Key & Compass presents:
Secret of the Starry Depths
by Felix Pleşoianu

• Map
• Walkthrough
• Extras
  • Characters, Credits, Inventory, Score
• Thank You to my Patreon supporters
• External links:
  • This game at IFDB, and IFWiki.
  • The original version at Homepage.
  • Tweet about this walkthrough on Twitter.

Map

Walkthrough

Right riverbank

> x me. x tent. x river. x boat. x cave. x forest.

> enter tent. x lantern. take it. (+5)

> out. s.

Roadside

> x SUV. n.

Right riverbank

> ne. (not swimming in cold river)

> enter boat. ne.

Left riverbank

> out. x hole. e.

Karst spring

> take ball. x it. w. n.

Darkness / Upper cavern

> turn on lantern.

> x rope. x shelf.

> d. (Not with lantern in hand.)

> put lantern on shelf.

> d. (+5)

Lower cavern

> x lake. x maze.

> w —or— s. (No progress)

> nw. (more promising, but still no)

> throw ball at lake. (darker spot carried east?)

> u. s. e.

Karst spring

Aha. The ball floated to here.

> take ball. w. n.

Upper cavern

> take lantern. u.

Aerie

> x map. (+5)

> d.

Upper cavern

> put lantern on shelf. d.

Lower cavern

> x passage. (goes northwest)

> nw.

Hidden nook

> x chest. take chest. (+5)

> se.

Lower cavern

> u. (Not with the chest.)

> throw chest at lake. (+5; it's carried east.)

> u.

Upper cavern

> take lantern. s. e.

Karst spring

> turn off lantern. take chest. w.

Left riverbank

> enter boat. sw.

Right riverbank

> out. s.

Roadside

> open SUV. put chest in SUV.

Surprise. You're on camera!

*** And that's when things started taking a turn for the weirder... ***

Extras

Characters

• A funnily-dressed man and a woman in a business suit reveal themselves at game's end. It turns out your treasure hunt was part of a reality TV show?

Credits

The banner text reads:

Secret of the Starry Depths
An Interactive Showcase by No Time To Play
Free and open source under the Artistic License 2.0
Release 1 / Serial number 202005 / Inform v6.33 Library v6.12.2 S

Inventory

• your electric lantern. It's inside your tent on the right riverbank.
• Turn it on in dark areas (upper cavern and aerie) to see.
• In upper cavern, you can't climb down the rope while carrying the lantern and fortunately, you don't need to. Just put the lit lantern on the shelf there before climbing down.
• a tennis ball. It's at the karst spring.
• Take it to lower cavern and throw it at the lake. When you find it back at the spring, this verifies that floating items travel from the lower cavern to the spring.
• a treasure chest. It's in the hidden nook.
• Take it to the lower cavern and throw it at the lake. It will float to the karst spring.
• From the spring, take the chest to roadside and put it in your SUV to win the game.
• Note that you can't open the chest to find out what's inside, if anything.

Score

You have so far scored your-score out of a possible 25, in several turns.

• 5 points for obtaining the lantern.
• 5 points for examining the map.
• 5 points for entering the lower cavern for the first time.
• 5 points for acquiring the treasure chest.
• 5 points for getting the chest out of the caverns.

Thank You to my Patreon supporters

This walkthrough is provided free of charge since the work it's based on has less than fifteen locations. Please consider it a thank you for your support!

I create larger walkthroughs too! Please visit my Patreon account if you're interested in helping me create more interactive fiction walkthroughs. I appreciate all the help I can get! Thanks again.