Grunn
What is this game?
Grunn (Sokpop Collective, 2024) is an eerie first-person gardening adventure set in a looping in-game week. You tend a garden, uncover a village full of unsettling secrets, and try to reach one of its 11 endings.
What does randomization do to this game?
The key items - tools, keys, idols, instruments, soul fragments and the rest - are shuffled into the multiworld. Instead of finding them in their vanilla spots, obtaining each one sends a check, and your own items arrive from the multiworld.
Plenty of other things become checks too, most of them on by default: the 32 polaroids scattered
around the world, the 7 ghosts you can calm, 7 good deeds (returning the severed hand, awarding
the medal to the snail, completing the school band…), 6 maintenance chores, the endings you
reach, and - if you turn on coinsanity - the 15 gulden placed in the world.
Items and progress carry across runs: when the week resets, whatever the multiworld has given you is handed back automatically.
What is the goal?
Set by the goal option:
- good_ending - defeat the End Demon with the Magic Sword and the Purified Stone, then leave through the front gate.
- true_ending (default) - the Good Ending, after restoring the owner's soul with the 3 Soul Fragments.
- all_endings - witness all 11 endings (the demo ending is excluded).
Buffs and traps
Besides the game's own items, the pool holds things Grunn never had.
Buffs are progressive: each copy stacks with the previous ones, and they are re-applied
automatically after a run reset or a reconnection. buff_count sets how many copies of each go
into the pool.
| Buff | Effect per copy |
|---|---|
| Move Speed Boost | +15 % movement speed |
| Cutter Range Boost | +25 % secateur range |
| Cutting Rate Boost | +25 % swing speed |
Traps come in two flavours. The first three are temporary - they last 2 in-game hours and also expire on a day change or a run reset:
| Trap | Effect |
|---|---|
| Speed Trap | Halves your movement speed |
| Size Trap | Shrinks you down |
| Inverted Controls Trap | Inverts both the camera and your movement |
The last five hit once, and hurt in ways that outlive their instant:
| Trap | Effect |
|---|---|
| Garden Reset Trap | Wipes the Start Garden back to 0 % - every job to do again |
| Church Reset Trap | Same, for the church grounds |
| Park Reset Trap | Same, for the park |
| Night Trap | Throws the clock to 03:00, inside the Darkness window - being outside then is a death ending |
| Sacred Flower Trap | Cuts 4 graveyard flowers for you. The fifth triggers the Sacred Flowers ending, so you end up one careless cut away from dying - or dead on the spot if you had already cut one |
trap_percentage decides how much of the filler is replaced by traps.
Options worth knowing
The full list with every description lives on the options page; these are the ones that shape the run the most.
On by default
exclude_bridge_key- the Bridge Key stays in its vanilla spot. It is the first key of the game: it opens spawn into the garden, and the bus blocks every other exit. Shuffling it leaves sphere 1 with a single check, which is discouraged for async play.lock_player_hut- the player hut is locked behind the Abandoned Key, an item that unlocks nothing in vanilla. This gates more than the hut: the only usable bed is inside, so the key also gates sleeping, and with it day 2 and beyond. It becomes an early, high-value progression item - especially in multiworld, where someone else may be holding it.polaroid_checks,ghost_checks,chore_checks- polaroids, ghosts and maintenance jobs send checks. The five garden chores normally pay 2 gulden the first time; with checks on, that money comes back as shuffled Golden Gulden items, so the economy is unchanged.exclude_bad_endings- removes the checks of the 8 endings that kill you, so you are never forced to die (and, under DeathLink, to kill everyone else) just to collect a check. The endings stay reachable, they simply stop being locations. Ignored when the goal isall_endings.
Off by default
keep_vanilla_shears- leaves the Shears in the player hut for a smoother start. Note that withlock_player_huton, they still sit behind the Abandoned Key.coinsanity- the 15 placed gulden become checks, and buying things means receiving Gulden items from the multiworld instead of cutting grass for money.persistent_shortcuts- comfort shortcuts stay unlocked across run resets. No logic impact.mask_items- every location shows an Archipelago model coloured by its content's class (progression, useful, filler) instead of the item itself, Grunn's own items included: you can tell how valuable a check is, never what it is. Traps borrow one of the three models, always the same one for a given spot, so a relaunch never gives them away. Purely cosmetic - nothing moves in the logic, and the pickup message still names what you actually got.death_link- every death ending you reach (anything except Bus, Picnic and the good/true ending) sends a DeathLink. Receiving one shows a nightmare jumpscare and resets your current week: no ending fires and no check is granted, so nobody can farm your endings for you.
Tuning
buff_count(default 3) - copies of each progressive buff in the pool.trap_percentage(default 20) - share of filler replaced by traps.