Maude 2
Maude 2 is a mod created by Lord Snek for the 2025 Celeste Classic Christmas calendar. It is a sequel to Maude, a shitpost mod released for a mod jam in 2021. The mod is usually displayed as "caldera", and plays like a normal mod without a title screen, but Maudeline is hit by a truck in the first level and sent to the title screen for Maude 2. There are 6 unique "endings" to Maude 2, the same as the number of endings in Maude.
Normal Ending
Maudeline is hit by a truck in "Stairway to Heaven" and goes to the title screen. If the player now exits the top of every level normally, they will reach the normal ending
Generous Ending
The penultimate level contains a sign saying that Maude 2 is "pay what you think is fair", where payments should be made in terms of wasted time in that level. If the player spends at least 4 minutes 59 seconds and 28 frames (a reference to "5 minute timeout" in Maude 1), they reach the normal ending, but with the level card and sign mildly changed.
West Virginia Ending
If the player resets the game in any way except using the pause menu, such as ctrl + r, refreshing the page, or typing "run" in the console, the truck will not spawn. Instead, a block will fall toward Maudeline from above. This block can be dodged, and Maudeline can reach the top of this screen with or without a balloon, where there is a flag and a sign saying "welcome 2 west virginia". This is a reference to the song "Country Roads" by John Denver, where he says West Virginia is "almost heaven". Although the exit to the level seems accessible, there is an invisible block in the way.
In addition to the falling block, there are spikes that suddenly protrude from the block, and a balloon that attaches to Maudeline and pulls her upward toward spikes. If Maudeline dies in this level to any of the traps, the game proceeds to the title screen as if she died to the truck. Since time stops ticking when Maudeline touches a flag, and Maudeline can die after touching the flag, all in-game time speedruns are equivalent to beating the West Virginia ending as fast as possible, then dying and playing the game at any speed.
The Key To My Heart Ending
In "Inside the Box" there is a key and a chest. If Maudeline collects the chest berry and dies, these both respawn, and another key is present in the level; this is a reference to "evercore keys", where collecting a chest berry and dying causes the key to respawn in many mods. This can be done for an increasing number of keys until the level is filled with keys. If the player grabs all these keys, then grabs the berry and dies, they respawn as a key in a level called "heart-shaped box". The player can insert themself into a keyhole in a heart, which reaches this ending. The level card claims Maudeline is "the key to my heart" which is a reference to a Valentine's Day mod that petthepetra jokingly claims to be working on.
Jail Ending
In "Big Red Button" Maudeline can talk to an Adelie, who "trolls" Maudeline by pretending to crash the game, pushing Maudeline, and flying away on a balloon. If Maudeline stands far enough away while talking to Adelie, they can't push Maudeline, and she can jump up and pop the balloon. This causes the Adelie to hit the ground and die. If Maudeline exits the level after the Adelie dies, she spawns in a level called "Jail", which is designed like the "good ending" from Maude, with Maudeline in the jail cell instead of the Adelie.
Truest Ending
In Summit, there is an Adelie who gifts Maudeline what they call a Dance Dance Revolution board. Maudeline can then press the arrow keys while under it to cause the keys to light up and tones to play. To reach the truest ending, Maudeline must input a sequence of inputs determined by the previous levels: the origin of each input is given in the table below:
| Level | input | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Stairway to Heaven | Up (Green) | When beating the West Virginia ending, the flag displays an up arrow |
| Title Screen | Up (green) | In the title screen there is a green up arrow pointing at the roundelie |
| The Climb | Left (Yellow) | An Adelie in this level says "play my hideogames" with hideogames displayed in yellow text |
| Outside of the Box | Down (red) | When beating the Key to my Heart ending, the flag displays a down arrow |
| 400 remade from memory | Random | There are 4 versions of this level, each with a 1/4 chance of being the 400m that shows up. Each version of the level has an arrow drawn from background tiles that comprises the input |
| Los Pinguinos Me La Van A Mascar | Left (Yellow) | Just offscreen, parts of a yellow arrow can be seen if the player stands on the right side of the room |
| Never Mind | Down (red) | For the duration of the level blue and red are swapped in the palette, which makes the whole level red |
| Did you see that??? | Right (blue) | The wordle game is set up so that the guesses uniquely define only the word "ocean", which is blue-adjacent |
| Big Red Button | Down (red) | The level name contains red, the button is red, and when the Adelie attempts to trick Maudeline into dashing into the button the word "dash" displays in red text |
| N Minute Timeout | Right (blue) | In every level except this one, a long message about how Maude 2 is the best game ever is printed to the console. During this level, the text "right" is instead printed. This hint is patched out of the web version of the game, since copying messages to clipboard would be accompanied by a red bar on web. |
| Summit | Up (Green) | In the Generous ending, the word "revolution" in the adelie's text is highlighted green |
The level reached by entering this code resembles the true summit of snekmod gemskip, although Maudeline is below the heavenly cloud and the path is blocked by invisible blocks. There is also a chest, from which Maudeline can receive the double dash.
Other Trivia
- Caldera's default description is "Journey into a ruined mountain to find secrets better left unshared", a phrase that implies you shouldn't climb the mountain, similarly to the first sign in Maude 1
- On the title screen, the text "noel berry" has a pixel worth of space between "no" and "el". The flying berry can be collected by waiting, which causes this text to say "si, el berry"
- "400m remade from memory" refers to the recurring 400m bit in maude 1, and the levels were approximately made from memory. In one version of the level, the berry takes away your dash for the entire level, which is a reference to a berry in Maude 1 which takes away your dash (although there it doesn't last past when you touch the ground)
- "Los Pinguinos Me La Van A Mascar" is a reference to a Spanish shitpost which intentionally mispronounces the names of the penguins of madagascar[1]. The level format itself is a reference to 700m in Maude 1, which also involves a sign with a penguin's name that teleports Maudeline
- It is possible to die in "Never Mind" by exiting the previous level in a place where a spike will spawn, but this doesn't do anything
- The chest in "Did You See That???" is designed for a setup called "snake oil" where Maudeline rises fast after hitting a spring during the chest animation. However, the glitch is patched to give Maudeline very little speed
- The wordle's number "2378" is a reference to a shitpost in which people "shouldn't skip 2378" while counting, which has lead to people posting 2378 frequently to "not skip it"
- All the particles in Maude 2 naturally follow a perfect 8-second loop. This means that if you take a gif of 8 or 16 seconds (both of which are standard default gif lengths) and you don't dash during the gif timer, the snow particles will loop perfectly
- It is possible to pop the Adelie's balloon and exit the level before it dies. If you do this, you do not go to jail, but nothing interesting happens
- on the title screen, each non-standard ending has a "hint" for the ending (although some are not very helpful). In order, these hints are:
- The roundelie on the title screen is in a similar position to the twin roundelie in "N Minute Timeout", implying something happens there
- The truck from the first level is shown, and avoiding it is necessary for the West Virginia ending
- The heart from the Key to my Heart ending is shown in the same location with similar tiles around it
- An Adelie is present in the same pose that the Adelie in Big Red Button uses to hold the balloon
- The green arrow pointing at the roundelie is an important input for the truest ending
