Key & Compass presents:
Sohoek Ekalmoe
by Caleb Wilson

• Walkthrough
• Extras
  • Characters, Credits, Inventory
• Thank You to my Patreon supporters
• Support me on Ko-Fi
• External links:
  • This story at IFDB, and IFWiki.
  • Tweet about this walkthrough on Twitter.

Walkthrough

Shaft

> x stem. x leaf. x taproot.

> x sunlight.

> open leaf. put leaf in sunlight.

> grow down.

Your taproot found soil. Now grow in three different compass directions; for example:

> grow north. grow southwest. grow southeast.

Your roots are now a robust secondary root structure.

> x roots.

> grow up. (You're now halfway up the shaft.)

> grow up. (Can't: You need more horizontal support.)

> grow north. (Or any other compass direction. You're now braced.)

> x branch.

> grow up.

You grow a crown. Your stem becomes a trunk. Your crown spouts a bud.

Meadow, Near Shaft

> x trunk. x crown. x bud. x light.

> open bud. (Gain a new leaf and dozens of buds.)

> open buds. (Gain dozens of leaves and hundreds of buds.)

> open buds. (Gain hundreds of leaves. Urge to spread.)

Near the meadow are a palace, a statue, and an obelisk, placed in random directions. You should spread in all eight compass directions until you find them all.

> spread n. spread ne. spread e. spread se.

> spread s. spread sw. spread w. spread nw.

> x palace. crumble palace.

> x statue. crumble statue.

> x obelisk. topple obelisk.

After all the artifacts are gone, you grow thousands of pinkish buds.

> i. x leaves. x buds. x vines.

> open buds.

You grow red flowers and yellow fruits.

*** The Beginning ***

Extras

Characters

This is very much a story with just the plant protagonist, but others are mentioned now and then.

• You are Sohoek Ekalmoe, "one who sunders the paving stones". That is, you're a hardy vine-growing weed similar to kudzu.
• Your enemies are humans, I assume. They threw you into this shaft only a year ago, but now they're all dead. At least, all the humans near you died.
• Wild animals wander through the palace.
• Hummingbirds flock to sip from your flowers during the epilogue.

Credits

This is the response to ABOUT or CREDITS:

NarraScope is a conference for interactive narrative of all kinds. The second one ever is running as I write this. It was supposed to take place in the town where I live, but the COVID-19 pandemic kept that from happening. Instead, NarraScope 2020 found a way to exist online. The theme for this game jam is "growth"... I don't think my game is very subtle.

Thanks to Xalavier Nelson Jr. for his wonderful keynote address. (Writing this growingstory brought me joy.) Thanks to Lisa for playtesting, and thanks as well to the NarraScope Discord for testing and other help: Katherine Morayati, ogreteeth/Tim Rodriguez, and Ruber Eaglenest.

So you're not surprised, there are music and sound effects in this game (well, only in the online Vorple version). The music is by Julian K. Jarboe. I made the sound effects. I hope they're adequate.

Released under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0). For more info about that: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

This game is dedicated to all the weeds.

--Caleb

Inventory

Since you're a plant, your inventory is just a catalog of your most important body parts.

• a fibrous stem / a tall fibrous stem / a trunk. The stem is part of you from the start.
• You don't need to manipulate your stem or trunk directly. It will evolve as you grow upward.
• Grow up after you create a robust secondary root structure.
• Grow up after you create a branch.
• a leaf. The leaf is part of you from the start.
• First, open or unfurl the leaf.
• Second, put the leaf into the light. This gives you enough energy to start growing. The first direction you should grow is down.
• (This leaf will disappear from your inventory when your crown is in the meadow. You can assume it still exists; it's just lost its importance in the grand scheme of things.)
• a taproot. The taproot is part of you from the start.
• You don't need to manipulate your taproot directly. It will evolve as you grow downward.
• Grow down after you put your unfurled leaf into the light.
• a direction-growing secondary root. After the taproot has grown down into deep soil, create three secondary roots by growing in three different compass directions; for example: grow north. grow southwest. grow southeast.
• After growing three secondary roots, they will automatically merge and become a robust secondary root structure.
• Now that your roots are providing some stability, you may grow up the first time.
• a branch. After you have grown halfway up the shaft, create this branch by growing in any compass direction.
• The branch anchors your stem against the shaft wall. Now you can grow up a second time.
• a crown. After creating a branch to stabilize yourself with, grow up to create a crown.
• You don't need to manipulate the crown directly. Instead, open the buds that grow on it.
• a bud / dozens of buds / hundreds of buds. You gain your first bud when you gain your crown (by growing upward the second time).
• Open the bud to gain a new leaf and dozens of buds.
• Continue opening the buds to gain more leaves and more buds until there's hundreds of leaves. You'll now have an urge to spread.
• a new leaf / dozens of leaves / hundreds of leaves / millions of leaves. You gain the first new leaf by opening a bud.
• You don't need to manipulate the leaves directly. But when you have hundreds of leaves, you'll also have an urge to spread.
• some questing vines / myriad questing vines. Vines are created the first time you spread in any compass direction. You won't be able to spread until you have hundreds of leaves.
• You should spread in every direction until you have found three things left behind by your enemies: a palace, a statue, and an obelisk. They will be randomly placed.
• Crush or tobble or destroy the palace, statue, and obelisk. When the last one is gone, you'll grow thousands of pinkish buds.
• thousands of pinkish buds. You'll grow these automatically after you've destroyed the castle, statue, and obelisk.
• Open the pinkish buds to create flowers and fruits. And also, to end the story.

Thank You to my Patreon supporters

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