Key & Compass presents:
Foreign Soil
by Olaf Nowacki

• Maps
  • Map 1: Ship and Crater
  • Map 2: Crater Rim and Desert
  • Map 3: Underground and Underwater
  • Map 4: Glass Pyramid and Dream's End
• Walkthrough
• Extras
  • Characters, Credits, Endings, Inventory
• Thank You to my Patreon supporters
• Support me on Ko-Fi
• External links:
  • This game at IFDB, and IFWiki.
  • Tweet about this walkthrough on Twitter.

Maps

Map 1: Ship and Crater

• The sarcophagi chamber is called the "Undefinable Blurry Brown" until you push the button of the autoinjector.
• The southern crater is renamed to "Front of the huge glass pyramid" when you arrive at the western crater with the lifeless body.

Map 2: Crater Rim and Desert

• The "Somewhere in the flat orange desert" is a temporary location where you are lost. The game returns you to the northern rim of the crater as if that never happened.

Map 3: Underground and Underwater

Map 4: Glass Pyramid and Dream's End

• The southern crater is renamed to "Front of the huge glass pyramid" when you arrive at the western crater with the lifeless body.

Walkthrough

Undefinable Blurry Brown

> x me. z. (A spot is now visible.)

> x spot. look under spot. take thing.

> touch thing. (It's a towel.)

> dry me. wear towel.

> search spot. take rod. x rod.

> push button.

Sarcophagi Chamber

You are now fully awake and thirsty.

> x sarcophagi. (Which: closed or open coffins?)

> x open coffins. (Two are open?)

> x closed coffins. x ornaments. (ick)

> d.

Control Room

> take off towel. wear suit. x suit.

> x panel. x dispenser. take bottle.

> open dispenser. put bottle in dispenser.

> close dispenser. (The bottle fills.)

> open dispenser. (It's stuck!)

> hit it. take bottle. drink water.

> x buttons. x monitor.

You're on Trappist-1c. The tank is empty and battery power is low. The controls are meaningless to you and pushing random buttons just wastes time.

> s.

Airlock

A voice speaks when you enter the airlock.

> close inner. z. z. (The voice stops.)

> s.

Narrow Ledge

> x crater. d.

In Front of the Ship

> pull lever. in.

Hold

> turn on switch. (nothing happens)

> x robot. x plate. push plate.

> out.

In Front of the Ship

> pull plate. (It's now a ramp.)

> stand. (The robot leaves the hold carrying carrying many things.)

Let's survey the crater:

> w.

Western Crater

> x rock. x cavity. s.

Southern Crater

> e.

Eastern Crater (Field of Solar Panels)

> x panels. n.

Northern Crater

> u.

On the northern slope

> u.

Northern rim of the crater

> x footprints. sw.

Western rim of the crater

> se.

Southern rim of the crater

> x boulder. ne.

Eastern rim of the crater

> nw. d. d. s.

In Front of the Ship

By now, the marker on your suit has probably turned purple. The marker indicates how much air your suit has. There are four colors: bright blue is full (or less); blue is three-quarters full (or less); purple is half-full (or less); red is quarter full (or less). There's also a flashing frantically bright red which acts like a fifth color; if you ever see that, you're running on empty and you need an oxygen refill pronto.

When your suit marker is purple or red, you should return to at least the airlock and close the outer door and wait until the marker is bright blue again to refill your air supply.

> u. n.

Airlock

> close outer. z. z. (Marker should be bright blue again.)

> s. d. in.

Hold

Assuming the light switch is still on, the light is now working and you can see a tool locker.

> x locker. open it. take pickaxe.

> out. w.

Western Crater

With the pickaxe, hit the cavity several times:

> hit cavity. g. g. g. (Hole is big enough to enter.)

> d. w.

Small Cave Dome

> x points. (Luminous mushrooms.)

> x liquid. (It's water!)

> in. d. d.

Bottom of the Water Shaft

I'm not sure how, but your suit regains air down here.

> search ground. (You find a body.)

> x body. take body.

> u. u. out. e. u.

Western Crater

There's now a pyramid in the southern part of the crater. Since you can't carry the body with you up the rungs, take the body to the pyramid.

> s.

Front of the huge glass pyramid (formerly Southern Crater)

> x pyramid. in. s.

Prototaxite forest in the pyramid

> x prototaxites. (tree-like fungi)

> x building.

> u.

Upper Chamber

> x longue. put body on longue.

> x scanner. scan body with scanner. (He needs water.)

> d. d.

Subterranean Chamber

> x machine. x pipes. u.

Prototaxite forest in the pyramid

Only the robot can open the door to the building.

> z. (Repeat waiting until the robot goes inside or arrives from inside.)

> in.

Lower Chamber

> x box. x cylinder. (There's a tap.)

> turn on tap.

Unfortunately, "fill bottle with water" doesn't work. The game thinks "water" refers to the empty water bottle.

> fill bottle with tap. turn off tap.

Again, wait for the robot to open the door so you can leave.

> z. (Repeat waiting until the door opens.)

> out. u.

Upper Chamber

> give water to body. ENTER

Sunny Room

> x me. (You're now Jon.)

> x bed. x sun. x mirror. (too far away.)

> stand. x mirror. (You're you, not Valerie.)

> e.

Wonderful Garden

You tell Valerie you dreamt about her.

*** The End ***

Considering that the main story of the game was Jon's dream, the full truth of the story is cast into doubt. Perhaps events happened exactly as he dreamed them, but it's now possible that a hundred colonists arrived here alive and well, and no one needed to wake up for a thousand years until the robots terraformed the entire planet first. Who knows now what really happened?

Extras

Characters

• Valerie is the main player-character, but you don't learn her name until the epilogue sequence. She was an inmate somewhere who had her sentence changed into being a colonist.
• Jon is the "lifeless body" during the main part of the game. He is named and is the player-character in the epilogue sequence. It can be safely assumed that he woke up before Valerie did, started exploring, and had a near-fatal accident.
• The ugly robot is in the hold of the ship. It builds many useful things for you, starting with some solar panels.
• The hollow voice sometimes speaks you, a series of recordings from whoever sent you here.
• Four dead people are in the coffins. You're never told who they were.

Credits

The response to ABOUT is:

I would like to express my heartfelt thanks:
to Annette Köhn for her wonderful cover art,
to Saskia Eckhardt, Mike Carletta, Mike Russo, Andrew Schultz and Edo for tireless testing and great feedback despite unfinished versions,
and last but not least to deepl.com for the great support with the translation!

The game was written from June 2020 to June 2021 by Olaf Nowacki.
Please send your very welcome feedback and transcripts to email redacted!

Endings

All endings in this game use the The End epigram. Note that losing endings are only temporary; whatever you did wrong is instantly undone and you can continue playing.

• The End (temporary losing endings)
• if you never drink any water in a generous number of turns. The thirst countdown timer is reset.
• if you push the spherical boulder.
• if you go too far from the crater in the desert.
• if you leave the ship without wearing the protective suit.
• if you take the suit off when outside.
• if the air supply in your suit runs out. The suit is refilled with air no matter where you are.
• The End (the winning ending)
• if you find and save the life of the missing colonist.

Inventory

• a rough and soft thing. Acquire it by looking under the spot in the "Undefinable Blurry Brown".
• Touch the thing to realize it's a terry towel.
• Dry yourself with the towel, then wear the towel to warm up.
• Take the towel off before wearing the suit; you can't wear both at the same time.
• a small slim rod. Find it by searching the spot in the "Undefinable Blurry Brown" after you've dried yourself with the towel.
• Examine it; it has a button. Push the button and you'll inject yourself with its contents. You'll fully wake up, and the autoinjector is now empty and useless.
• a protective suit. There are suits in the control room. Take one and wear it.
• You must take off the towel before wearing the suit.
• The suit provides you with air when outside the ship or pyramid. The color of the marker on the sleeve shows roughly how much air you have left: bright blue for full, blue for less than three-quarters full, purple for less than half-full, and red for nearly empty.
• The suit refills with air when it's in an air-filled environment.
• The suit can be worn underwater. The suit does not interfere with drinking water.
• a bottle. Find it in the control room by first examining the panel, then the dispenser.
• To solve your thirst problem: open the dispenser, put the bottle in the dispenser, close the dispenser, hit the dispenser, take the bottle, drink the water.
• To get water for the lifeless body, go to the lower chamber of the pyramid, turn on the tap, then fill the bottle with the tap. Turn off the tap, go to the body, and give the water to the body.
• CAUTION: If you fill the bottle with cave water, you can't drink it, nor can you easily pour it out! However, if you try to give that water to the body, you'll pour the water out then.
• a pickaxe. It's in the tool locker in the hold.
• To find the locker, turn on the light switch after the robot has built some solar panels.
• At the western crater, while carrying the pickaxe, hit the cavity four times to make a hole large enough to enter.
• a lifeless body. Find it by searching the ground at the bottom of the water shaft.
• Take it to the upper chamber of the pyramid and put it on the lounge. Scan the body with the scanner to learn that the body needs water. Give water to the body; see bottle.

Thank You to my Patreon supporters

This walkthrough was funded via Patreon with

• the support of Robin Johnson, Ville Lavonius, Andrew Schultz, Kenneth Hon, Carl Muckenhoupt, Mark Musante, Phil Tatro, Mitch, and Peter Berman;
• the generous support of Janice M Eisen, Matthew Foxley, Thomas Insel, and Marius Müller;
• the very generous support of Karl Ove Hufthammer, Lance Campbell, and DrkStarr;
• the extremely generous support of Emily Short, Allen Garvin, Jesse McGrew, Jacqueline Ashwell, Jennifer Rexrode, and Durafen;
• and the invisible support of several anonymous patrons.

Ko-Fi is a way to send me small one-time donations. Every little bit helps, and thank you!