empty. When a copy of the map was made for the Gnarled Forest Ninja zone/Forbidden Valley, and development of the two now-separated zones continued concurrently, their terrain started to diverge, but some portions can still be seen to be identical on their minimaps.

According to concept artist Nate Storm, there were about 3-4 major revisions of Gnarled Forest in total.^[2] Concept art and screenshots show iterations of the world with the visual style of the final design, but other landscape/layout features more reminiscent of the earlier iterations.

When what would be the final iteration of Gnarled Forest was being designed, a tiki village area was considered, which would have been accessible from the path near the entrance to Brig Rock. In the final game, this little stub of path simply holds a pirate X quickbuild and a Stromling Ape. Concept art of a "pig instance gate" exists, likely for this area, as well as rough placeholder models for the forestry around the village, some huts, etc. Concept artist Richard Tran didn't recall much about the area, but suspected it was axed because it was thought to be culturally insensitive, as he recalled some chatter about it.

There are three known early properties for Gnarled Forest: Tiki Island, Lagoon, and Pirate's Cove. Lagoon and Pirate's Cove were available to play for a short time in alpha testing by using an invisible rocket launchpad where the Chantey Shanty launchpad currently is, while Tiki Island was shown in a demo at CES 2010.