The Dark Forest is a room with two trees that have arms and faces. The player must find the key in one of the trees' mouths. However, the spirit of a Temple Guard might inhabit the trees (which is actually a real person hidden inside one of the two trees, according to an interview with Michael Lupia), grabbing them with the tree's arms, players do have to be very careful in this room by the way, according to Olmec. The player may choose to avoid taking this chance and plow through the breakaway wall to the Mine Shaft (Season 2) or the Quicksand Bog (Season 3). The tree inhabited by a Temple Guard will either say, "Come here" (the tree next to the Stone Wall) or "Got you!" (the tree next to the Gold Doors) when grabbing the contestant, his only lines were provided by Dee Bradley Baker.
For the CW version, the Dark Forest was retained, but altered; regular temple guards appear instead of Temple Spirits, and instead of two trees you have to reach into in order to find a key to a door, it becomes an actual forest crowded with trees, bushes and ferns to hinder the contestants' movements and perception. The Stone Wall is retained, but leads to the Ladder of Death that proceeds toward the Queen's Armory.
Trivia[]
No teams were ever successful in even making it to an artifact that was ever located in the Dark Forest, though in The Missing Weather Maps of Charles Lindbergh a player got close, missing it only by a few seconds.
In allfourepisodes where a team with less than two full pendants attempted to retrieve an artifact placed in this room, they would lose as a result of a Triple Seizure.
A triple seizure happens in the Dark Forest artifact episodes more than any other room with an artifact.
Although this room was a successor of the Tomb of the Ancient Kings, the doors and fallen, broken column from that room can still be seen in the background and have been unaltered.
The trees inhabited by the Temple Spirit are similar to the apple trees seen in The Wizard of Oz.
In the first 13 completed episodes of Season 2, Olmec did not warn the players about the Temple Spirit in the Dark Forest while he guides them to the Temple. From The Electrified Key of Benjamin Franklin and onward, he does warn them. “But beware of the Temple Guard that may inhabit the trees.”
This is the only room where Olmec warns the players about the Temple Guards while observing that room.
This was the first room where a Temple Guard is encountered in Season 2.
In some episodes like The Bone Necklace of the Blackfeet Chief, a tree will be seen hanging one of its arms on the breakable wall, showing a sign that the Temple Spirit is inhabiting it. In some episodes, one of the trees catches the contestants with only one arm.
In The Useless Map of the Chibcha Chieftain, just before the first commercial break, one of the trees was moving its arms even though the artifact was located in its location and all three Temple Guards were encountered in different locations. This was presumably done for comical purposes.
In Season 2, the artifacts that were hidden in the Dark Forest were stuck on the tree on the right (the tree on the left never got a single artifact stuck on it). But in Season 3, the artifacts were hidden on the golden door in the middle of the room. This was presumably due to the room's change of lighting at the beginning of Season 3.
In Legends (the official Legends of the Hidden Temple crossover with The Loud House), one of the rooms in the temple run resembles the Dark Forest. Unlike the official version, it is located above the Shrine of the Silver Monkey instead of below and a regular Temple Guard would appear instead of one of the trees being the Temple Spirits.
This is the first room in the reboot series to house an artifact.
This and the Shrine of the Silver Monkey are the only two rooms in the reboot series to have Kirk.
This room is also where Kirk hides the most times.
This is the second longest lasting room of the entire franchise, with a total of 93 episodes, behind the Shrine of the Silver Monkey and ahead of the King's Storeroom, the Crypt and the Observatory.
This room holds the highest amount of Temple Guard encounters throughout the entire franchise.
This, the Shrine of the Silver Monkey, and the Steamy Hollows are the only rooms to feature only one artifact in the reboot series. Every other room that featured artifacts had two each.
