PlayStation 4
Carto Trophy Guide
General Info
FAQ
How long does it take to beat Carto and unlock all trophies?
5-8 Hours.
How difficult is it to beat Carto and unlock all trophies?
Easy (3/10).
Does Carto have online trophies?
No.
Does Carto have difficulty-specific trophies?
No.
Does Carto have missable trophies?
Does Carto have glitched trophies?
No.
What is the minimum number of playthroughs required to unlock all trophies in Carto?
One with optional Chapter Select clean-up.
Does Carto have a Platinum Trophy?
Yes.
Trophy Guide
Carto Trophy Guide and Road Map for PlayStation 4
Welcome to our Carto Trophy Guide. Carto is a ridiculously good-looking puzzle game that sees you collecting pieces of the level to rebuild it. Don’t go thinking you can just drop tiles willy-nilly, though, as you will soon find that the level itself is the puzzle. Aside from being a way to navigate tricky terrain, how you place, rotate, and combine map tiles will have an effect on the environment and those living in it.
Using our guide, you can focus on solving these real head-scratching puzzles without worrying that you might overlook a missable trophy.
Phase One – Complete the Story, try to unlock Missable Trophies
In this first phase of our Carto Trophy Guide, you want to try and earn every trophy in a single run. This can be tricky as there are 9 Missable Trophies to look out for, but if you follow our guide you’ll know exactly when to look out for them so you don’t miss a thing.
Simply work your way through the 10-chapter campaign until you reach the chapters noted in bold within our Missable Trophies section. Then, follow the instructions to get a trophy and then continue through the game until the next chapter of note.
Carto’s gameplay is fun and unique, asking you to find pieces of the map and then put it together yourself. You’ll occasionally find NPCs who will tell you more about how the map should be laid out. These context clues help you decide where each piece of the map should go. Putting a piece in the correct place will cause the next NPC or other story-based events to appear, allowing you to make progress!
There are 10 Unmissable Story Trophies that you’ll earn along the way. Adding that to the 9 Missable Trophies, you could have the Platinum by the end of this phase!
Missable Trophies
The trophies in this section of our Carto Trophy Guide are the ones to look out for. Each of these 9 missable trophies involves doing something quite specific in particular chapters. If you progress the game without completing these trophy requirements, the only way to get a second attempt is to complete the game and use the Chapter Select feature afterward.
I have organized them into chronological order so that you can keep your eye out as you play through the game.
Ground of Applause
Give a plant your full support.
Earned in Chapter 2.
Midway through chapter 2, after you give the Glow Leaf to Monkar, you’ll join the villagers in an evening ceremony. There, whenever you press Carto will clap. You’ll also notice that when she claps, the plant in the upper-right corner wiggles a little.
After the ceremony, there will be a short late-night chat with Monkar’s son, and then you’ll wake up in the morning. Head outside and look for the plant that wiggled when you clapped. Approach it and mash to clap repeatedly until a flower blooms. Press one final time to collect “Secret Piece II” and unlock the Ground of Applause trophy.
The Secret Piece is required for Home Sweet Home.
Voracious Reader
Read all stories in the Story Chalet.
Earned across several Chapters.
The first time you come across the Story Chalet will be in Chapter 4.
When inside, use to interact with every glowing bookcase. You should read the following stories:
- The Little Cartographer.
- Destination: Desert.
- Searching the Sands.
- The Enigmatic Story Chalet.
- The Observers Above.
- The Gathering of Magic Boots.
- Popular Grassland Campfire Songs.
- Nomads of the Grassland.
After you have the boots (arrange the Chalet as seen in the photo below and find the boots behind the desk of the highlighted square), you will need to head back to the reception and read The Little Cartographer again.
The next time you find the Story Chalet will be in Chapter 6. Stack the rooms in the formation shown below to reveal two new rooms:
Again, interact with all glowing bookcases and read the following books:
- The Little Cartographer.
- Horror at the Story Chalet.
- The Water Seekers.
- Chirb, The 26th Watcher.
- Root Routes.
- Lempa, The 25th Watcher.
- Volcano Calendar: Burning Truth or a Bunch of Hot Air?
- So You Decided to Visit a Volcano?
- The Little Cartographer again when done.
Continue through the story to Chapter 8 where the Chalet appears again. There’s quite a lot of rooms to try and access now, so you should rearrange the map to look like this (after you’ve unlocked Towering Intellect):
Once done, you can access all rooms to read the following books:
- The Little Cartographer.
- Luak’s Lifelong Legend.
- Ever-shifting Icebergs.
- Come, Sail Away: The Origins of a Tough Tradition.
- The Blue haired girl who’s always adrift.
- The Dirt Of Luck.
- A Volcano Point of View.
- The Little Cartographer again when done.
Lastly, you will end up inside the Story Chalet again in the final chapter; Chapter 10. This time, to be able to access every room, arrange the chalet like so:
Once done, visit every room to read the following books:
- Mother’s Reach.
- The Ups and Downs of the Story Chalet.
- A Message in a Beetle.
- The Little Cartographer.
- The GOAT Attraction.
- A Distant Missive.
- The Mystery of the Speedy Sheep.
- Husky Business.
- Neverwinter Naps.
- The Little Cartographer one last time.
This may seem like a lot to keep track of, but just pay attention to whether or not a shelf or book is glowing to keep track of which you have or have not interacted with. If you correctly read every book, the Voracious Reader trophy will unlock.
Not So Sharp
Learn nothing about cactuses.
Earned in Chapter 5.
During Chapter 5 you will be in a new desert environment. This environment contains a few different cactus plants. To unlock Not So Sharp, you simply need to interact with 6 different cactus plants by pressing on them.
Once you’ve touched your sixth Cactus plant you will receive Secret Piece IV and the Not So Sharp trophy.
The Secret Piece is required for Home Sweet Home.
Cawtet
Listen to the quartet of birds.
Earned in Chapter 6.
In chapter 6 there will be four tiles you can find which have singing birds in the corner. You will need to arrange these tiles so that the corners containing the birds are all connected, forming a quartet of singing birds. Place these tiles as shown below:
Once you have done that, approach the birds and they will sing for a moment before flying away.
They will drop Secret Piece III, which you’ll collect automatically. This will unlock the Cawtet trophy.
The Secret Piece is required for Home Sweet Home.
Stirring Things Up
Behold the legendary flame tornado!
Earned in Chapter 7.
The opportunity to earn this trophy comes after you’ve climbed down a rope into a crater to “fix the heater.” There will be a girl giving you instructions on how to repair the heater. Follow her instructions until you have “fully rebooted the system.”
You’ll then need to head back to the tile with the rope in it and then spin it with while standing on it to start a tornado which pushes you out.
Next, walk over onto the tile with the people on it to the left, and then move the tile with the crater on it a few tiles away. When you place it (if there are no nearby tiles) it should explode into a large five-tile plus shape.
When you highlight any tile on this plus shape you will see that the whole thing can be selected at once. Pick it up with and then tap repeatedly until a tornado appears.
You will get a short cutscene and will then unlock the Stirring Things Up trophy! You’ll also receive Secret Piece V.
The Secret Piece is required for Home Sweet Home.
Towering Intellect
Finish the three levels of the Tower of Hanoi in the fewest steps.
Earned in Chapter 8.
When Chapter 8 starts, you’ll need to move your tile close to the Chalet and head inside. There, after a short cutscene, you’ll be faced with this Tower of Hanoi puzzle.
The aim is to move all of the pieces so that they end up stacked in size order with the smallest piece at the top. To unlock the Towering Intellect trophy, you must complete these puzzles in the fewest possible number of moves, which means making no mistakes whatsoever.
After you complete each puzzle, go up the stairs and talk to the Storytender at the front desk, who will review your work and then set out a new puzzle for you. I’ve provided instructions below for all three levels of this puzzle:
Level 1:
- Move the small piece from the left square to the middle square.
- Move the big piece from the left square to the right square.
- Move the small piece from the middle square to the right square.
- Go upstairs and tell the Storytender that you’re done.
Level 2:
- Move the smallest piece from the left square to the middle square.
- Move the medium-small piece from the left square to the right square.
- Move the smallest piece from the middle square to the right square.
- Move the medium-large piece from the left square to the middle square.
- Move the smallest piece from the right square to the left square.
- Move the medium-small piece from the right square to the middle square.
- Move the smallest piece from the left square to the middle square.
- Move the largest piece from the left square to the right square.
- Move the smallest piece from the middle square to the right square.
- Move the medium-small piece from the middle square to the left square.
- Move the smallest piece from the right square to the left square.
- Move the medium-large piece from the middle square to the right square.
- Move the smallest piece from the left square to the middle square.
- Move the medium-small piece from the left square to the right square.
- Move the smallest piece from the middle square to the right square.
- Go upstairs and tell the Storytender that you’re done.
Level 3:
This one’s a bit sneaky. Instead of squares, you now have rooms. Instead of going through the motions of completing this puzzle legitimately, you can just use your magic map abilities to move the whole room to the right.
Open the map with select the left-most room and then move it to the right side of the right-most room. The trophy will unlock as soon as you place the tile.
If you make a mistake, you can pause the game and select “Load Last Checkpoint” this will avoid the trophy becoming void.
Strange Catch
Find something mysterious in the lake.
Earned in Chapter 8.
During Chapter 8, you’ll find yourself partaking in a fishing festival. In order to catch certain types of fish, you need to speak to the small boy at the bottom of the lake, who will give you a drawing which shows all four fish.
To catch each fish you need to rearrange the lake so that it matches the shape of those drawings.
There’s one drawing he doesn’t give you, though. At least not on a piece of paper. Look at the shape he’s drawing with his stick in the dirt. This is the fifth shape.
Rearrange the lake to match the shape of his drawing and then fish at the lake to find Secret Piece I and unlock the Strange Catch Trophy.
The Secret Piece is required for Home Sweet Home.
Frosty Friend
Finish snowman buddy.
Earned in Chapter 9.
During Chapter 9, you can build a snowman if you find all the required parts.
There are three parts you’ll need to find if you wish to make him whole again; a hat, a head, and some arms. But first you’ll need to find the body!
After a long while, you’ll eventually find your way into a small village with three wooden gates leading out of it. One of the gates leads out to the Snowman’s body.
Outside one of the other gates, you will find his head. There are only two gates that you can open from inside the village, one is near the body, the other is near the head.
The arms are found just outside of the third gate, which you can’t open yet. So progress through the level a bit further until you can. It should be as simple as reaching a white snowy tile and then placing it next to the entrance you can’t open. Like so:
Collect the arms and then deliver them to the body with the head.
The final part to obtain is the hat. It’s actually found at the end of a long sliding ice puzzle on the same tile as the monolith. You’ll need to start at the icy exit from the village and then use that tile in conjunction with other icy tiles to work your way across the ice to the hat.
Start with the above formation and then move along the ice until you reach the dead-end shown here:
Then change the formation like so:
And then continue along the ice to reach the hat!
Once collected, do the same again in reverse to return to the village and reunite the snowman with his hat! The Frosty Friend Trophy will unlock once all three items have been placed on the body. You will also receive Secret Piece VI from your new friend!
The Secret Piece is required for Home Sweet Home.
Home Sweet Home
Visit the airship.
Earned after finishing the game.
Once you have finished the game and have been kicked to the main menu, you will see a new option; “Secrets.” If you select it, you will find that there is a final puzzle to complete.
If you do not have the Secret Pieces from Ground of Applause, Not So Sharp, Cawtet, Stirring Things Up, Strange Catch, and Frosty Friend, you will need to complete those trophies and collect the pieces before returning to attempt this puzzle again.
With all the secret pieces in your inventory, open the Secrets option from the menu and the puzzle will automatically be completed. The Home Sweet Home trophy will unlock immediately and you’ll then be taken to a new area, inside the airship!
Unmissable Story Trophies
There are 10 Story-based trophies that you cannot miss in this section of our Carto Trophy Guide, one for each chapter of the game. Simply reach the game’s credits to unlock the 10 trophies below.
Set Sail
Finish chapter 1.
Horti-carto-ralist
Finish chapter 2.
New Growth
Finish chapter 3.
Quick Learner
Finish chapter 4.
Slaked
Finish chapter 5.
One With the Woods
Finish chapter 6.
Volcanographer
Finish chapter 7.
First Fishtival
Finish chapter 8.
Truest Treasure
Finish chapter 9.
The Little Cartographer
Finish chapter 10.
Phase Two – Optional Cleanup
Try as you might, there’s always a chance you might miss one of the 9 Missable Trophies in the first phase of our Carto Trophy Guide. For that very reason, this second optional phase exists as an opportunity to go back for any you missed.
When you finish Carto’s main story, you will be automatically sent back to the Main Menu. From there, if you select “Play” and then choose an empty save slot, you will now see a Chapter Select option! With this, you can choose where your save starts, allowing you to jump in at the right chapter for the trophy you missed.
Check back through our Missable Trophies list in the first phase and then use Chapter Select to load up to the required chapter for any of the trophies you need.
Plat Get!
Master Cartographer
Complete the game 100%.
Once you have acquired every other trophy in this Carto Trophy Guide, the “Master Cartographer” platinum trophy will unlock.
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