Alter Ego Docs

Welcome to the Alter Ego Docs! This documentation website serves as a knowledge hub for Alter Ego, a game engine to create immersive text adventure role playing games for Discord. It is an ongoing project maintained by Alter Ego Contributors since 2019.

Alter Ego is an open-source project licensed under the AGPL-3.0-or-later license that anyone can fork and modify to suit their own purposes. These docs aim to provide accurate, useful documentation and explanations for both casual users and developers.

If you are a new player, please head over to the Player Guide to get started!

License

These docs are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International license.

Alter Ego

Alter Ego facilitates a unique game with an original ruleset. It is a text adventure game using Discord as a medium.

Gameplay

The basis of the gameplay is moving between rooms. Each room is represented by a Discord channel. When a player moves from one room to another, they will be removed from the room channel they are currently in and added to the channel corresponding to the desired room. Upon entering the new room, they will receive a written description of the room, noting any interesting fixtures they find there. They may check who else is in the room with them by looking at the Discord member list. In any given room, a player may speak to other players in the room, inspect fixtures, take and discard items, solve puzzles, and do various other things.

The game is overseen by at least one moderator. The moderator(s) are responsible for creating the map, overseeing combat between players, facilitating role play between players, and much more. Players can reach out to a moderator to perform any actions that cannot be done using Alter Ego. For example, players can attempt to murder other players, use items in creative ways (such as spilling water on the floor to make other players slip and fall), restrain other players, and much more. The purpose of Alter Ego is to automate all tasks that can be automated so that the moderator(s) have more free time to assist players in their role play.

Installation and Setup

Note

These instructions are for installing Alter Ego using Docker. If you wish to not use Docker, please refer to the node installation instructions.

Installation of Alter Ego is rather complicated, but is made significantly easier with Docker. This page will explain the process in detail.

Caution

Do not host Alter Ego for anyone you don’t trust. For more information on why you shouldn’t, see the warning for Flag value scripts.

Step 0: System Requirements

Note

The requirements below are for Linux servers. For system requirements for Windows and Mac, refer to their respective Docker Desktop documentation.

Although Alter Ego can run on any system that can run Docker, running it on a Linux VPS is recommended, as performance on Windows and Mac are inferior and can be significantly slower. For instance, the Windows version of Docker relies on virtualization, and therefore suffers a large performance penalty. Some good VPS providers include Hetzner, DigitalOcean, and Linode.

Step 1: Download Alter Ego

First, you need to download Alter Ego itself. Go to the GitHub Releases page and find the latest release.

There, you will see something like this.

Windows, Linux, Mac Desktop

From this page, download the archive Alter-Ego-[VERSION].tar.gz. Use your favorite archive utility to open the archive (e.g. 7zip, GNOME Archive Manager, PeaZip), and extract the contents into your folder of choice.

Linux Terminal

Use wget to download the archive straight from the terminal. The following is an example (replace VERSION with the version you want to download).

wget https://github.com/MsVBLANK/Alter-Ego/releases/download/[VERSION]/Alter-Ego-[VERSION].tar.gz

Unarchive the Alter-Ego folder by running this command (replace VERSION with the version number).

tar -xzvf Alter-Ego-[VERSION].tar.gz

Step 2: Install Docker

If you already have Docker installed, you can skip this step.

Docker is a container management platform that allows users to run applications on their machines regardless of operating system or dependencies. It has very low performance overhead, and provides isolation that improves security.

Although Alter Ego can be installed bare-metal (i.e. without Docker), this is not recommended unless you plan to work on the source code as a developer.

Linux

To install Docker on your Linux system, refer to the link below:

https://docs.docker.com/engine/install/

Most cloud/VPS providers offer a Docker installation image when you create your VM (e.g. Hetzner).

This saves you time and effort from installing Docker yourself, and is highly recommended for new users.

Windows

To install Docker on your Windows system, refer to the link below:

https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/windows-install/

You can also consult this YouTube tutorial for a step-by-step guide.

Mac

To install Docker on your Mac system, refer to the link below:

https://docs.docker.com/desktop/install/mac-install/

You can also consult this YouTube tutorial for a step-by-step guide.

Step 3: Create a Discord bot

Now that you have Alter Ego installed, you’ll need to create a new Discord bot to bind its functionality to. Navigate to the Discord Developer Portal, and once you log in to your Discord account, create a new application. This example will use an application called “Alter Ego”, but you can call it whatever you like. Once you create the application, you’ll be taken to a page that looks like this:

You can ignore this for now. Navigate to the Installation tab on the left-hand side. This will bring you to this page:

Under “Installation Contexts”, uncheck “User Install”, and make sure “Guild Install” is checked. In the dropdown under “Install Link”, select “None”. You don’t want other people to be able to install your bot to their servers, so there’s no need to create a public installation URL.

Now navigate over to the Bot tab on the left-hand side. This will bring you to this page:

On this page, you can change the bot’s name, set its profile picture, upload its banner image, and a few other things. Take note of the “Reset Token” button; you’ll need to press it later, but you can ignore it for now.

Scroll down a bit, and you’ll find some settings. First, under “Authorization Flow”:

• Disable the “Public Bot” setting.
  • Alter Ego can only be in one server, so this will prevent other people from inviting it to their servers.
• Disable the “Requires OAuth2 Code Grant” setting.

Next, you’ll find more settings under “Privileged Gateway Intents”:

• Enable the “Presence Intent” setting.
• Enable the “Server Members Intent” setting.
• Enable the “Message Content Intent” setting.

Without all of these set according to these instructions, Alter Ego will not function properly. If you’ve done everything right, your settings will look like this:

Step 4: Create a Discord server

Before you can get Alter Ego up and running, you’ll have to create a Discord server. You can call it whatever you like, but once it’s made, you’ll have to set a number of things up.

The easiest way to create a server is using this template, which will add all of the requisite roles and channels for you. If you want to set those up manually, refer to this page.

Enable Developer Mode

You’ll have to enable Developer Mode for your account for the next few steps. To do this, navigate to your User Settings in Discord. Open the Developer tab near the very bottom. You’ll see a switch labeled Developer Mode. Turn it on if it’s not already enabled.

Step 5: Invite your bot to the server

Back on the Discord Developer Portal, click on the OAuth2 tab on the left-hand side. Scroll down to the “OAuth2 URL Generator” section:

Under “Scopes”, Check bot, then in the “Bot Permissions” section that appears below it, check Administrator. You should have something that looks like this:

Finally, there will be two text boxes underneath the “Permissions” section:

Under the “Integration Type”, dropdown, select “Guild Install”. Then, copy the URL in the “Generated URL” box, send it to a Discord channel in the server you just made (ideally to a channel that only you have access to), and click on it. It should display a menu that looks like this:

Make sure the server you just made is the one that’s selected in the drop down, then click Continue. Make sure Administrator is checked, and confirm by clicking Authorize.

With that, your bot will join your server! However, it doesn’t do anything at the moment. You still need to do a few things.

Step 6: Create a spreadsheet

Next, you will need to create a spreadsheet for Alter Ego to use. For more information, see the article on spreadsheets.

Step 7: Enable the Google Sheets API

In order for Alter Ego to work properly, you will need to create a new Google APIs project. The easiest way to do that is to navigate to the Enable Google Workspace APIs page and click the Enable Sheets API button near the bottom.

That should bring you to a page that looks like this:

Create a project. You can call it anything you want. In the prompts that follow, confirm that you want to enable the Google Sheets API. If you did it right, you’ll be shown a message that says “You have successfully enabled Google Sheets API.”

Step 8: Create a service account

In order to allow Alter Ego to read and write to the spreadsheet, you’ll need to create a service account for it to use. To do that, open the navigation menu in the top left corner and navigate to the Credentials tab under APIs & Services, like so:

On the next page, click the link that says Manage service accounts:

On the next page, click Create service account. You should be brought to a page like this:

For the name, enter the bot’s name; in this case, it’s Alter Ego. You can set its ID if you want, or just accept the one it generates. For the description, enter whatever you like. Click Create and continue.

In the Permissions menu, grant it the “Owner” role. You can skip step 3. Once you’re done, you’ll be returned to the Service accounts page.

Once your service account is made, you should see it under the service accounts list. There will be a meatball menu under the Actions column for it. Click on that, and select Manage keys. You’ll be taken to this page:

Click the Add Key button and select Create new key. Make sure the key type is JSON, then click Create. This will download a file to your computer. Don’t touch that just yet - there’s one thing to do first. Return to the Service Accounts page.

Step 9: Share the spreadsheet

On the Service Accounts page, you should now see the service account you just created. Copy its email address, then head over to the spreadsheet you made earlier.

On the spreadsheet, press the Share button. Paste the service account’s email address into the dialog box and make sure to give it permission to edit the spreadsheet. You can also do the same with any other moderators you have, if you haven’t done so already. Once you’ve done that, you nearly have everything you need.

Caution

Do not grant write access to the spreadsheet to any users that you don’t fully trust.

Step 10: Edit .env file

The .env file is used to change all settings for Alter Ego. Before running Alter Ego, you must change several values here.

First, open the Alter-Ego folder that you downloaded. Then, make a copy of .env.example and name it .env (note you may have to set your file browser to show hidden files). On Linux, use these commands.

cd Alter-Ego
cp .env.example .env

Open the .env file in a text editor. You should see something like this:

# This is an example of an environment file for docker compose.
#
# '#' has been used to comment out any variables that do not need
# to be changed from default. Remove '#' to set them if you want
# to use something other than the default value.
#
# Environment variables should be enclosed in single quotes, and
# should follow the data type next to it (e.g. String).
# For instance: DEBUG_MODE='true'

# Time Zone
# See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tz_database_time_zones
# for a complete list of timezones.
TZ='America/New_York'

# Credentials
DISCORD_TOKEN=                                # String. Token of discord bot
G_PROJECT_ID=                                 # String. Google project ID
G_PRIVATE_KEY_ID=                             # String. Google private key ID
G_PRIVATE_KEY=                                # String. Google private key
G_CLIENT_EMAIL=                               # String. Google client email
G_CLIENT_ID=                                  # String. Google client id
G_CLIENT_X509_CERT_URL=                       # String. Google cert url

# Settings
SPREADSHEET_ID=                               # String. ID of spreadsheet
...
(file continues on)

Setting Time Zone

Before running Alter Ego, you should set the time zone for your container, so that events in the game sync up to your location.

Edit the TZ line so that it matches the time zone where the game occurs in. For instance, if you want to set the timezone to London, you would change the line to TZ='Europe/London'. For a complete list of timezones, refer to this Wikipedia article.

Setting Credentials

Navigate back to the Discord Developer Portal once again and find the application you created earlier. Open the Bot tab. Under Token, click Reset Token. You may be asked to authenticate with 2FA before proceeding. Once the token has been created, click Copy. Paste it inside the single quotes after DISCORD_TOKEN= in your .env file.

Caution

This token must not be shared with anyone, as it grants full access to your bot’s account.

Next, open the file you downloaded after creating the service account in any text editor. The file should look something like this:

{
    "type": "service_account",
    "project_id": "(CONFIDENTIAL)",
    "private_key_id": "(CONFIDENTIAL)",
    "private_key": "(CONFIDENTIAL)",
    "client_email": "(CONFIDENTIAL)",
    "client_id": "(CONFIDENTIAL)",
    "auth_uri": "https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth",
    "token_uri": "https://oauth2.googleapis.com/token",
    "auth_provider_x509_cert_url": "https://www.googleapis.com/oauth2/v1/certs",
    "client_x509_cert_url": "(CONFIDENTIAL)",
    "universe_domain": "googleapis.com"
}

Caution

Almost all of the data in this file is confidential. Don’t share it with a single person, and make absolutely sure not to put it online somehow.

Next, add the Google service account credentials to your .env file. Copy each corresponding value in the Google credentials file into your .env file. For instance, copy project_id into PROJECT_ID=. Replace the double quotes in the original file with single quotes. Don’t worry about any values that aren’t in the .env file, you won’t need them.

If you did everything right, the credentials section should look like this:

...
# Credentials
DISCORD_TOKEN='(CONFIDENTIAL)'                      # String. Token of discord bot
G_PROJECT_ID='(CONFIDENTIAL)'                       # String. Google project ID
G_PRIVATE_KEY_ID='(CONFIDENTIAL)'                   # String. Google private key ID
G_PRIVATE_KEY='(CONFIDENTIAL)'                      # String. Google private key
G_CLIENT_EMAIL='(CONFIDENTIAL)'                     # String. Google client email
G_CLIENT_ID='(CONFIDENTIAL)'                        # String. Google client id
G_CLIENT_X509_CERT_URL='(CONFIDENTIAL)'             # String. Google cert url
...

Setting Spreadsheet ID

Finally, you must set the spreadsheet ID. A Google Sheets URL contains two IDs. The first is the ID of the entire spreadsheet itself. The second is the ID of the individual sheet currently open in the spreadsheet. You can retrieve the ID of either by copying them from the URL. The format is as follows:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/(entire spreadsheet ID)/edit#gid=(individual sheet ID)

Copy the ID for the entire spreadsheet and paste it in single quotes after SPREADSHEET_ID=. For instance.

SPREADSHEET_ID='1234567890'

(Optional) Fill out other settings

If you wish to change other settings other than the ones outlined above, you can edit their entries in the .env file. Remember to uncomment (i.e. remove the # before the line) for them to go into effect. For more information, see the article on settings.

Step 11: Run Alter Ego

Finally, you can run Alter Ego. First, make sure that you are in the directory where Alter Ego is installed.

In a terminal, run:

docker compose up -d

If you did everything right, you’ll see something like this:

If you run the command docker compose logs, you should see this:

alterego  | Alter Ego (VERSION) (commit (COMMIT))
alterego  |
alterego  | Writing configuration files...
alterego  | Done.
alterego  |
alterego  | Starting Alter Ego...
alterego  | AlterEgo-test is online on 1 server.
alterego  | Loaded all commands.

Congratulations! If everything went well, you can now use Alter Ego. Good luck!

Updating Alter Ego

To update Alter Ego, first take the container down with this command.

docker compose down

Next, open docker-compose.yml. You should see something like this.

services:
    alterego:
        image: ghcr.io/msvblank/alter-ego:1.10.1
        container_name: alterego
        env_file:
            - .env
        volumes:
            - data:/home/node/app/Configs
        restart: unless-stopped

volumes:
    data:

Then, change the image: line so that it corresponds to the new version of Alter Ego. For instance, change 1.10.1 to 2.0.0. The line should now read something like this.

image: ghcr.io/msvblank/alter-ego:2.0.0

Save the file and quit your text editor.

Next, pull the new update using the following command:

docker compose pull

Finally, simply start the container again and Docker will automatically update Alter Ego for you.

docker compose up -d

Docker Commands

To view the status of your container, run:

docker ps

To view the logs of Alter Ego, run while in the same directory as Alter Ego:

docker compose logs

To stop the container, run:

docker compose stop

To start the container after stopping it, run:

docker compose start

To restart the container, run:

docker compose restart

For a full reference to Docker Compose, refer to the official documentation.

Moderating

Moderating is a difficult endeavor. Although Alter Ego was designed to make the process easier, it presents its own challenges. In this tutorial, the process will be explained.

Purpose

The purpose of a moderator is to facilitate gameplay. While Alter Ego does most of the heavy lifting, there are many things it cannot do. A moderator must draw the Map, program the game world on the spreadsheet, create and manage the server, host Alter Ego, respond to player inquiries, handle player actions that aren’t automated, handle combat, fix bugs, and much more.

A good moderator must remain calm even during the most tense situations. However, these responsibilities can and do take a toll on a moderator, and it is all too easy to become overwhelmed. For this reason, it is strongly recommended to have multiple moderators running a game so that the responsibilities are not all carried out by one person.

Motivation

Before you can become a moderator, you should think about whether it’s right for you. Moderating a game is not easy, and it takes a specific kind of person to excel at it. Consider why you want to do so before setting anything in stone. Do you have a story you want to tell that would be best told in a game using Alter Ego? Do you have experience in game design or an interest in learning about it? Do you easily grasp basic programming concepts? Do you find repetitive tasks enjoyable? Do you have enough free time to dedicate months of your life to programming, writing, and testing a game world? Will you have enough free time and energy to moderate game sessions for several hours every day? Will you be able to financially support yourself and tend to your physical needs during that time? If you can answer yes to all of these questions, then you’re a perfect fit to moderate a game with Alter Ego. If you answer no to any of them, consider whether this style of gameplay is right for you. If you simply want to host a role play, there are much simpler alternatives that you could use instead.

First steps

Once you’ve decided that you want to be a moderator, your first step should be to install and set up Alter Ego. To do that, see the following articles:

• Installation and Setup
• Settings

Once you’re able to use Alter Ego, you must learn how it works. Alter Ego is a complex tool with many intricate behaviors that you need to familiarize yourself with. The best way to get started is to read all of the articles in this book of documentation - most importantly, the Data Structures entries and the writing descriptions tutorial. After that, you can begin putting your knowledge into practice.

Familiarize yourself with all of the commands available to you as a moderator by utilizing the help command to read the details of each one. Memorize the syntax of each command and all of the ways it can be used. Create a small test game consisting of a few Rooms. Get a good understanding of how Alter Ego interprets data entered on the spreadsheet and what will make it return errors when you load data. Make use of the parse command to catch errors in your writing. Test your game using a separate Player account and observe what bugs Alter Ego is unable to detect. Implement fixes for them and test again. Develop a habit of loading, parsing, testing, and fixing your game until it’s second nature to you.

Planning a game

Once you’re intimately familiar with Alter Ego’s workings, you can begin planning a real game. Consider what kind of story you want to tell. The best kinds of stories told in this game environment have many moving pieces that are gradually revealed throughout the course of the game. This style of storytelling lends itself well to the nature of the Alter Ego’s gameplay style, where players are only aware of things they’ve personally seen. It allows each player to attempt to piece together the clues in order to shine light on the overarching mysteries. The specifics of what story you want to tell are up to you, but you should at least have a general plan before formally announcing your game.

Due to how much work it takes to develop a game for Alter Ego, it is strongly recommended that you select your players several months in advance. Having a cast of characters set in stone long before the game is held makes it significantly easier to tailor the game world to them.

Also during the planning phase, you should decide on a setting. A good setting effortlessly aids the story you want to tell. When you’ve decided on a setting, you can begin making a map to display how the various rooms connect to one another. However, you should keep in mind the scope of the game and how you’re going to make the map manageable. A map with hundreds of rooms is a gargantuan task to implement, so you should start small. Remember: what makes a map engaging to the players isn’t how many rooms it has, but how interesting those rooms are to explore.

Writing a game

By far the longest and most difficult part of a moderator’s job is writing the game. Writing takes place entirely on the spreadsheet. In this stage of development, your goal must be to write all of the Rooms on the map and fill them with Fixtures, Room Items, and Puzzles for Players to interact with. You’ll need to write Prefabs to provide functionality to Items, add Recipes for Players to carry out on those Items, and create Events to enhance the game world. Creating Status Effects can make Players feel more immersed in the game, and writing Gestures makes it easier for them to roleplay simple actions. You’ll need to personalize each Player’s data to suit their character and give them Inventory Items to start out with. You may even use Flags to store frequently accessed data and build more complex interactions. When all of these features work together in harmony, it can create an experience that makes it easy for the players on the other side of the screen to feel like they really are a part of the world.

Nevertheless, this is a very time-consuming process. It takes months of continuous work to create a functioning game. Remember that when the game occurs, it takes place in real-time; you will not have time to fix numerous bugs without severely disrupting gameplay. This is why you must get into the habit of loading, parsing, testing, and fixing your game during the writing process. This is game development - using Alter Ego is no different from using a game engine like RPG Maker. This means you have to test your game extensively. Just because Alter Ego loads everything without giving you error messages does not mean everything works as intended, or at all. It is your responsibility to ensure that your game functions properly before you start running it. The more bugs you catch and fix before the game begins, the fewer you’ll have to deal with during the game proper, and the less stressful the experience will be.

In order to write a fun game, your goal should be to make each room serve a purpose. When writing a room, ask yourself what it contributes to the game overall. Is it somewhere that Players would want to go? Are there things to do in that room when they first arrive? What about upon subsequent visits? Does this room suit the setting? Does it provide valuable insights into the world’s lore? Will this room be used to further the story? If your game is a killing game role play, can this room be used to create an interesting murder? Is there already a room that serves the same purpose that this one would? Remember, the ultimate purpose of a room is to provide players a setting in which to role play. If it doesn’t serve that purpose, why have that room at all? If there’s nothing interesting to do there, then nobody will go there, and you’ll have wasted your time creating that room.

If you’re conducting a killing game role play, new areas of the game world are generally expected to be made accessible to the players as they progress through the story. You don’t have to follow this procedure, but it does keep the game engaging if the players always have a new area to explore. You can plan for this by using Flags to mark the current point in the story—like chapters—that, when set with certain values, automatically unlock the corresponding section of the map. Then, when writing Room descriptions, you can use if conditionals to systematically change the descriptions to indicate the new state of the game world based on that Flag’s value. If you write your game with this procedure in mind, it allows you to pace the storytelling such that the players are always gaining new insights into the lore exactly when you want them to.

This procedure also allows you to make certain areas of the map more memorable. If each section of the map has its own unique theme, that allows you to tailor each room to suit that theme, as well as write the lore contained in that section to revolve around it. These things can all make your story more compelling and more memorable.

Making all of the Players NPCs during the writing process can be helpful. This way, you can write up and test all of their data in advance without loading them into the game world before the game begins, and without them even being in the server.

This section of this tutorial is a work in progress. There is always more to consider when writing your game. Writing is a learned skill in general, as it is for games using Alter Ego.

Preparing a game

When most or all of your game has been written, it comes time to prepare for the game to begin. This can be a stressful period in the development cycle.

The first step you should take in the preparation phase is to make your server presentable before inviting the players. If you have any moderator-controlled Player characters that you’d like to keep hidden, you should give their account the Hidden role and making sure there are no publicly accessible channels where they appear on the user list. Make sure to delete any messages in publicly accessible channels that spoil the game. If any of your room channels have message history enabled for players, make sure to delete any messages that have been sent in that channel. Create any supplementary channels that the players might need, such as RP rules, a guide to writing Alter Ego dialog, a guide to the basics of the RP universe, rules for the game, a list of players, maps, and so on. If you’re creating any new channel categories that are intended to be publicly accessible, remember to activate the read message history permission for everyone, and deny access to members with the Hidden role.

Once you’ve prepared the server, you can invite all of the players to join. When they do, you’ll need to change their nicknames to match the names of their Player characters and give each of them the Player role. Make sure to remind each player to check their privacy settings for the server to make sure that Direct Messages from server members are allowed; otherwise Alter Ego will be unable to send them messages. Your players will likely be excited that the game is about to begin - let yourself be excited with them.

If, during the writing process, you made all of the Players NPCs, you’ll need to make them regular Players now by changing their title and assigning their Discord ID. Be warned that once you do this, loading the game after this point will give them access to the channel associated with their location. If you want to continue testing, give them all a Status Effect on the spreadsheet with the following behavior attributes: disable all, no speech, no channel, hidden, no hearing, no sight, unconscious. This will prevent them from gaining access to any Room channels and from getting most messages related to the game, but be aware that they will still receive Status Effect inflicted and cured messages unless their other Status Effects are manually removed from the sheet. For this reason, it’s recommended that if you’re not currently testing something, you should keep Alter Ego running without having any game data loaded until it’s time to begin. Once you finish testing, you can simply reboot Alter Ego to unload everything.

During this step, you should consult with all of the players and decide when the game sessions will be held. For a killing game role play, the Alter Ego works best with daily 8-hour sessions, with break days between chapters. This is a huge time commitment, and coordinating the schedules of 16 or more people is a difficult task. Try to find the time that consistently works for the most people possible. Of course, choosing the date that the role play begins on is hard, too - arguably even more so than selecting a time for the sessions to begin. The first day of the session is one of the most important - it’s one of the few times you want every player to participate. Just do the best you can to find a day that works for everyone.

When preparing a game, you should procure a Virtual Private Server (VPS) on which to host Alter Ego. Running it continuously on a (Windows) personal computer is SEVERELY not recommended. Doing so will likely result in Alter Ego being slow and unresponsive when dealing with more than a few Players, and it may even crash. Running it on a VPS will drastically increase performance. If you have no experience operating a VPS, it can be challenging to learn, but it is worth it. You will not find a VPS for free, and you should be suspicious of any that purport to be free. However, there are affordable options, especially considering how little operating power Alter Ego requires, with options ranging from $4 a month. Some good VPS providers include Hetzner, DigitalOcean, and Linode. Once you have a VPS, you’ll need to repeat steps 1-2 of the installation and setup tutorial on it, but then you can copy your .env file over to it and get Alter Ego up and running with ease.

You can write a custom spawn message for all of the Players to receive when the game begins for the first time. This can be an effective way of immediately immersing the Players into the game world. To accomplish this, all you need to do is make an Event which is ongoing at the start of the game. For the sake of example, this Event will be called SPAWN. Once it exists, you can modify the description of the first Exit in each Room that the Players spawn into to contain an if conditional tag that checks whether the SPAWN Event is ongoing or not. This message can be customized to suit each individual Player. You can then end the SPAWN Event immediately after everyone spawns in so that they don’t receive the spawn message again when they inspect or enter the Room through the first Exit. An example of a description that uses this tactic looks something like this:

<desc><if cond="findEvent('SPAWN').ongoing === true"><s>You wake up feeling disoriented.</s> <s>It doesn't take long for your eyes to adjust to the <if cond="findEvent('DAYTIME').ongoing === true">bright</if><if cond="findEvent('NIGHTTIME').ongoing === true">dim</if> light of the room, and you find yourself in bed in what appears to be a small dorm of sorts.</s> <s>You don't remember how you got here.</s><br /><br /><s>You look around.</s> <s>You're currently lying in a BED, which is pushed into the corner of the room.</s> <s>A NIGHTSTAND is just to your right.</s> <s>In the corner past it is a small CLOSET with a DRESSER beside it.</s> <s>A MONITOR is mounted on the wall to your right.</s> <s>Looking up at the ceiling, you notice a CAMERA between the dull fluorescent lights.</s> <s>On the wall to your left, past the foot of the bed, is a wall-mounted MIRROR.</s> <s>There is a DOOR on the wall across from you, with an electronic SWITCH just above the door handle.</s> <s>Beside it is a TRASH CAN.</s></if><if cond="findEvent('SPAWN').ongoing === false"><s>You enter dorm 1.</s> <s>In the back right corner is a BED, which has a NIGHTSTAND just to the left of it.</s> <s>A MIRROR is mounted on the wall to the right, past the foot of the bed.</s> <s>In the back left corner is a small CLOSET.</s> <s>Beside it, against the left wall, is a DRESSER.</s> <s>A MONITOR is mounted on the left wall as well.</s> <s>Looking up at the ceiling, you notice a CAMERA between the dull fluorescent lights.</s> <s>The DOOR behind you is fitted with an electronic SWITCH just above the door handle.</s> <s>There is a TRASH CAN just beside the door.</s></if></desc>

Once all of your preparations have been made and you have Alter Ego up and running, it’s officially time to start the game. Note that if you have all of the Player data written on the spreadsheet already, you don’t have to use the startgame command at all, and doing so will result in your Player data being overwritten. To begin, all you need to do is send .load all start.

Running a game

If the entire game world has been written and thoroughly tested in advance, then the process of running the game can be surprisingly easy. In this situation, Alter Ego handles everything like a well-oiled machine. For the most part, you can take this time to sit back and watch the players interact with one another as they move through the game world. The first day will be busy, however. In a killing game role play, this is when you’ll have to have an NPC explain the situation and the rules of the game, usually with all players present in the same room.

Running the game can be stressful. For that reason, you should make sure that you have people to support you during this time - ideally, people who aren’t players in the game. You may get frustrated, but don’t take your anger out on the players. Don’t forget to eat, drink water, and use the restroom throughout the session, and try to get enough sleep at night. The game should not take priority over your physical, mental, and emotional needs, and giving it that priority will only make you more stressed.

Dealing with bugs

When the game is finally underway, this is when your game world will truly be tested. Players will act in ways that you may not have anticipated, which could reveal bugs that you didn’t catch during development. This is why the more testing you did beforehand, the better - the more bugs you caught in advance, the fewer you’ll have to fix during the game itself. When they do pop up, you can usually just turn on edit mode and fix them within a few minutes.

There will be some bugs whose cause you can’t quickly identify. If they’re not that severe, you can simply let them be until the game session is over and you have time to study them without players getting in the way. Sometimes, all you need to do is reboot Alter Ego and send .load all resume. If this resolves the issue, the bug can usually be attributed to Alter Ego’s internal data structures getting out of sync with each other. If the bug is severe enough, it can lead to a stressful situation. Having a moderator-controlled Player character in reserve can come in handy in these scenarios, as it can allow you to experiment with the bug until you determine the cause so that you can fix it.

Managing time

You should try to limit the number of NPCs that you have to control as a moderator. It takes a lot of energy to write multiple characters at once, and players tend to want to interact with them. Don’t be afraid to let other people write NPCs, such as other moderators, dead players, or spectators. Just be sure to communicate adequately with them so that they know what the character is like, what their purpose is, and what they are and aren’t allowed to tell players.

It’s likely you’ll have planned events to carry out during each chapter. For example, you might have an important NPC speak with the players about a significant plot detail, or you may be planning a deadly combat encounter, or there might be an in-depth Puzzle that requires moderator assistance to solve. In order to prevent players from blazing through all of the chapter’s content on the first day, you can implement bottlenecks to prevent them from making progress too quickly. For example, you might lock the Exits to important areas, or you could implement a Puzzle that the players can’t solve until an Event makes the clues visible close to the end of the game session, or you could make an NPC refuse to let the players take on a combat encounter until they’re adequately prepared. Measures like these can make these planned events less stressful to conduct.

Conducting a murder case

Note

If you aren’t using Alter Ego to conduct a killing game role play, you can skip this section.

A high source of stress comes when you have to orchestrate a murder case. Sometimes, you’ll find that nobody wants to commit a murder. This can be troublesome, as the game can’t progress if no one is willing to kill a fellow player. To prevent this, you should provide motives that you know will be highly tempting for at least a few characters. You can even plan murders with certain players before the game even begins to circumvent this potential problem altogether.

Once a player has come to you with the intent to kill another player, you should help them select a victim, if they haven’t chosen one already. If you know of any players with time conflicts that may prevent them from participating, their characters can make for ideal victims, and you can suggest them to the culprit. You can ask those players if they’re willing to let their character die, but you’re not obligated to get permission—all players should be made aware that their characters may die throughout the course of the game, sometimes without warning.

If the prospective culprit wants to target a player whose writer doesn’t want them to die, this can create an opportunity for combat if the chosen victim intends to fight back. During combat, you should give all involved Players the heated Status Effect, which will slow down movement speed for all other Players. Then, you should take turns gathering input from all involved players about what they intend to do during their next combat move. You can use the roll command to roll a Die to determine the success of each action and narrate the results. In this scenario, the chosen victim can actually come out on top and kill the prospective killer, which can create an interesting murder case.

During a murder, you should take care to prevent the culprit from getting caught in the act of killing the victim. If the Room it occurs in is unlocked, keep an eye on the surrounding area to make sure that no Players are wandering around. Also be sure that the killer has an escape route that they can use without getting caught carrying a weapon or covered in blood. This can be difficult, as there are a lot of Players to keep track of and you’ll already be busy narrating the murder. This is where it can come in handy to have other moderators who can keep an eye on things and distract nearby Players.

You won’t have time to write in-depth clues for an investigation without turning on edit mode for an unusually long time - this can tip players off out-of-character that something is going on, which can influence how they behave in-character. If you need to, you can always just write the victim’s body into the Room description so that players can discover it, and then save writing clues for after the session is over. There’s nothing wrong with preventing Players from inspecting the body until the next day. When you do write clues, try to find ways to incorporate the Players’ intelligence stat into the descriptions using if conditionals. For example, Players with a high perception stat may notice details about the body that other Players don’t. This can make players who created characters with high perception stats feel like the investment was worth it.

Once a murder has occurred, you’ll have to do a lot of writing. Aside from clues, you’ll have to write a case summary and execution, and these can be time-consuming processes. However, once everything has been written, you can largely sit back and relax while players investigate. You should give players ample time to investigate all the clues; although generally only a few hours are needed.

If there is going to be a trial, you should warn the players not to discuss the case while they investigate, as that can easily sour the trial by making the discussion seem redundant.

There may come a point during the trial when the players are stuck. If this is the case, you can help them. It can be anxiety-inducing for the players to vote for the wrong culprit, after all. Whether you want to handle that outcome and how you choose to do so is up to you. You might give the culprit a special victory scene before rewinding to earlier in the trial to give the other players another chance, or you might kill the character they voted for and let the real culprit go free, among other possibilities. When the trial is finally over, however, you can generally take the rest of the day easy.

After the trial, you should take a few break days before resuming the game. You and your players need time to rest and recharge.

Ending the game

As you approach the end of the game, the cast will inevitably feel more tight-knit than it started out with. They’ve worked together to overcome countless obstacles, and now it’s time for them to put an end to it all. Near the end of the game, the players should have a lot of information about the story - perhaps nearly enough to identify the mastermind behind everything, with only a few pieces missing. The last few days should give them an opportunity to obtain the missing pieces they need.

Pacing the last few days of a game can be difficult. You want to ensure that the players feel like they’re making progress without overwhelming them with too much information at once or too many dramatic reveals. Once they have all the tools they need, though, have confidence in them.

The final day is what all of your work has been building up to. Make sure that they’ll be able to do everything you have planned for them within the game session. The players should confront the mastermind in one final encounter. Since this is the finale, there’s no need to hold back any secrets - the players have worked hard to uncover the truth throughout the game, and they deserve to hear everything. The players absolutely must have agency in the finale. If all of the important choices are being made by NPCs, then it can be underwhelming for the players who have invested all of their time and energy into the game. They should have a say in how the game ends. You should account for the different choices they may want to make and give them set options to choose from so that you’re not blindsided by their decisions.

The final moments of the game will be filled with emotion as the players reflect on everything they’ve been through and resolve to face the future they chose. Let yourself be emotional with them. Be proud of them for making it this far, and be proud of yourself for everything you’ve accomplished, too. Running a game with Alter Ego is a difficult endeavor, but if you’ve made it to this point, then you’ve succeeded. It feels immensely rewarding to reach the ending, to say that you finished a game. Enjoy it. And when everyone is ready, end the game by issuing the command, .endgame.

Mapmaking

As the Alter Ego facilitates gameplay in the style of a text adventure, it can be somewhat disorienting for players to navigate the game world. Although it is not technically required to use Alter Ego, creating a map is very beneficial, both for moderators and for players. There are three key advantages to drawing a map:

1. It makes inputting Exit positions significantly easier,
2. It makes it easier to visualize the perspective when entering a room from a given Exit, thus making writing its description less challenging, and
3. It makes it easier for players to navigate the game world.

This tutorial will explain the process of making maps for Alter Ego. It will not teach you how to draw, or how to create a subjectively good map. Be aware that the information in this tutorial is only a set of guidelines, and not required by any means. You can make maps however you see fit.

Part 1: Installing GIMP

In order to make a map, you will need image editing software that:

1. Allows you to draw,
2. Allows you to edit raster graphics, and
3. Displays the current coordinates of your cursor.

Shockingly few image editing programs meet all three of these criteria. The third requirement, in particular, is not a feature that most popular image editing programs have. Microsoft Paint does, but that program is too simplistic for the purposes of drawing a map, and it is only available on Windows. Software with more advanced features and wider compatibility is ideal. For the purposes of this tutorial, GIMP is recommended, as it satisfies all of these criteria. You can download it for your operating system using the link below:

https://www.gimp.org/downloads/

This tutorial will use version 3.2.4, as it is the latest version at the time of writing. However, you are free to use a later version, if one is available.

When you open it, it should look something like this:

Part 2: Configuring GIMP

There are a few steps that can make your experience using GIMP easier. Open the Edit menu and select Preferences. In the box to the left, select Default Grid. It should look something like this:

This is where you can change the default grid size whenever you create a new image. The grid makes it easy to draw more perfect geometrical shapes. It also makes it easier to create Rooms with a given dimension in meters.

If, when drawing your map, you follow a rule that 1 grid tile represents 1 square meter, then the dimensions of this grid determine your PIXELS_PER_METER setting. By default, that setting is 25. If you want to follow that, enter 25.00 into the Horizontal and Vertical inputs under the Spacing heading.

You can configure any other preferences to your liking, as well. When you’re done, press OK in the Preferences window to save your preferences.

Next, open the Edit menu and select Keyboard Shortcuts, then search for “grid”. Under “view” in the Action column, you should see two actions:

• Show Grid
• Snap to Grid

You will be using the grid a lot, so having shortcuts to toggle these settings on and off will be very helpful. You can set these to whatever you like, but for the sake of this tutorial, they will be set to Ctrl+G and Shift+Ctrl+G, respectively. It should look something like this:

You can configure any other shortcuts you’d like, as well. When you’re done, press OK.

Part 3: Creating a new image

Open the File menu and select New… In the window that appears, you can select the image size. This is an important decision, as it determines the scale of your map. It may be tempting to create a very large image. However, keep in mind that the larger your image, the more space you have to fill up, and the longer it will take for a player to traverse your map.

To give you a sense of scale, assume that Players with three different speed stats—1, 5, and 10—are traversing just the horizontal length of your map. The width of your image in pixels will be displayed in the leftmost column. In the three other columns, the amount of time it will take for each respective Player to walk that many pixels will be displayed, assuming your PIXELS_PER_METER setting is set to the default value of 25.

In all likelihood, since your map will be more complex than just a straight line—Players move in three dimensions, after all—the lengths of time shown here will be longer, depending on the size of your map.

It is better to start small and grow larger, if needed. For the sake of this tutorial, an image with the dimensions 1000x1000 will be created. After setting your dimensions, expand the Advanced Options menu, and from the Fill with dropdown, select Transparency. Then, press OK.

Part 4: Preparing your map file

Before you start drawing, you should make a few preparations.

First, you’ll want to set up the layers you’ll be working on. This is an important first step, as it will make the entire mapmaking process significantly easier. Open the Layers window (this may be docked, depending on your settings) and create a new layer group. A new layer will be created with an icon that looks like a folder, most likely called “Layer Group”. You can right click on it and select Edit Layer Attributes… to give it a name, assign it a color tag, and more. You can name it whatever you like.

Tip

It is often useful to give individual buildings and floors their own named layer groups. This allows you to more easily separate them from the main map and export them as standalone images, so that players can view a map for that specific building or floor.

Now, with your layer group selected, there are two layers you should create. It will help if you give every layer a unique name, so try to prefix these with the name of the layer group you just made:

• Rooms
• Exits

Next, make a new layer group within your layer group, again ideally with the same prefix:

• Labels

Your layers should be sorted like this:

Now, with your layers created, select the Background layer and fill it in with a solid color of your choice. This will make it easier to draw.

Next, open the View menu and make sure Show Grid and Snap to Grid are enabled.

Finally, open the File menu and press Save…. Save your map file somewhere that you won’t forget. You’re going to want to save regularly as you draw your map.

Part 5: Drawing preparations

You’re almost ready to begin drawing. But before that, there are few things to keep in mind.

GIMP shows you the current position of your cursor; this is why it is recommended for making maps over more popular drawing software such as Krita or Clip Studio Paint. As you move your cursor around the image in GIMP, its position relative to the top-left corner of the image will be displayed in the bottom-left corner of the program, like so:

It is important to remember that the top-left corner of your canvas is position 0, 0. If you plan on expanding your map after you’ve already begun entering Exit positions, it is going to be very challenging to do so if you change the position of 0, 0 relative to the rest of the map.

For that reason, it is always best to draw close to the center of the map—in this example, that’s position 500, 500— and expand the canvas down or to the right, if necessary. Expanding the canvas up or to the left after Exit positions have already been entered on the sheet is not recommended.

Lastly, it is important to choose a brush that you will use consistently, with the same settings every time. Once you’ve begun drawing, you will have a difficult time making edits to your map if you can’t remember what brush you used, or what its exact settings were. Once you’ve selected a brush that you like, write its settings down somewhere that you won’t forget.

Part 6: Drawing rooms

This is where the fun part of the mapmaking process begins. There are infinite possibilities for how you can draw rooms on a map, so this section will merely offer some guidelines on how to do that effectively.

First of all it is very helpful to draw with straight lines. There are two reasons for this:

1. It makes it easier to draw your map and cleanly connect rooms to each other, and
2. It makes it easier to add labels (more on that later).

To draw a straight line, make sure that Snap to Grid is enabled, and click on an intersection on the grid with your brush. Then, hold Shift, move your cursor to another intersection on the grid, and click on it. If you’d like to constrain your line to angles in increments of 15°, you can also hold Ctrl at the same time as Shift.

Before drawing a room, you should have a rough idea of what you’re going to put there. It may be tempting from an artistic point of view to create a very large map with lots of rooms, and many exits connecting them to each other. However, keep in mind that you are drawing a map for a game, and you will have to fill each room with things for your players to inspect and interact with. If your map has lots of rooms, but very little to do in each one, your players will most likely not find your map fun and engaging to explore.

It is also important to keep in mind the scale of each room, and how they will connect to each other. If a room appears very large on your map, it will be strange if its in-game description and layout do not match its size. Additionally, if the rooms have too many exits connecting them to each other, this means you will have more Exit descriptions to write, and this can be disorienting for players (although this can be used to great effect, if done intentionally).

You are free to add details to your rooms on the map, such as their layout, but remember that doing so makes it necessary to update your map if the layout changes when your write the room on the sheet. A simple map just showing the boundaries of all of the rooms will suffice, like so:

Part 7: Placing exits

Next, it’s time to place markers for where the exits in all of the rooms are. This is a relatively straightforward process, and mostly consists of drawing straight lines on your Exits layer. Ideally, you should use a color that contrasts with every other color that you will use in your maps. You may draw different buildings or sections of your map with different colors, but the color of your exits should be consistent for all of them.

If you’re not sure what color to use, bright red (#FF0000) is usually a good option, but keep in mind that this, too, can be difficult to contrast with other colors for people with red-green color blindness. Whichever color you use to denote exits, ensure that there is contrast not only in its hue, but also in its saturation and value. It may also help to have a key somewhere in the image to denote what an exit is.

It is also helpful to align your exits with intersections on the grid. This will make it easier to enter their positions on the Rooms sheet later. If you have Snap to Grid enabled, you won’t need to be very precise in where you place your cursor; the position displayed in the bottom-left will snap to the grid, as well.

When you’re done, your exits may be placed something like this:

Part 8: Adding labels

Placing labels on your map can be challenging, for one simple reason: GIMP doesn’t offer a way to easily center text vertically. It’s easy to center text horizontally, but centering it vertically will require more work, and it usually comes down to approximation.

When labeling your map, it is important to use a consistent font and color. The size of your font can vary—ideally, it should be as large as it can be while fitting within the boundaries of the room—but the font itself should be consistent and easy to read, and the color should contrast well with the color of the background.

To add text to your image, select the Labels layer group you made earlier. You may want to create more layer groups within it, for the sake of better organization; for example, you may have a layer group specifically for room labels, and another for hall or path labels. Then, open the Text Tool and click somewhere in the room you want to label. Type the name of the room.

Now, to align it, open the Tool Options window (this may be docked, depending on your settings) for the Text Tool, and next to Justify, select the Centered option. Expand the boundaries of the text box so that they extend from one boundary of the room to the other, horizontally. Then, you can move the text vertically until it looks about centered— you may need to disable Snap to Grid for this. It should look something like this:

Despite not allowing you to easily center text vertically, GIMP’s text tools are quite flexible. For instance, you can enter text in a variety of orientations. To enter text with a vertical orientation, select the Use editor window option in the Text Tool’s options window. There are several orientations to choose from, but one that is most often useful is “Vertical, right to left (mixed orientation)”. This will allow you to enter text rotated at a 90° angle, which can be helpful for rooms that are taller than they are wide, like so:

As of version 3.0, GIMP also allows you to enter text at any angle, and along any path that you desire. However, this is more complicated, and beyond the scope of this tutorial. For more information, see GIMP’s official documentation.

When you’re done adding labels, your map is basically complete!

From here, you can add any additional details that you want, and then open the File menu, and select Export… to render it as a completed image.

Appendix: Examples

Although the map made in this tutorial was relatively simple, more complex maps are possible. Several examples will be presented here.

Example 1: Mountain interior

This map is for the interior of a mountain, with a cave system. Note how most of the rooms have rugged outlines. Despite that, some of the rooms (particularly those on the west side) are comprised of straight or right angles, implying they were constructed by humans. On the east side are caves with more curved, twisted paths, implying they formed naturally.

Note that for all of the curved paths, the text curves along with the path itself, and remains mostly centered. Although this is tedious to accomplish—it requires mastery over GIMP’s Path Tool—it can be done.

This map is clearly meant to be disorienting for players to navigate, while not being so large that it’s impossible to find one’s way around without getting lucky.

Example 2: Evolving map

These demonstrate how a map can evolve over the course of a game. As each subsequent area unlocks, the fog of war obscuring the map is gradually lifted. Additionally, some rooms are replaced—such as the dorm building in the top right—or removed entirely—like Shaft 2 in the bottom right, to reflect the actions of players who destroyed or otherwise made these rooms inaccessible.

This map is also drawn at a different scale, and with a different style than any others that have been shown so far. There is also a key in the lower left-hand corner to indicate that red markers are for exits between rooms, while yellow markers are for boundaries that are not passable to players yet.

Example 3: Artificial biosphere

This map demonstrates how visual effects can be used to communicate more about the setting than simply where rooms are in relation to each other. This area, labeled “Biosphere”, has a number of natural-looking features, such as a spring, a river, and several twisted, natural-looking paths. Several of the boundaries of the different rooms are unclear; for example, it isn’t immediately obvious where, precisely, the different paths begin and end, implying they are interconnected, the way real paths in a forest would be.

Everything about this map indicates that it contains a “natural” environment, but it is clearly boxed into the confines of an artificial, human-constructed space. To add to this effect, there are grid lines in the background, and all of the map’s features emit a subtle glow, evoking a futuristic, science fiction vibe.

Writing Descriptions

Writing for Alter Ego is somewhat complex, but thanks to its custom parser module, it is incredibly flexible. Alter Ego makes use of XML formatting to understand what the moderator has written so that it can make changes as necessary.

Tip

Alter Ego Tools is a program that can make writing descriptions much easier. Although it can’t handle everything, it can save you a lot of time. It even has a very useful procedural generator. Try it out, if you’re able to!

Basic concepts of XML

XML, short for eXtensible Markup Language, was designed to store and transport data, and to be relatively simple to understand. In XML, data is wrapped in tags, like so: <tag>data</tag>.

In XML, you can nest tags. For example, you can write:

<tag>
  <text>
    data
  </text>
</tag>

Note that when nesting tags, you must close them in the same order you opened them. Therefore, you cannot write something like this:

<tag>
  <text>
  data
</tag>
    </text>

Additionally, you can add attributes to tags to give them more information. In order to assign an attribute, use the following format: <tag attribute="something">data</tag>.

XML is similar to HTML. However, the primary difference between the two is that unlike HTML, XML doesn’t do anything. XML is used to carry data, but unless a program was designed to interpret that specific data, the XML won’t do anything. HTML, on the other hand, is used to modify how data looks. Additionally, XML tags are not predefined like HTML tags are. For example, entering <b>text</b> in an HTML document will display **text ** in a bold font. Entering that in an XML document, however, will have no effect because XML tags have no inherent meaning.

How parsing works

When Alter Ego is instructed to parse a Description, the Description object is passed to the parser module, along with the Game Entity it belongs to (referred to as the container), and the Player the parsed Description will be sent to.

An exact copy of the Description object is created, so that the original is not modified whatsoever. When this occurs, the text of the Description is converted to a Document.

Alter Ego then evaluates all if tag Elements in the Document, populates any item lists and removes ones that are empty, evaluates all var tags, and replaces all br tags with line breaks.

Finally, after all of these operations, it converts the Document into a plain-text String. This is what will be sent to the Player that the Description was parsed for.

It is important to note that most of the time, when a Description is sent to a Player with Interactables, those Interactables will be generated using only the text that exists in the final parsed Description. Any text contained inside of tags whose contents were removed during parsing will not be used to generate Interactables. This is to ensure that Interactables are generated based strictly on what the Player can see in the parsed Description.

How Interactables are generated is beyond the scope of this article. However, to give a brief overview, all strings in the parsed Description consisting entirely of non-lowercase letters are considered potential Game Entities. Alter Ego takes these uppercase strings and attempts to find the Game Entities that they are referring to, and generates Interactables for them if they are found.

Since this is done using the text exactly as it appears in the parsed Description, this means that you have to write Descriptions to refer to Game Entities by name directly if you want Interactables to be generated for them. For example, suppose you have three Fixtures named LOCKER 1, LOCKER 2, and LOCKER 3. If, in a Description, you refer to them as: “LOCKERS 1 - 3”, Interactables will not be generated for them, as none of their names will appear in the parsed Description. To generate Interactables for them, they must be referred to individually by their names, like so: “LOCKER 1, LOCKER 2, and LOCKER 3”.

The remainder of this article will document every tag Alter Ego supports, and how to use it effectively.

<desc>

Example:

<desc>This is the simplest description you can write.</desc>

The desc tag is used to mark the beginning and ending of a description. It must be included in every single description.

desc tags are capable of having attributes. There is one attribute with defined behavior, the type attribute. This allows you to set the message display type that the parsed description will be sent with. This will override the default message display type of the description.

Only five message display types can be set with the type attribute:

• STANDARD
• WARNING
• ALERT
• MINOR
• PLAIN_TEXT

<s>

Example:

<desc><s>After leaving the PARK, you come to a crossroads.</s> <s>To your left is PATH 2.</s> <s>Straight ahead is PATH 3.</s> <s>To your right is PATH 4.</s> <s>It seems all of these roads lead you to the north side of the island.</s></desc>

The s tag, short for sentence, is used to mark the beginning and ending of a sentence. The closing tag should always go after the final punctuation mark of the sentence. There should generally be a space between the closing tag of one sentence and the opening tag of another sentence. It isn’t technically required that every sentence be in its own s tag. For the most part, unless a single sentence contains other tags, such as item lists, the s tag can go around multiple sentences. For example, this would be perfectly acceptable:

<desc><s>You inspect the couches. They are soft and comfortable, and each is lined with a few pillows.</s> <s>Looking underneath the cushions, you find <il></il>.</s></desc>

<br>

Example:

<desc><s>You flip through the diary.</s> <s>Most of the pages are blacked out.</s> <s>A few things remain:</s><br /><s>-"my wife's birthday is on the 4th Monday of the month this year,"</s><br /><s>-"anniversary dinner went great, but my wife's birthday is in just 3 days and I don't know what to get her!"</s></desc>

The br tag, short for break, is used to divide text into multiple lines. In general, you should never split the contents of a cell on the spreadsheet into multiple lines. Instead, use the br tag. Note that the br tag cannot surround text, so it must be closed in the same tag that it is opened with, like so: <br />. If a Player inspects the example description above, it will be divided into multiple lines, like this:

You flip through the diary. Most of the pages are blacked out. A few things remain:
-"my wife's birthday is on the 4th Monday of the month this year,"
-"anniversary dinner went great, but my wife's birthday is in just 3 days and I don't know what to get her!"

<il>

Example:

<desc><s>The floor beneath you is soft and earthy.</s> <s>You find <il></il> haphazardly placed on it.</s></desc>

The il tag, short for item list, is used to mark where items will be inserted into a description. Items are inserted between the opening and closing il tags whenever a description is sent to a player. They are generated on-demand by fetching the list of items that are currently contained in the game entity that the description belongs to.

If an item list is empty, the entire sentence containing the item list will be removed from the parsed description. So, in the example above, if the item list is determined to be empty, the player will be sent: The floor beneath you is soft and earthy.

If you want to prevent an item list sentence from being removed from the parsed description when the container it belongs to contains no items, you can enter text between the opening and closing il tags, like so:

<desc><s>It's a long, white countertop.</s> <s>It's broken up only by a SINK in the middle.</s> <s>On it, you find <il>a BLENDER and a MIXER</il>.</s></desc>

Pay close attention to the above example, and ensure that sentence-ending punctuation is never placed inside of il tags.

il tags are capable of having attributes. There is one attribute with defined behavior, the name attribute. This allows you to insert multiple item lists into a description, giving each a name. This looks like:

<desc><s>It's a plain pair of black jeans.</s> <s>It has four pockets in total.</s> <s>In the right pocket, you find <il name="RIGHT POCKET"></il>.</s> <s>In the left pocket, you find <il name="LEFT POCKET"></il>.</s> <s>In the right back pocket, you find <il name="RIGHT BACK POCKET"></il>.</s> <s>In the left back pocket, you find <il name="LEFT BACK POCKET"></il>.</s></desc>

Note that only Prefabs, Room Items, Inventory Items, and Players support multiple il tags in a single description.

il tags can only be used in a certain number of places, and each one has its own limitations. They can be used in:

• A Fixture’s description. A single Fixture can only have one item list in its description.
• A Prefab’s description. A single Prefab can have multiple item lists; however, there must be one for each Inventory Slot, with names to match each slot’s ID. Item lists in a Prefab’s description will never have items inserted into them, since players cannot directly inspect Prefabs. They simply serve as a base for instances of that Prefab.
• A Room Item or Inventory Item’s description. The same rules that Prefabs have apply, however these item lists can actually display items.
• A Puzzle’s Already Solved Description. A single Puzzle can only have one item list in its Already Solved Description.
• A Player’s description. A single Player can only have two item lists in their description, and they must be named equipment and hands. Any other item lists will never be updated.

Lastly, every item list must be in its own sentence. That is, a single s tag can only have one il tag within it.

<item>

Example:

<desc><s>You open the locker.</s> <s>Inside, you find <il><item>a SWIMSUIT</item></il>.</s></desc>

The item tag is used to mark the beginning and ending of items. In previous versions of Alter Ego, it was necessary to include these when writing item lists in descriptions. However, as of version 2.0, you should not enter these manually.

item tags are generated on-demand whenever a description containing an item list is parsed and sent to a player. They do not persist within the description after that. Additionally, if item tags are found to already be in a description when it is created, Alter Ego will attempt to remove them in a grammatically correct manner. However, it may not be able to do so completely perfectly. Therefore, if you already have item tags in your descriptions, you should remove them manually.

When an item list is generated for a given il tag, the parser module retrieves all items currently contained inside the game entity the item list corresponds with, and collates them so that any item with the same Prefab ID and containing phrases are considered the same item. Then, for each item in the list, it creates an item tag, whose contents are as follows:

• The item’s plural containing phrase, if it has an infinite quantity and isn’t already mentioned in the sentence,
• The item’s quantity and plural containing phrase if it has a quantity greater than 1, or
• The item’s single containing phrase, if it has a quantity of 1.

item tags are inserted into the description in the order they appear in on the sheet. They are inserted so as to follow several grammatical rules:

• If there are two items, they will be separated by the word “and”, like so:
  • <il><item>ITEM 1</item> and <item>ITEM 2</item></il>
• If there are three or more items, the item tags will be comma-separated, and an Oxford comma will be inserted before the word “and” preceding the last item tag, like so:
  • <il><item>ITEM 1</item>, <item>ITEM 2</item>, and <item>ITEM 3</item></il>
• If the word “is” or the word “are” is the last word in the clause just before an item list or the first word in the clause just after an item list, it will be changed to the other word in order to properly reflect the plurality of the referenced items. For example, if a sentence like <s>There is <il></il> on the desk.</s> contains an item with a quantity greater than 1, or multiple items, it will be changed like so:
  • <s>There are <il><item>2 PENCILS</item></il> on the desk.</s>, or
  • <s>There are <il><item>a PENCIL</item> and <item>an ERASER</item></il> on the desk.</s>
• If an item list contains non-items, they will be updated according to the same rules that item tags follow. For example, in the sentence <s>The shelves are lined with <il>different ingredients for baking and dough mixes</il>.</s>, if the description’s container contains an item, an Oxford comma will be inserted before the final “and”, like so:
  • <s>The shelves are lined with <il><item>2 bags of RICE</item>, different ingredients for baking, and dough mixes</il>.</s>

It is worth noting that item tags will always be inserted at the beginning of an item list, never at the end.

<if>

Caution

This tag has the ability to run code. In order to determine if the condition in the cond attribute is true, Alter Ego uses its scriptParser module, which evaluates code in a heavily restricted context. While it has been tested to prevent access to many functions which can cause severe damage, its security cannot be guaranteed, especially if Alter Ego is run outside of a Docker container. Given that the only way to insert code is to write it on the spreadsheet, write access should be given to as few people as possible. There may exist exploits that allow malicious users to do such things as:

• Sending Alter Ego’s authentication token to the server
• Killing a player in the game
• Shutting down Alter Ego
• Read, modify, and delete files on your computer

We, the Alter Ego developers, assume no responsibility for damage caused by malicious use of this feature. You have been warned.

Example:

<desc><s>It's a small, glossy red berry.</s> <s>It looks ripe.</s> <if cond="player.name === 'Nestor' || player.name === 'Jun'"><s>It's a holly berry.</s> <s>It can cause vomiting and diarrhea.</s> <s>It's best not to eat this.</s></if></desc>

The if tag is used to modify the contents of a description before it is sent to a player. If the condition in the cond (condition) attribute is true, then the contents of the if tag will be kept in the description. If it is false, the contents will be removed. In the above example, there are two outcomes:

• If the Player inspecting this Room Item has the name “Nestor” or “Jun”, the condition is true, and they will be sent It's a small, glossy red berry. It looks ripe. It's a holly berry. It can cause vomiting and diarrhea. It's best not to eat this.
• If the Player inspecting this Room Item doesn’t have the name “Nestor” or “Jun”, the condition is false, and they will be sent It's a small, glossy red berry. It looks ripe.

You can chain multiple if tags together for different outcomes. For example, in this Fixture description:

<desc><s>The window covers most of the wall, filling the room with <if cond="findEvent('NIGHT').ongoing === true">moonlight</if><if cond="findEvent('NIGHT').ongoing === false">sunlight</if>.</s></desc>

• If the NIGHT Event is ongoing, the Player inspecting this Fixture will be sent: The window covers most of the wall, filling the room with moonlight.
• If the NIGHT Event is not ongoing, the Player inspecting this Fixture will be sent: The window covers most of the wall, filling the room with sunlight.

Since there is no else tag, if you want to chain if tags together to display different text for different outcomes, you must ensure that the conditions described in the cond attribute are mutually exclusive, and cannot overlap. If you wanted to expand the example above to have text for when it’s inspected by a Player whose name isn’t Jun or Nestor, you would express the condition as:

<desc><s>It's a small, glossy red berry.</s> <s>It looks ripe.</s> <if cond="player.name === 'Nestor' || player.name === 'Jun'"><s>It's a holly berry.</s> <s>It can cause vomiting and diarrhea.</s> <s>It's best not to eat this.</s></if><if cond="player.name !== 'Nestor' && player.name !== 'Jun'"><s>You're not sure what this is.</s> <s>Would it really be so bad to eat just one?</s></if></desc>

Knowledge of JavaScript and Boolean algebra will help significantly in writing good if conditions.

There are several loosely-defined categories of if conditions that are used frequently when writing descriptions:

Player conditionals

The function which parses descriptions (and thus, if tags) has access to the Player inspecting it. As a result, you can easily write descriptions that change based on a number of the Player’s attributes. Here are a few examples:

• Based on the Player’s name:

  <if cond="player.name === 'Astrid'">Your name is Astrid.</if>
  

• Based on the Player’s title:

  <if cond="player.title === 'Mortician'">You are a Mortician.</if>
  

• Based on the Player’s perception stat:

  <if cond="player.perception > 7">Something about a portion of the wall behind the curtain seems off. It's almost as if... you could push right past it and walk through.</if>
  

• Based on whether a Player has a given Status Effect:

  <if cond="player.hasStatus('hungry')">This food looks delicious.</if>
  

• Based on whether a Player has a given behavior attribute:

  <if cond="player.hasBehaviorAttribute('acute hearing')">It produces an extremely faint noise that you should be able to make out if you listen closely.</if>
  

• Based on whether a Player has an Inventory Item with a specific Prefab ID:

  <if cond="player.hasItem('MAGNIFYING GLASS') === true">You use your MAGNIFYING GLASS to read the text, which is as follows: "HBD KKZ RDD ZKK".</if>
  

Container conditionals

The function which parses descriptions also has access to the entire container of the description, which is accessible with the this keyword. That is, if the description belongs to a Room, you can write descriptions that change:

• Based on the number of Players in the room:

  <if cond="this.occupants.length > 6">It's a little cramped with so many people in a room this small.</if>
  

• Based on whether a given Exit is unlocked:

  <s>You step out of the TRUCK into a <if cond="this.getExit('BLAST DOOR').unlocked === false">dark cave, which is illuminated only by flashlight</if><if cond="this.getExit('BLAST DOOR').unlocked === true">dimly lit cave, with the only light coming from outside</if>.</s>
  

If the description belongs to a Fixture, you can write descriptions that change:

• Based on whether the Fixture’s child Puzzle has been solved:

  <desc><if cond="this.childPuzzle.solved === true"><s>You examine the poster.</s> <s>It looks like this: https://i.imgur.com/wtUujam.png</s></if><if cond="this.childPuzzle.solved === false"><s>It is too dark to see anything.</s></if></desc>
  

• Based on whether the Fixture is currently activated:

  <desc><s>It's a stovetop burner.</s> <s>It's gas-powered, which means you'll be cooking with actual fire.</s> <if cond="this.activated"><s>It's currently burning.</s></if> <s>On it, you find <il></il>.</s></desc>
  

• Based on whether the Fixture contains a Room Item with the given Prefab ID:

  <desc><s>It's a queen bed with perfectly white sheets<if cond="this.containsItem('COMFORTER') === true"> and a thick, black comforter tucked neatly under the mattress</if>.</s> <s>On it, you find <il></il>.</s></desc>
  

If the description belongs to a Room Item or Inventory Item, you can write descriptions that change:

• Based on the number of uses the Item has left:

  <desc><s>This is a fresh cucumber.</s> <if cond="this.uses < 2"><s>Only half of it remains.</s></if></desc>
  

• Based on whether the Item contains no Items inside of it:

  <desc><s>It's a blue box of medical masks.</s> <s>In it are <il></il>.</s> <if cond="this.containsNoItems() === true"><s>Or at least it's supposed to be, but it's empty.</s></if></desc>
  

• Based on whether the Item has a container with a given name:

  <desc><s>This is a pot made of white clay.</s> <s>It was made on a pottery wheel.</s> <s>The craftsmanship is fairly decent. It has a flat, sturdy bottom that sits perfectly level. The sides are mostly even, but it has a bit of a rough texture, with a few small divots and bumps here and there.</s> <s>It's unglazed, and it still needs to be fired in a kiln.</s> <if cond="this.container && this.container.name === 'POTTERY BAT'"><s>Be sure to take it off of the POTTERY BAT before putting it in the kiln!</s></if></desc>
  

Note that the examples given above are not the only things you can do with the description’s container; they are simply the most helpful and commonly used.

Finder conditionals

The function which evaluates scripts also has access to the finder module, which allows you to find almost any game entity. The finder module includes the following functions (parameters listed in parentheses are optional):

• findRoom('room-id')
• findFixture('FIXTURE NAME', ('location-name'))
• findPrefab('PREFAB ID')
• findRoomItem('ITEM IDENTIFIER OR PREFAB ID', ('location-name'), (Type of Container: 'Fixture' || 'Puzzle' || 'RoomItem'), ('CONTAINER NAME(/INVENTORY SLOT ID)'))
• findPuzzle('PUZZLE NAME', ('location-name'))
• findEvent('EVENT ID')
• findStatusEffect('status effect ID')
• findPlayer('Player name')
• findLivingPlayer('Player name')
• findDeadPlayer('Player name')
• findInventoryItem('ITEM IDENTIFIER OR PREFAB ID', ('Player name'), ('CONTAINER NAME(/INVENTORY SLOT ID)'), ('EQUIPMENT SLOT ID'))
• findGesture('gesture ID')
• findFlag('FLAG ID', (evaluate: true || false))
  • Fetches a Flag’s value. If the second argument is true, the Flag’s value script will be evaluated first. Defaults to false. Even if this is true, the Flag’s set commands will not be executed when the Flag is set.

There are also the following functions, which return an Array of entities that match the given criteria. Every parameter is optional, and can be used to filter the results. If you wish to omit one, simply enter undefined in its place. Omitting all arguments will fetch all of the given type of entity.

• findRooms('id', 'tag', occupied: true || false)
  • id - Filter the Rooms to only those whose ID matches the given ID.
  • tag - Filter the Rooms to only those with the given tag.
  • occupied - Filter the Rooms to only those who have at least one occupant. If this is true, includes NPCs as occupants. If this is false, NPCs are not counted.
• findFixtures('name', 'location', accessible: true || false, 'recipeTag')
  • name - Filter the Fixtures to only those whose name matches the given name.
  • location - Filter the Fixtures to only those whose location ID matches the given location ID.
  • accessible - Filter the Fixtures to only those who are accessible or not.
  • recipeTag - Filter the Fixtures to only those with the given Recipe tag.
• findPrefabs('id', 'effectsString', 'curesString', 'equipmentSlotsString')
  • id - Filter the Prefabs to only those whose ID matches the given ID.
  • effectsString - Filter the Prefabs to only those who inflict the given comma-separated Status Effects.
  • curesString - Filter the Prefabs to only those who cure the given comma-separated Status Effects.
  • equipmentSlotsString - Filter the Prefabs to only those who are equippable to the given comma-separated Equipment Slots.
• findRecipes('type', 'fixtureTag', 'ingredientsString', 'productsString')
  • type - Filter the Recipes to only those of the given type.
  • fixtureTag - Filter the Recipes to only those with the given Fixture tag.
  • ingredientsString - Filter the Recipes to only those with the given comma-separated ingredients.
  • productsString - Filter the Recipes to only those with the given comma-separated products.
• findRoomItems('identifier', 'location', accessible: true || false, 'containerType', 'containerName', 'slotId', 'proceduralSelections')
  • identifier - Filter the Room Items to only those whose identifier or Prefab ID matches the given identifier.
  • location - Filter the Room Items to only those whose location ID matches the given location ID.
  • accessible - Filter the Room Items to only those who are accessible or not.
  • containerType - Filter the Room Items to only those with the given container type.
  • containerName - Filter the Room Items to only those with the given container name. Does not include slot.
  • slotId - Filter the Room Items to only those in the Inventory Slot with the given ID.
  • proceduralSelections - Filter the Room Items to only those with the given procedural selections.
• findPuzzles('name', 'location', 'type', accessible: true || false)
  • name - Filter the Puzzles to only those whose name matches the given name.
  • location - Filter the Puzzles to only those whose location ID matches the given location ID.
  • type - Filter the Puzzles to only those of the given type.
• findEvents('id', ongoing: true || false, 'roomTag', 'effectsString', 'refreshesString')
  • id - Filter the Events to only those whose ID matches the given ID.
  • ongoing - Filter the Events to only those that are ongoing or not.
  • roomTag - Filter the Events to only those with the given Room tag.
  • effectsString - Filter the Events to only those who inflict the given comma-separated Status Effects.
  • refreshesString - Filter the Events to only those who refresh the given comma-separated Status Effects.
• findStatusEffects('id', 'modifiedStatsString', 'attributesString')
  • id - Filter the Status Effects to only those whose ID matches the given ID.
  • modifiedStatsString - Filter the Status Effects to only those who modify the given stats.
  • attributesString - Filter the Status Effects to only those with the given comma-separated behavior attributes.
• findLivingPlayers('name', isNPC: true || false, 'location', 'hidingSpot', 'statusString')
  • name - Filter the Players to only those whose name or display name matches the given name.
  • isNPC - Filter the Players to only those who are NPCs or not.
  • location - Filter the Players to only those whose location ID matches the given location ID.
  • hidingSpot - Filter the Players to only those whose hiding spot matches the given hiding spot.
  • statusString - Filter the Players to only those inflicted with all of the given comma-separated Status Effects.
• findDeadPlayers('name', isNPC: true || false)
  • name - Filter the Players to only those whose name or display name matches the given name.
  • isNPC - Filter the Players to only those who are NPCs or not.
• findInventoryItems('identifier', 'player', 'containerName', 'slotId', 'equipmentSlotId', 'proceduralSelections')
  • identifier - Filter the Inventory Items to only those whose identifier or Prefab ID matches the given identifier.
  • player - Filter the Inventory Items to only those belonging to the given player.
  • containerName - Filter the Inventory Items to only those with the given container name. Does not include slot.
  • slotId - Filter the Inventory Items to only those in the Inventory Slot with the given ID.
  • equipmentSlotId - Filter the Inventory Items to only those belonging to the Equipment Slot with the given ID.
  • proceduralSelections - Filter the Inventory Items to only those with the given procedural selections.
• findGestures('id')
  • id - Filters the Gestures to only those whose ID matches the given ID.
• findFlags('id')
  • id - Filters the Flags to only those whose ID matches the given ID.

Here are just a few examples of ways to use the finder module in if tags:

• Indicate if a Puzzle is solved or not:

  <desc><s>This is a table for praying.</s> <s>On it there are two CANDLES.</s> <if cond="findPuzzle('CANDLES').solved === true"><s>They are currently lit.</s></if><if cond="findPuzzle('CANDLES').solved === false"><s>If you lit them, maybe you'd be able to pray for something.</s></if></desc>
  

• Indicate if a Puzzle is solved or not when there are several Puzzles with the desired name in different Rooms:

  <desc><s>You step onto the bridge from the BOTANICAL GARDEN.</s> <if cond="findPuzzle('LOCK', 'bridge').solved === true"><s>A mysterious CAVE is behind where the waterfall used to be.</s></if><if cond="findPuzzle('LOCK', 'bridge').solved === false"><s>A WATERFALL roars right next to the bridge as you enter, spraying you with a cool mist.</s></if> <s>The bridge arches up slightly over a beautiful lake, and in the middle of the bridge is a GAZEBO.</s> <s>The other end leads to a GREENHOUSE.</s></desc>
  

• Indicate which Puzzle of a pair is currently solved:

  <desc><s>The terminal appears to control the heat sensor for the freezer.</s> <s>It has two buttons: the OFF BUTTON and the ON BUTTON.</s> <if cond="findPuzzle('OFF BUTTON').solved === true"><s>The sensor is already off.</s></if><if cond="findPuzzle('ON BUTTON').solved === true"><s>The sensor is currently on.</s></if></desc>
  

• Indicate if there are Players in a given Room:

  <desc><s>You look through the peephole.</s> <if cond="findRoom('hall-1').occupants.length > 0"><s>There's someone in the hall outside.</s></if><if cond="findRoom('hall-1').occupants.length === 0"><s>You don't see anyone in the hall.</s></if></desc>
  

• Add additional details to a description based on the presence of an Item:

  <desc><s>You step through the DOUBLE DOORS into a spacious warehouse.</s> <s>The CEILING in this room is rather high, and a CAMERA is hung from it.</s> <s>Many SHELVES line the room, forming aisles in the space between them.</s> <s>There are also several CRATES <if cond="findRoomItem('OIL DRUM', 'warehouse', 'Fixture', 'FLOOR') !== undefined">and an OIL DRUM </if>lined up against the wall near the doors you just came from.</s> <s>To your right is a door to the CONFERENCE ROOM.</s> <s>In the back right corner is the door to the OFFICE.</s> <s>The conference room and the office create a fairly wide hallway leading to the SIDE DOOR.</s> <s>Above the doors you just came from is a MONITOR on the wall.</s></desc>
  

• Indicate if another Fixture is activated or not:

  <desc><s>It’s a life-sized iron bull made out of metal, with a chamber so you can climb inside.</s> <var v="this.childPuzzle.alreadySolvedDescription.parseFor(player)" /> <s>Underneath it is <if cond="findFixture('BUTTON', 'torture-chamber').activated === false">what looks like a pit for a campfire</if><if cond="findFixture('BUTTON', 'torture-chamber').activated === true">a roaring fire</if>.</s> <s>There is a BUTTON on its nose.</s> <s>Do you dare push it?</s></desc>
  

• Indicate whether an Event is ongoing or not:

  <desc><s>It's a high-powered ceiling fan.</s> <if cond="findEvent('FAN OFF').ongoing === false"><s>It's humming away, circulating air through the vault and helping the dehumidifying system suck up any excess moisture.</s></if><if cond="findEvent('FAN OFF').ongoing === true"><s>It isn't on right now.</s></if></desc>
  

• Display different text depending on the values of multiple Flags:

  <desc><s>It's an old balancing scale.</s> <s>It has a LEFT PLATE and a RIGHT PLATE.</s> <s>The idea is that by putting different items in each plate, you can tell their relative masses based on how far the scale tips in either direction.</s> <if cond="player.perception > 5"><s>If you had an item with a known mass, you could potentially determine the exact mass of multiple other items by testing various combinations of them in each plate.</s></if> <if cond="findFlag('LEFT PLATE WEIGHT', true) > findFlag('RIGHT PLATE WEIGHT', true)"><s>The scale is currently tipped to the left.</s></if><if cond="findFlag('LEFT PLATE WEIGHT') === findFlag('RIGHT PLATE WEIGHT')"><s>The scale is currently balanced.</s></if><if cond="findFlag('LEFT PLATE WEIGHT') < findFlag('RIGHT PLATE WEIGHT')"><s>The scale is currently tipped to the right.</s></if></desc>
  

  • In this example, the first time the findFlag function is called on each Flag, the evaluate parameter is set to true, so that the Flag’s value script will be evaluated before the condition is checked. Subsequent calls to findFlag omit the evaluate parameter, because it can’t be changed in the middle of parsing a description, so you can assume it is the same since it was last evaluated.

Helper conditionals

The function which evaluates scripts also has access to a few helper functions, which can be useful when writing if conditionals. The following functions are available:

• getRandomNumber(min: number, max: number)
  • Gets a random number between min and max, inclusive.
• getRandomString(['string1', 'string2', ...])
  • Outputs one of the given strings, chosen at random.
• doWithChance(chance: number)
  • Returns true only \( \frac{1}{chance} \) of the time.
  • If no chance is given, returns true only \( \frac{1}{100} \) of the time.
• doWithChanceModifiedByPlayerStatus(baseChance: number, player: Player, statusId: 'string', statusDivisor: number)
  • Does the same thing as doWithChance, but baseChance is first divided by statusDivisor if the Player has the Status Effect with the given ID.
  • Effectively, this makes it more likely to be true if the Player has the given Status Effect.
• divide(numerator: number, denominator: number)
  • Divides two numbers. This is especially useful when setting [Flag value scripts] in Bot commands, as the character normally used to do division (/) is used as a delimiter in command sets, making it otherwise impossible to do division in Bot commands.
• clamp(value: number, min: number, max: number)
  • Clamps a number between a minimum and maximum value, inclusive.
• generateListString(['string1', 'string2', ...])
  • Generates a grammatically correct list with the given strings.
  • If there are two strings, outputs “string1 and string2”.
  • If there are three or more strings, outputs “string1, string2, …, and stringN”.
• makeCopyable('string')
  • Inserts the given string into Discord’s code block Markdown, making it easier to copy for the reader.
• capitalizeFirstLetter('string')
  • Capitalizes the first letter of the given string.
• endsWithPunctuation('string')
  • Returns true if the given string ends with a sentence-ending punctuation mark.
  • Ignores Discord Markdown characters at the end of the string.

Here are a few examples of ways to use the helper functions in if tags:

• Display a string of text with a probability of 1/20:

  <desc><s>You step up to the right viewing platform, which is quite short.</s> <s>Here, you can look down at the ground through the window.</s> <s>You aren't terribly high up, but you still have quite a nice view of the ocean.</s> <s>You can look through binoculars to see even further.</s> <s>There isn't much to see aside from more ocean.</s> <if cond="doWithChance(20) === true"><s>Wait, no!</s> <s>You see a few dolphins jumping out of the water in the distance!</s></if></desc>
  

• Display a hallucination with a probability that increases if the inspecting Player has the exhausted Status Effect:

  <desc><s>You examine the rope.</s> <s>It looks fairly strong, and it's very long.</s> <s>You could use it for so many things.</s> <if cond="player.hasStatus('delirious') || doWithChanceModifiedByPlayerStatus(500, player, 'exhausted', 50) === true"><s>It feels like a giant worm in your hands.</s> <s>...Because it has transformed into a giant worm.</s></if></desc>
  

  • If the Player has the delirious Status, the hallucination will appear 100% of the time.
  • If the Player has the exhausted Status, the base probability (500) will be divided by the divisor (50) for an effective probability of 1/10.
  • Otherwise, the hallucination will randomly appear with the base probability of 1/500.

<var>

Caution

This tag has the ability to run code. In order to display the output of the script in the v attribute, Alter Ego uses its scriptParser module, which evaluates code in a heavily restricted context. While it has been tested to prevent access to many functions which can cause severe damage, its security cannot be guaranteed, especially if Alter Ego is run outside of a Docker container. Given that the only way to insert code is to write it on the spreadsheet, write access should be given to as few people as possible. There may exist exploits that allow malicious users to do such things as:

• Sending Alter Ego’s authentication token to the server
• Killing a player in the game
• Shutting down Alter Ego
• Read, modify, and delete files on your computer

We, the Alter Ego developers, assume no responsibility for damage caused by malicious use of this feature. You have been warned.

Example:

<desc><if cond="this.childPuzzle.solved === true"><s>The locker can be locked with a combination LOCK, but it's currently unlocked.</s> <var v="this.childPuzzle.alreadySolvedDescription.parseFor(player)" /></if><if cond="this.childPuzzle.solved === false"><s>The locker is locked with a combination LOCK.</s> <s>It seems someone scribbled on the front with marker: xyz.</s> <s>What's that supposed to mean?</s></if></desc>

The var tag is used to insert data from the game into the text of a description. The data in question is accessed with a script written in the v (variable) attribute. In the above example, the parseFor function of this.childPuzzle.alreadySolvedDescription is called using the Player currently inspecting this Fixture. The Already Solved Description of this Fixture’s child Puzzle is:

<desc><s>You open the locker.</s> <s>Inside, you find <il></il>.</s></desc>

Thus, if the child Puzzle is solved, it will be parsed, and the output will be inserted in place of the var tag. So, the Player will be sent:

The locker can be locked with a combination LOCK, but it's currently unlocked. You open the locker. Inside, you find a FIRST AID KIT, a bottle of PAINKILLERS, a PILL BOTTLE, and an OLD KEY.

Note that the var tag cannot surround text, so it must be closed in the same tag that it is opened with, like so: <var v="some variable" />.

The var tag is incredibly useful due to its flexibility for writing dynamic descriptions. Here are just a few common uses for it:

Indicating Puzzle status

One of the var tag’s most common uses is changing the description of a Fixture or something else based on the solved status of a Puzzle. Here are a few examples:

• Indicating what items are inside the Fixture’s child Puzzle:

  <desc><s>You examine the table.</s> <s>Looking closely, you can see that it's not a table at all, but a chest!</s> <if cond="this.childPuzzle.solved === true"><s>It looks like it requires an old key to open, but it seems to be unlocked.</s> <var v="this.childPuzzle.alreadySolvedDescription.parseFor(player)" /></if><if cond="this.childPuzzle.solved === false"><s>It looks like it requires an old key to open.</s></if></desc>
  

  • this.childPuzzle.alreadySolvedDescription:

    <desc><s>You open the chest.</s> <s>Inside, you find <il></il>.</s></desc>
    

  • Parsed description if this.childPuzzle.solved === true:

    You examine the table. Looking closely, you can see that it's not a table at all, but a chest! It looks like it requires an old key to open, but it seems to be unlocked. You open the chest. Inside, you find a bottle of PEPSI, a ROPE, and a KNIFE.
    

  • Parsed description if this.childPuzzle.solved === false:

    You examine the table. Looking closely, you can see that it's not a table at all, but a chest! It looks like it requires an old key to open.
    

• Replace the entire description with childPuzzle.alreadySolvedDescription:

  <desc><if cond="this.childPuzzle.solved === true"><var v="this.childPuzzle.alreadySolvedDescription.parseFor(player)" /></if><if cond="this.childPuzzle.solved === false"><s>The computer is asking for a password.</s></if></desc>
  

  • this.childPuzzle.alreadySolvedDescription:

    <desc><s>The computer is logged in.</s> <s>There's no Internet connection, but it seems whoever was using this computer left a saved EMAIL open.</s> <if cond="findPuzzle('DETONATOR').solved === false"><s>There's also a program called DETONATOR open.</s></if></desc>
    

  • Parsed description if this.childPuzzle.solved === true:

    The computer is logged in. There's no Internet connection, but it seems whoever was using this computer left a saved EMAIL open. There's also a program called DETONATOR open.
    

  • Parsed description if this.childPuzzle.solved === false:

    The computer is asking for a password.
    

• Indicate which outcome a Puzzle was solved with:

  <desc><s>It's a TV input switcher that seems to be primarily for very old consoles, as all of the inputs are old formats such as coaxial and composite.</s> <s>There are eight inputs, all on the back.</s> <s>The output comes out from the side, and you can set which system to output by pressing one of the numbered buttons on the front.</s> <s>It's currently set to button <var v="this.childPuzzle.outcome" />.</s></desc>
  

  • Output if this.childPuzzle.outcome is 3:

    It's a TV input switcher that seems to be primarily for very old consoles, as all of the inputs are old formats such as coaxial and composite. There are eight inputs, all on the back. The output comes out from the side, and you can set which system to output by pressing one of the numbered buttons on the front. It's currently set to button 3.
    

• Indicate how many remaining attempts a Puzzle has:

  <desc><s>You enter a password, but the computer tells you that it's incorrect.</s> <s>You have <var v="this.remainingAttempts" /> attempt<if cond="this.remainingAttempts !== 1">s</if> left.</s></desc>
  

Indicate Item uses

Another very useful feature of the var tag is indicating how many uses a particular Item has left. Here are a few examples:

<desc><if cond="this.uses === 6"><s>It's a whole watermelon.</s> <s>It feels perfectly ripe.</s></if><if cond="this.uses > 1 && this.uses < 6"><s>It's a partially sliced watermelon.</s> <s>You could get about <var v="this.uses" /> more slices out of it.</s></if><if cond="this.uses === 1"><s>It's a single slice of watermelon.</s> <s>You should eat it before it goes bad.</s></if></desc>

• Parsed description if this Item has 6 uses left:

  It's a whole watermelon. It feels perfectly ripe.
  

• Parsed description if this Item has (for example) 4 uses left:

  It's a partially sliced watermelon. You could get about 4 more slices out of it.
  

• Parsed description if this Item has 1 use left:

  It's a single slice of watermelon. You should eat it before it goes bad.
  

<desc><s>It's a family-sized box of salted crackers.</s> <s>The box says it contains 6 packs.</s> <s>Looking inside, you find <var v="this.uses / 2.0" /> pack<if cond="this.uses / 2.0 !== 1.0">s</if>.</s></desc>

• Parsed description if this Item has (for example) 8 uses left:

  It's a family-sized box of salted crackers. The box says it contains 6 packs. Looking inside, you find 4 packs.
  

• Parsed description if this Item has (for example) 2 uses left:

  It's a family-sized box of salted crackers. The box says it contains 6 packs. Looking inside, you find 1 pack.
  

• Parsed description if this Item has (for example) 1 use left:

  It's a family-sized box of salted crackers. The box says it contains 6 packs. Looking inside, you find 0.5 packs.
  

Other uses

Because the var tag is able to access all of the game’s data, it has many more uses. Here are just a few:

• Indicate which players are in another Room:

  <desc><s>You look through the window into the pool room below.</s> <s>On the right side of the room you see an Olympic-size swimming pool and on the left is a larger recreational pool, surrounded by a number of beach chairs.</s> <if cond="findRoom('rec-pool').occupantsString !== ''"><s>You think you see <var v="findRoom('rec-pool').occupantsString" /> down there.</s></if></desc>
  

• Show the inspecting Player’s description:

  <desc><s>You look in the mirror.</s> <s>It shows you your reflection.</s> <var v="player.description.parseFor(player)" /></desc>
  

• Indicate how many seconds remain in a Fixture’s current process:

  <desc><s>It's the patented Empire Electronics Smart Cooker!</s> <s>It's capable of cooking almost anything in one minute.</s> <s>It looks kind of like a microwave, as a red box with a door that opens from the side.</s> <s>How exactly it cooks is a closely guarded trade secret, but it's truly an amazing piece of technology.</s> <if cond="this.activated === true"><s>It's currently powered on, with <var v="Math.floor(this.process.duration / 1000)"/> second<if cond="this.process.duration >= 2000">s</if> remaining.</s></if> <s>Inside, you find <il></il>.</s></desc>
  

• Display the current time:

  <desc><s>It's a brass gold pocket watch with a gold chain attached to the handle.</s> <s>The time is <var v="new Date().toLocaleTimeString([], { hour: '2-digit', minute: '2-digit' })" />.</s></desc>
  

• Display a randomly chosen string of text:

  <desc><s>Entering through GATE 1, you step into a lush and well-tended garden surrounded by a tall FENCE.</s> <s>It's rectangular in shape, and from where you enter, you can see GATE 2 on the wall to your left.</s> <s><var v="getRandomString(['', 'You see a butterfly gently flutter by. ', 'You hear the buzz of a bumblebee as it flies by. '])" /></s><s>A neat cobblestone path winds through the garden, which has plots for FRUITS, VEGETABLES, and HERBS, with FLOWERS spread liberally all around them.</s> <s>HANGING PLANTS are suspended from the ceiling by transparent wire, giving the eerie impression that they're floating.</s> <s>Just to your left, a thin HOSE hangs in loops from the side of the fence, stored neatly alongside other GARDENING EQUIPMENT.</s> <s>There's also a small wooden BENCH beside the path in an especially floral section of the garden.</s> <s>A small CAMERA stares down at you from the corner post, and there's a MONITOR on the north fence wall.</s></desc>
  

• Display the current value of a Flag:

  <desc><s>You can't use the POTTERY WHEEL right now, because <var v="findFlag('POTTERY WHEEL USER')" /> is already using it.</s></desc>
  

<procedural>

Example:

<desc><s>It's a trading card from the hugely popular card game, Capsulebeasts.</s> <s>This one features the ocean-type fan-favorite, Tortide.</s> <procedural chance="5"><s>This card has a holographic finish, making it extra rare!</s></procedural></desc>

The procedural tag allows Prefabs to be instantiated as Room Items and Inventory Items with procedurally-generated descriptions. This can allow you to add some variation in instances of Prefabs without having to create entirely new Prefabs or manually edit the descriptions of instances of those Prefabs. Keep in mind that procedural tags only affect instantiated Prefabs aesthetically. They cannot affect an Item’s functionality. For more information on what properties procedural tags can affect, see the Prefab article’s section on procedural options.

Note that when a Prefab is instantiated as a Room Item or Inventory Item, the parser module evaluates all of the procedural tags in the description and algorithmically decides which ones to keep. The description it generates contains only the the procedural and poss tags that were selected. However, any attributes those tags had, except for name, will be removed. All procedural and poss tags that weren’t selected are completely removed, along with the text that was inside them. All other tags remain unaffected.

Procedural attributes

procedural tags can have attributes. There are three attributes with defined behavior:

Procedural attribute: name

name allows you to give each procedural tag its own identifier. This allows you to manually select procedurals and the possibilities contained within them when using the instantiate command.

Giving procedural and poss tags name attributes also allow them to be retained and transferred whenever an Item is transformed into another Item by any means.

Procedural attribute: chance

chance takes a percent chance for the contents of a given procedural tag to appear in instances of a Prefab. This chance is independent of other procedural tags. If the chance attribute is omitted from the tag, or its value is not a number between 0 and 100, it is assigned a chance of 100, meaning that it will always appear.

However, if a procedural tag is nested inside of another procedural tag, then it will not appear in the generated description if the parent procedural tag failed to generate, even if its chance is 100.

For example, given the description:

<desc><s>Sentence.</s> <procedural chance="50" name="A1"><s>A1.</s> <procedural chance="100" name="A2"><s>A2.</s></procedural></procedural></desc>

Because procedural A2 is contained inside procedural A1, which has a chance of 50, it will not appear if A1 did not generate. If A1 did generate, then A2 will always generate, since it has a chance of 100. In other words, the parser module’s generated output will be:

• 50% of the time:

  <desc><s>Sentence.</s></desc>
  

• 50% of the time:

  <desc><s>Sentence.</s> <procedural name="A1"><s>A1.</s> <procedural name="A2"><s>A2.</s></procedural></procedural></desc>
  

For another example, given the description:

<desc><s>Sentence.</s> <procedural name="A1" chance="50"><s>A1.</s> <procedural name="A2" chance="50"><s>A2.</s> <procedural name="A3" chance="50"><s>A3.</s></procedural></procedural></procedural></desc>

Because procedural A3 is nested inside procedural A2 — which is itself nested inside procedural A1 — the probability of A3 generating will be dependent on A2 generating, which is dependent on A1 generating. In other words, the parser module’s generated output will be:

• 50% of the time:

  <desc><s>Sentence.</s></desc>
  

• 25% of the time:

  <desc><s>Sentence.</s> <procedural name="A1"><s>A1.</s></procedural></procedural></desc>
  

• 12.5% of the time:

  <desc><s>Sentence.</s> <procedural name="A1"><s>A1.</s> <procedural name="A2"><s>A2.</s></procedural></procedural></desc>
  

• 12.5% of the time:

  <desc><s>Sentence.</s> <procedural name="A1"><s>A1.</s> <procedural name="A2"><s>A2.</s> <procedural name="A3"><s>A3.</s></procedural></procedural></procedural></desc>
  

Procedural attribute: stat

stat takes the name of one of the Player’s five stats: strength, perception, dexterity, speed, stamina, or their abbreviations: str, per, dex, spd, sta. If a Player is supplied when the output is generated, then the chosen stat will affect the chances of all of the poss tags contained within this procedural tag.

• When instantiating a Prefab as an Inventory Item, the Player will always be the Player who the Inventory Item belongs to.
• When instantiating a Prefab as a Room Item, the Player will be the one who activated the Fixture processing the Recipe in which the Prefab is a product, as long as they’re still alive and in the same Room as the Fixture. Otherwise, it is only possible to supply a Player in the bot version of the instantiate command; this is the Player who caused the command to be executed.

When a Player’s stat is provided, a percent modifier, \(M\), is calculated for each poss tag within the procedural. The formula for \(M\) is as follows:

\[ M = (f + \frac{c - f}{p - 1}) * i * 10\]

In this formula there are several variables:

• \(c\) is the maximum modifier value, where \(c = x - 5\), with \(x\) being the stat value.
• \(f\) is the minimum modifier value, where \(f = -1 * c\).
• \(p\) is the number of poss tags inside this procedural.
• \(i\) is the numbered position of the poss tag that \(M\) is being calculated for. The first poss tag in the list has an \(i\) value of \(0\).

After M is calculated for a poss tag, it is added to that tag’s chance, before moving onto the next poss tag.

In effect, this means that a higher stat value is more likely to result in poss tags near the end of the list being generated, while a lower stat value is more likely to result in poss tags near the beginning of the list being generated. A Player with a stat value of 10 may have a percent modifier of -50% for the first listed poss tag and +50% for the final listed poss tag. Meanwhile, a Player with a stat value of 1 may have a percent modifier of +40% for the first listed poss tag and a -40% for the final listed poss tag. This may very well make it impossible for some poss tags in the procedural to generate at all, as it is unlikely that all of the poss chances will still be between 0 and 100.

For example, given the description:

<desc><s>This is a red clay pot.</s> <procedural stat="dexterity"><poss chance="50"><s>Judging by the abysmal craftsmanship, it looks like it was made by a total rookie.</s></poss><poss chance="35"><s>It looks decently made, but there are some noticeable mistakes.</s></poss><poss chance="15"><s>It's very well made, with perfectly smooth edges.</s></poss></procedural></desc>

Suppose the provided Player’s dexterity stat is 3. Using the formula listed above, the percent modifiers for each poss tag would be +20%, ±0%, and -20%, respectively. On the other hand, if the provided Player’s dexterity stat is 9, the percent modifiers would instead be -40%, ±0%, and +40%, respectively. As a result, the parser module’s generated output would be:

• <desc><s>This is a red clay pot.</s> <procedural><poss><s>Judging by the abysmal craftsmanship, it looks like it was made by a total rookie.</s></poss></procedural></desc>
  

  • 70% of the time if the Player’s dexterity stat is 3.
  • 10% of the time if the Player’s dexterity stat is 9.

• <desc><s>This is a red clay pot.</s> <procedural><poss><s>It looks decently made, but there are some noticeable mistakes.</s></poss></procedural></desc>
  

  • 30% of the time if the Player’s dexterity stat is 3. This is because 70% + 35% exceeds 100%, so the extra 5% doesn’t matter.
  • 35% of the time if the Player’s dexterity stat is 9.

• <desc><s>This is a red clay pot.</s> <procedural><poss><s>It's very well made, with perfectly smooth edges.</s></poss></procedural></desc>
  

  • 0% of the time if the Player’s dexterity stat is 3. The actual calculated probability is -5%, but because 70% + 35% exceeds 100%, this makes no difference.
  • 55% of the time if the Player’s dexterity stat is 9.

Note that if the stat attribute is set, but there is no Player provided, or the Player’s stat value is 5, the chances of all of the poss tags contained within the procedural will not be changed.

<poss>

Example:

<desc><s>It's a capsule from your favorite game, Capsulebeasts!</s> <s>This is a <procedural name="color"><poss name="red" chance="25">red</poss><poss name="blue" chance="25">blue</poss><poss name="green" chance="25">green</poss><poss name="black" chance="12.5">black</poss><poss name="white" chance="12.5">white</poss></procedural> <procedural name="species"><poss name="lavazard">Lavazard</poss><poss name="loamander">Loamander</poss><poss name="tortide">Tortide</poss></procedural>.</s> <s><procedural name="finish" chance="25"><poss name="glass" chance="50">This one has a glassy finish.</poss><poss name="metal" chance="50">This one has a metallic finish.</poss><poss name="standard" chance="0"></poss></procedural></s></desc>

The poss tag, short for possibility, is used to add pre-defined variations to the descriptions of Prefabs. It must go inside a procedural tag. If it is placed outside of a procedural tag, it has no functionality. As with the procedural tag, poss tags only affect instantiated Prefabs aesthetically. They cannot affect an Item’s functionality. For more information on what properties poss tags can affect, see the Prefab article’s section on procedural options.

When a Prefab is instantiated into a Room Item or Inventory Item, the parser module uses a random number generator to pick one poss tag to keep in the final description. After one is selected, all of the others within the same procedural tag are removed. The poss tag itself is retained, but all attributes it contains, with the exception of name will be removed from the description.

Poss attributes

poss tags can have attributes. There are two attributes with defined behavior:

Poss attribute: name

name allows you to give each poss tag its own identifier. This allows you to manually select procedurals and the possibilities contained within them when using the instantiate command.

In order to make use of the name attribute in a poss tag, the procedural tag that contains it must also have a name. When using the instantiate command, it is possible to provide procedural selections with the syntax (procedural name=poss name). For instance, in the above example, if you wanted to manually instantiate an Item with the standard finish, which normally has no possibility of generating, your command would start with: .instantiate GACHA CAPSULE (finish=standard). This syntax is not case-sensitive, and extra spaces are ignored. The effect of doing this would result in the final s tag consisting of <s><procedural name="finish"><poss name="standard"/></procedural></s>, which would be removed when the description is inspected by a player, because the poss that was selected contained no text, and as a result, the procedural and thus s tag contained no text. The poss tags within the other procedural tags in the description would still be randomly chosen.

It is possible to chain manual procedural selections together with a + character. For example, if your command began with .instantiate GACHA CAPSULE (color=black + species=tortide + finish=metal), then the generated Item would always have the description:

<desc><s>It's a capsule from your favorite game, Capsulebeasts!</s> <s>This is a <procedural name="color"><poss name="black">black</poss></procedural> <procedural name="species"><poss name="tortide">Tortide</poss></procedural>.</s> <s><procedural name="finish"><poss name="metal">This one has a metallic finish.</poss></procedural></s></desc>

It is important to note that that when a named poss tag contained inside of a named procedural tag is selected during procedural generation, then if there is another procedural tag with the same name in the same description, it will match the poss that was selected. So, given the description:

<desc><s><procedural name="P1"><poss name="A1">A1.</poss><poss name="B1">B1.</poss></procedural> <procedural name="P1"><poss name="B1">B1.</poss></procedural></s></desc>

If the poss tag that was selected in the procedural P1 is B1, then in the second procedural P1, the poss that is selected will also be B1. Conversely, if A1 is selected first, then the second procedural cannot be satisfied, as it does not have a poss tag named A1. So, it will be removed in the generated description. This is to ensure that procedural selections don’t ever conflict within the same description.

Poss attribute: chance

chance takes a percent chance for the contents of a given poss tag to be chosen in instances of a Prefab. This chance is independent of the chance attribute of the procedural tag which contains it. The chance given for the procedural tag determines how likely it is that any of the poss tags contained inside it will be generated. That is, even if the containing procedural tag has a chance under 100, all of the chances of the poss tags contained inside it should ideally add up to 100 (and not the chance of the procedural, as one might assume).

When the parser module has to select a poss tag in a given procedural tag to keep, it first adds together the chances assigned to each poss tag in the procedural. If a poss tag does not have a chance attribute, or its value is not a number between 0 and 100, it is considered chanceless, and thus not included in this sum. If there are any chanceless possibilities, the sum calculated earlier is subtracted from 100, and then divided by the number of chanceless possibilities. This makes it so that all chanceless possibilities are equally likely to generate, and all of the chances will add up to 100.

For example, given the description:

<desc><s><procedural><poss name="A1" chance="50">A1.</poss><poss name="A2">A2.</poss><poss name="A3">A3.</poss></procedural></s></desc>

Because A1 has a chance of 50, and A2 and A3 are chanceless, the remainder that it would take for all of the poss chances to add up to 100 — 50 — is divided by the number of chanceless possibilities — 2 — and assigned equally to them. As a result, A2 and A3 have an effective chance of 25 each.

If none of the poss tags in a procedural have assigned chances, then they will all be equally likely to be selected. If the sum of all of the chances already adds up to 100 and there are also chanceless possibilities, then the chanceless possibilities will never be selected.

After all of the possibilities have been assigned chances, if the procedural has a stat attribute and a Player’s stat has been provided, these chances will have percent modifiers applied to them.

Then, all of the possibilities are sorted from highest to lowest chance. A random number between 0 and 100 is generated, and an accumulator value that starts at 0 is created. The possibilities are iterated through, with each one adding to the accumulator value. If at any point during this iteration, the randomly-generated number is less than the accumulator’s current value, that possibility is selected. Finally, all other possibilities in the current procedural are removed from the description.

Default possibilities

Before reading this section, please read the section on Room Item and Inventory Item procedural selections.

Because procedural selections are carried over when an Item is transformed, it can be useful to have procedurals and possibilities that never have a chance of generating when an Item is instantiated, and can only appear in instances of that Item that were created by passing procedural selections down through repeated transformations (for instance, in a chain of Recipes). In this case, it can be useful to create default procedural and poss tags. Take this CLEAN TEAPOT Prefab, for example:

<desc><s>This is <procedural name="base color" chance="100"><poss name="default" chance="100">a plain, white</poss><poss name="obscured" chance="0"></poss><poss name="red" chance="0">a red</poss><poss name="white" chance="0">a white</poss></procedural><procedural name="glaze color" chance="0"><poss name="clear" chance="100"></poss><poss name="red">a red</poss><poss name="orange">an orange</poss><poss name="brown">a brown</poss><poss name="yellow">a yellow</poss><poss name="green">a green</poss><poss name="teal">a teal</poss><poss name="light blue">a light blue</poss><poss name="indigo">an indigo</poss><poss name="violet">a violet</poss><poss name="pink">a pink</poss><poss name="white">a white</poss><poss name="gray">a gray</poss><poss name="black">a black</poss></procedural> teapot.</s> <procedural name="quality"><s><poss name="default" chance="100"></poss><poss name="terrible" chance="0">It appears to have been handmade. It's of *terrible* quality. It's lumpy and misshapen, with a wildly uneven circumference. The handle is thin and flimsy, and feels like it might break off. The angle of the spout is too shallow, and the mouth is almost completely vertical. Also, the lid is shaped and sized all wrong, so it doesn't securely cover the top. Worse yet, the bottom is crooked, which makes it impossible for it to sit level on a flat surface. It should theoretically be safe to use, but you'd be sure to spill whatever you try to pour from this. </poss><poss name="poor" chance="0">It appears to have been handmade. It's of poor quality. The bottom is fairly sturdy, but it's not perfectly flat, preventing it from sitting level on a flat surface. The body of the pot is lumpy and oblong, giving it an uneven circumference. The lid kind of fits in the indentation on top, but it rocks back and forth, and the knob is difficult to grip. The spout is angled well, but the handle is a little small, making it somewhat difficult to hold. You should be able to pour tea out of this, but you'll have to be careful, or you'll make a mess. </poss><poss name="decent" chance="0">It appears to have been handmade. The craftsmanship is fairly decent. It has a sturdy bottom that sits perfectly level on a flat surface. The body is mostly symmetrical, but it has a few small divots and bumps here and there, giving it a slightly uneven circumference. The lid fits in the indentation on top quite well, but the knob is a little shallow, making it somewhat difficult to grip. The handle is firmly attached and has a good thickness, with just enough room for your fingers. The spout has a nice curve, and it's angled well, making it ideal for pouring. </poss><poss name="excellent" chance="0">It appears to have been handmade. The craftsmanship is *excellent*. It has a sturdy bottom that sits level on any surface. The body has perfect radial symmetry, and a very smooth texture. The lid fits securely in the indentation on top, and has a sturdy, round knob that's easy to grip. The handle is attached seamlessly to the body, and has good thickness and stability, with plenty of room for your fingers. The spout also attaches seamlessly, and has an elegant curvature with a mouth at just the right angle for pouring. </poss></s></procedural><s>It has a smooth, glassy finish<procedural name="pattern" chance="0">, and it's patterned with <procedural name="pattern quality" stat="per"><poss name="crude" chance="30">crude</poss><poss name="simple" chance="30">simple</poss><poss name="detailed" chance="30">detailed</poss><poss name="ornate" chance="10">ornate</poss></procedural> <procedural name="pattern color"><poss name="red">red</poss><poss name="orange">orange</poss><poss name="brown">brown</poss><poss name="yellow">yellow</poss><poss name="green">green</poss><poss name="teal">teal</poss><poss name="light blue">light blue</poss><poss name="indigo">indigo</poss><poss name="violet">violet</poss><poss name="pink">pink</poss><poss name="white">white</poss><poss name="gray">gray</poss><poss name="black">black</poss></procedural> <poss name="stripes">stripes</poss><poss name="lines">lines</poss><poss name="rings">rings</poss><poss name="spots">spots</poss><poss name="stars">stars</poss><poss name="zigzagging lines">zigzagging lines</poss><poss name="hearts">hearts</poss><poss name="broken hearts">broken hearts</poss><poss name="flames">flames</poss><poss name="webs">webs</poss><poss name="drip lines">drip lines</poss><poss name="flowers">flowers</poss><poss name="trees">trees</poss><poss name="clouds">clouds</poss><poss name="waves">waves</poss><poss name="bubbles">bubbles</poss><poss name="fish">fish</poss><poss name="turtles">turtles</poss><poss name="sea creatures">sea creatures</poss><poss name="rabbits">rabbits</poss><poss name="horses">horses</poss><poss name="farm animals">farm animals</poss><poss name="cats">cats</poss><poss name="dogs">dogs</poss><poss name="birds">birds</poss><poss name="spiders">spiders</poss><poss name="ants">ants</poss><poss name="beetles">beetles</poss></procedural>.</s> <s>If you want to fill this with tea, scoop one teaspoon of tea leaves in here for every cup you want to make, then fill it with hot water from a kettle.</s> <s>When you take off the lid, you find <il></il> inside.</s></desc>

This is quite a complicated description, but it can be broken down into several procedural tags, many of which have a “default” poss tag:

• base color, which has a 100% chance of generating.
  • default is the default possibility, as it has a chance of 100. All other possibilities are manually assigned a chance of 0.
• glaze color has a 0% chance of generating. It will only appear if it is transferred during a transformation.
• quality is not explicitly assigned a chance, which means it has a 100% chance of generating.
  • default is the default possibility, as it has a chance of 100. All other possibilities are manually assigned a chance of 0.
  • Since the default possibility contains no text, nothing will appear in the parsed version of the description, but the default poss tag will still be carried over in transformations.
• pattern has a 0% chance of generating. It will only appear if it is transferred during a transformation.
  • pattern has several possibilities, and even contains nested procedurals, but they will never appear unless they were transferred during a transformation.

In effect, if you were to instantiate this CLEAN TEAPOT as an Item without manually selecting any possibilities, the final result would be a much simpler:

<desc><s>This is <procedural name="base color"><poss name="default">a plain, white</poss></procedural> teapot.</s> <procedural name="quality"><s><poss name="default"></poss></procedural><s>It has a smooth, glassy finish.</s> <s>If you want to fill this with tea, scoop one teaspoon of tea leaves in here for every cup you want to make, then fill it with hot water from a kettle.</s> <s>When you take off the lid, you find <il></il> inside.</s></desc>

When a Player inspects it, it would be parsed as:

This is a plain, white teapot. It has a smooth, glassy finish. If you want to fill this with tea, scoop one teaspoon of tea leaves in here for every cup you want to make, then fill it with hot water from a kettle.

Default possibilities allow you to provide the scaffolding for more complex Prefab descriptions while still having a simple version that can be instantiated in large numbers without variation, if desired.

As a note, the default possibility does not need to have the name default. It can be named anything.

Nested procedurals

There have been several examples of nested procedurals in this article already, but there exists a vital use case for them that has not yet been covered.

Consider a Prefab with the ID CLEAN TEACUP, which has all of the same procedural options as the CLEAN TEAPOT in the section above. One might expect to be able to craft a FILLED TEAPOT with the CLEAN TEACUP to produce a FILLED TEACUP. However, because the procedural selections of all ingredients in a Recipe are combined and applied to all products, and a procedural can only be assigned to possibility, this would cause a collision. When the two Items were crafted together, one of them would have their procedural selections overwritten, which would most likely be undesirable.

It is possible to avoid this issue by including nested procedurals in a description, and transferring those over during Recipe chains. For example, suppose the CLEAN TEAPOT and CLEAN TEACUP both inherit their base color procedural selections from a WET CLAY Prefab at the very beginning of the Recipe chain with the following description:

<desc><s>This is a lump of wet <procedural name="base color"><poss name="red"><procedural name="secondary base color"><poss name="red">red</poss></procedural></poss><poss name="white"><procedural name="secondary base color"><poss name="white">white</poss></procedural></poss></procedural> clay.</s> <s>You can mold it however you want at one of the WORK STATIONS, or on the POTTERY WHEEL.</s> <s>Once you're happy with your work, you'll have to wait for it to dry, and then fire it in the KILN.</s></desc>

Because the secondary base color procedural is nested inside of both poss tags inside of the main base color procedural, and the secondary base color procedural has only one poss tag that matches the poss it’s nested in, each base color possibility can carry over an additional procedural selection.

Suppose the WET CLAY Prefab can be processed into either a WET CLAY TEAPOT or WET CLAY TEACUP Prefab. If it is processed into a WET CLAY TEAPOT with the following description:

<desc><s>This is a teapot made of <procedural name="base color"><poss name="red" chance="50">red</poss><poss name="white" chance="50">white</poss></procedural> clay.</s> <s>It was made on a pottery wheel.</s> <procedural name="quality" stat="dex"><s><poss name="terrible" chance="40">It's of *terrible* quality. It's lumpy and misshapen, with a wildly uneven circumference. The handle is thin and flimsy, and feels like it might break off. The angle of the spout is too shallow, and the mouth is almost completely vertical. Also, the lid is shaped and sized all wrong, so it doesn't securely cover the top. Worse yet, the bottom is crooked, which makes it impossible for it to sit level on a flat surface. You'd be sure to spill whatever you put in this.</poss><poss name="poor" chance="35">It's of poor quality. The bottom is fairly sturdy, but it's not perfectly flat, preventing it from sitting level on a flat surface. The body of the pot is lumpy and oblong, giving it an uneven circumference. The lid kind of fits in the indentation on top, but it rocks back and forth, and the knob is difficult to grip. The spout is angled well, but the handle is a little small, making it somewhat difficult to hold. You could probably pour tea out of this, but you'd have to be careful, or you'd make a mess.</poss><poss name="decent" chance="20">The craftsmanship is fairly decent. It has a sturdy bottom that sits perfectly level on a flat surface. The body is mostly symmetrical, but it has a few small divots and bumps here and there, giving it a slightly uneven circumference. The lid fits in the indentation on top quite well, but the knob is a little shallow, making it somewhat difficult to grip. The handle is firmly attached and has a good thickness, with just enough room for your fingers. The spout has a nice curve, and it's angled well, making it ideal for pouring.</poss><poss name="excellent" chance="5">The craftsmanship is *excellent*. It has a sturdy bottom that sits level on any surface. The body has perfect radial symmetry, and a very smooth texture. The lid fits securely in the indentation on top, and has a sturdy, round knob that's easy to grip. The handle is attached seamlessly to the body, and has good thickness and stability, with plenty of room for your fingers. The spout also attaches seamlessly, and has an elegant curvature with a mouth at just the right angle for pouring.</poss></s></procedural> <s>The clay is still wet.</s> <s>It needs time to dry before it can be put in the kiln.</s></desc>

Then the secondary base color procedural selection that the WET CLAY Prefab transferred over will be discarded, because there is no procedural tag in the WET CLAY TEAPOT’s description with that name. The quality procedural will be evaluated independently, since it was not inherited from the WET CLAY.

On the other hand, if the WET CLAY is processed into a WET CLAY TEACUP with the following description:

<desc><s>This is a teacup and saucer set made of <procedural name="secondary base color"><poss name="red" chance="50">red</poss><poss name="white" chance="50">white</poss></procedural> clay.</s> <s>They were made on a pottery wheel.</s> <procedural name="secondary quality" stat="dex"><s><poss name="terrible" chance="30">They're of *terrible* quality. They're both lumpy and misshapen, with wildly uneven circumferences. The cup's handle is thin and flimsy, and feels like it might break off. Worse yet, the bottom of the cup is crooked, which makes it impossible for it to sit level on a flat surface; not that it matters, since the saucer has a rugged, bumpy surface itself. You'd be sure to spill whatever you put in this cup.</poss><poss name="poor" chance="30">They're of poor quality. The bottom of the saucer is decently sturdy, but it's not perfectly flat, preventing it from sitting completely level. It has a fairly flat surface, but the bottom of the cup is also a bit uneven, making it rock back and forth slightly. The saucer has a mostly even circumference at least, but the same cannot be said of the cup, which is lumpy all around. The handle is attached alright, but it's a little small, making it somewhat difficult to hold. You could probably drink out of this, but you'd have to be careful, or you'd make a mess.</poss><poss name="decent" chance="30">The craftsmanship is fairly decent. The cup and saucer both have sturdy bottoms that sit perfectly level on a flat surface. The saucer has a nice, even circumference with a concave rim. The sides and lip of the teacup are *mostly* even, but there are a few small divots and bumps here and there. The handle has a good thickness, with just enough room for your fingers. You could probably drink out of this just fine.</poss><poss name="excellent" chance="10">The craftsmanship is *excellent*. The cup and saucer both have sturdy bottoms that sit level on any surface. The rim of the saucer is perfectly circular, and flares out to give it a concave shape, but its surface still has a completely flat indentation, in which the cup fits snugly. The body of the cup itself has perfect radial symmetry, and a very smooth texture. The handle is attached seamlessly, with the ideal shape to be held with just one finger. The cup's rim flares out to meet your lips, making it easy to sip from.</poss></s></procedural> <s>The clay is still wet.</s> <s>It needs time to dry before it can be put in the kiln.</s></desc>

Then the base color procedural selection that the WET CLAY Prefab transferred over will be discarded instead, since no procedural with that tag exists in this description. The secondary quality procedural will also be evaluated independently.

If, when creating Prefabs with procedurals, you take care to ensure that collisions will not occur, then it is possible to create Recipes that use Prefabs with procedurals as ingredients, without running the risk of procedural selections being overwritten.

Edit Mode

Edit mode is a special mode of Alter Ego that drastically limits gameplay. It can be toggled on and off by a moderator at will using the editmode command.

Purpose

Most of the game world data is stored on a Google Sheets spreadsheet. However, this data is useless by itself. Alter Ego uses this data to facilitate gameplay, but reading it directly from the spreadsheet would be inefficient, as doing so would necessitate making frequent requests to the Google Sheets API, which would introduce additional latency and increase the potential for data asynchrony due to the inherent unpredictability of making requests over the Internet, thus making gameplay significantly slower and more prone to bugs.

In order to combat this, Alter Ego must load data from the spreadsheet into its internal memory, which can be triggered by a moderator with the load command. By keeping an internal copy of the game data, it is able to more efficiently access and modify that data, thus allowing for a much faster and smoother gameplay experience. However, at any given time, Alter Ego has more data than actually appears on the spreadsheet (typically to allow for faster access to data it needs - many of the internal attributes found on the Data Structures pages in this documentation serve this purpose), and more importantly, that data is out of sync with the data on the spreadsheet.

During gameplay, this is typically not a problem. However, in the event of an error, or a crash, or a power outage, or some other incident which causes Alter Ego to shut down during gameplay, its internal data will be lost. In order to combat this, Alter Ego regularly updates the spreadsheet with the most recent copy of its internal data using the GameEntitySaver class; the interval at which this occurs can be set with the AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL setting. While this still guarantees that at least some data will be lost if Alter Ego goes offline, there will always be a fairly recent backup to load from in order to minimize the amount of data loss.

However, because Alter Ego updates the entire spreadsheet at once (only the Prefab, Recipe, Status Effect, and Gesture sheets remain unaffected by the saving process), this can make it difficult for a moderator to edit the spreadsheet during gameplay, both because their changes will be overwritten if they’re not fast enough, and because attempting to edit the spreadsheet during gameplay can result in outdated game data being stored during the next load. The solution to this problem is edit mode.

Functionality

When edit mode is activated, Alter Ego will manually save the current game state to the spreadsheet. It is one of two ways (the other being the save command) of forcibly saving the game. After the spreadsheet is updated, Alter Ego will pause its autosave functionality until edit mode is disabled. This allows a moderator to manually edit the spreadsheet without worrying about their work being overwritten by the next autosave.

In addition, Players are unable to use commands during edit mode. They are still able to speak (and thus use the say command), since that almost never changes the game state, but the vast majority of their actions are restricted during edit mode. All Players will be notified that edit mode has been enabled or disabled, unless they have the unconscious behavior attribute. As Players are normally able to act autonomously, their restriction during edit mode drastically reduces the amount of changes that can occur to the game state without the moderator’s awareness.

To be clear, edit mode does not prevent Alter Ego’s copy of the game data stored in its internal memory from changing. Status Effects inflicted on Players will have their timers paused, but any other timers, such as those on Events and Fixtures will continue to count down, for example, and any consequences that result from those changes will still be present when edit mode is disabled. Edit mode simply temporarily reduces the amount of unpredictable changes caused by Player actions.

Edit mode is not a perfect solution to this problem. Data asynchrony can still occur when edit mode is used, and the amount of asynchrony within the game data will accumulate the more frequently edit mode is used in conjunction with the load command (especially when only specific data structures are loaded, as is generally good practice). Edit mode is a useful tool for modifying the spreadsheet during gameplay, but care must be taken in order to prevent bugs from accumulating; it can sometimes lead to exceptionally strange behavior when not used responsibly. Some tips to keep the game data consistent are:

• Use edit mode sparingly - only when needed.
• Only load the manually edited data structures before disabling edit mode in order to avoid reloading old game data.
• When applicable, load related data structures. For example, if manually editing Room Items, load the Fixtures and Puzzles which contain them.
• Avoid loading Players unless absolutely necessary.
• Every so often, load all game data to get everything back in sync.
• Every once in a while, reboot Alter Ego entirely in order to clear out its internal memory.

How to Use This Guide

Note

This Player Guide is a work in progress. Further chapters will added as they are written.

This guide is designed to help you get started with Alter Ego as a player. We wrote this guide in a casual, conversational tone to ease new players like you into Alter Ego. It contains many images and examples to make it easy for you to follow along. We hope that you will find this guide helpful as you embark on your journey in mastering how to play Alter Ego!

As Alter Ego is a game that is entirely played on Discord, this guide assumes that you are familiar with using it. If you are unfamiliar with Discord, please refer to the Beginner’s Guide to Discord first before proceeding.

Navigating This Guide

We designed this guide to be read from start to finish, with new concepts being introduced gradually as you progress.

To go to the next chapter, either click / tap the > button on the side (or the bottom on mobile) or use the left and right arrow keys on your keyboard.

If you want to skip ahead or go back to a page, there is a table of contents on the side of the page (or under the hamburger menu on the top left on mobile). This guide is listed under the Player Guide heading there.

If you clicked on a link and don’t know where you are, press the back button on your browser to return to the page you were just on.

We recommend reading this guide first before delving into the rest of the documentation.

For Moderators

If you are introducing your players to Alter Ego for the first time, please link them to this page instead of the home page, as the home page leads directly into moderator documentation.

It would also be useful to read this guide yourself to get on the same page as your players.

Typographic Conventions

For clarity, we use the following typographic conventions in this guide to make different concepts in this guide more distinct and easier to understand.

Admonitions

Admonitions are used when presenting concepts that require your attention. They come in several forms in order of ascending importance:

Tip

This denotes useful tips and tricks that can help you.

Note

This denotes things you should pay attention to.

Important

This denotes important things you should not miss.

Warning

This denotes things that may cause harm if not handled properly.

Caution

This denotes things that will cause harm if ignored.

Commands

When a command is shown for demonstrative purposes, they are presented enclosed in code blocks:

.inspect armchair

A screenshot of the output of the command (what you see in Discord after a command is received by Alter Ego) is included immediately following its invocation. This is so that you can see what the command does as if you sent it yourself.

Footnotes

Footnotes are used to provide additional context or information about a term or concept.¹

Key Words and Emphasis

Key words are important terms and concepts that we will go over in this guide. The first time they’re used, they are presented in bold. Some important concepts are also put in bold for emphasis.

Literals

Literals are text that is quoted from somewhere else unmodified. This is to show that the text is situated in its own context and not meant to be read as just part of the sentence. They are presented enclosed by inline code blocks.

For instance, a name of an in-game item such as COFFEE TABLE or a command with its prefix such as .use are presented as literals.

Names

When the name of a data structure² that has an ordinary meaning is mentioned, it is presented in italics. This is to distinguish it from the word’s meaning in everyday language.

For instance, this is the inspect command and this is a puzzle. We inspect things to help us solve puzzles.

It’s not necessary to go to one of those pages as they can get really technical, but a link to it is provided for it the first time it is mentioned in a chapter for your curiosity.

1. Not reading them will not significantly impact your understanding of this guide. ↩

2. A data structure is something that exists in the internal workings of Alter Ego. ↩

Getting Started

Important

This guide assumes that you know how to use Discord. If you are unfamiliar with Discord, please first refer to the Beginner’s Guide to Discord.

Congratulations! If you are reading this, it probably means that you have been invited to play in an Alter Ego game. Learning to play Alter Ego may seem intimidating at first, but once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to explore and interact in a rich game world like it’s your second nature.

This guide will teach you the basics for playing Alter Ego. The following chapters will teach you how to look around, move around, interact with objects, solve puzzles, talk to others, and more.

Creating Your Character

To play an Alter Ego game, you must have a character. Your character represents your persona in the game world and everything you do in the game will be done through your character.

Your moderator may have already given you guidelines on how to create your character. If that is the case, follow their instructions. Typically, your moderator will ask you several questions, or ask you to complete a questionnaire, outlining your preferences for your character. An Alter Ego character has several attributes, of which can be broadly broken down into basic information, appearance, inventory, and stats. The questions that your moderator will ask should cover most of these.

When creating a character, you will need to decide on their basic information. This consists of their name and pronouns. When choosing a name, it would be wise to consider their nationality and the language they speak. Having a name that fits with their background can help a character feel lifelike. Your character can have any set of pronouns that you wish. Alter Ego supports masculine (he/him), feminine (she/her), and neutral (they/them) pronouns out-of-the-box. If your character has neo-pronouns, provide your moderator with all of its forms. See the player reference for more details.

For your character’s appearance, you will typically need to decide on their height, complexion, hair length and style, physique, and voice quality. Keep in mind that these can change depending on your moderator, so consult with them for more details. Having a drawing of your character will help you visualize them. It will also serve as your Discord profile picture to help others identify you. Many players make theirs on character generation sites such as Picrew or Charat. Of course, you can draw your own or even commission art for your character!

Your character’s inventory includes the clothes that they’re wearing and what they’re carrying. It’s a good idea to first consult your moderator on what clothing is appropriate for the setting, and what items your character can have. For instance, it may not be appropriate for your character to be wearing swimwear in the dead of winter or for them to carry a rocket launcher. A good inventory should both fit with the world and express your character’s personality. Instead of thinking about how certain clothing or items may benefit your character (a form of metagaming), think of what your character would choose to wear or carry in the game’s setting. Your moderator always has the final say on what your character is allowed to wear or have.

Finally, your character will have statistics, which are numerical attributes that define your character’s abilities in game. They affect things such as how fast your character can move, what they notice in-game, and how they do in skill check rolls. Unlike the previous aspects, these are determined by your moderator based on your character’s description and personality. You shouldn’t worry too much about these and should avoid trying to create a character that optimizes for the highest stats possible. A character’s stats helps to situate a character in a game world, and a character that only has high numbers and no personality will feel lifeless to play and spectate.

Remember, when you are playing a game with Alter Ego, you are playing in a world created by your moderator and it is important to create a character that fits with the setting. For instance, it would probably be disrespectful to insist on playing a character with neon hair and quirky clothes when your moderator had envisioned a dark and gritty setting. Therefore, instead of bringing a fully completed character to your moderator and asking for them to be included in the game, it’s better to work with your moderator to craft a character that feels natural to be living in the game world.

Joining a Game

Before you are able to play Alter Ego, you must join the game. You have probably already been invited to the Discord server where the game will be taking place. If you haven’t already, ask your moderator about being invited into the server.

Once you are in the game server, your moderator may give you the eligible role. When your moderator is ready to start the player registration process, an announcement with instructions on how to join the game will be posted in the #general channel of the server.

To join the game, send the play command to the #general channel within the time limit.

.play

If everything went well, another message confirming your registration will be posted in the same channel. Now that you have been registered, all you have to do is wait for the game to begin! Before doing that though, make sure to continue reading to learn about how to play a game with Alter Ego.

Getting to Know Alter Ego

Now that you’ve joined an Alter Ego game, it would be a good idea to familiarize yourself with the user interface of Alter Ego before the game starts. After all, you don’t want to be panicking and trying to hunt down channels and commands when you are trying to role play!

Getting Situated

You play Alter Ego by interacting in room channels and direct messages. When a game of Alter Ego starts, you will get a direct message (DM) from the Alter Ego bot, which will be a description of the current room that you are in.

This DM will be the primary way for you to interact with Alter Ego. It is here that you will send commands to Alter Ego and receive their outputs. It is also where most of the system messages that Alter Ego will send you will be.

Warning

If Alter Ego can’t send you direct messages, you won’t be able to play! Before the game begins, open the settings menu for the game server, and select Privacy Settings. Check if Direct Messages from members of the server are enabled. If they’re disabled, you’ll have to enable them before the game begins.

Switching to the game server itself, you might notice that a channel with the name of the room your character is in has become accessible.

This is the room channel, the primary way you interact with other players. In this channel, you can talk to other players and also send commands. One important thing to note is that your room channel changes every time you move to a new location, so remember to switch to the new room channel! You don’t want to miss the conversation every time you switch rooms!

Tip

To make your life easier, try having two instances of Discord open at the same time while playing Alter Ego. To do this, open the Discord app on your computer while being logged in to Discord on your web browser. Alternatively, you can have the Discord app open on both your computer or your smart device. One of them will be open to the Alter Ego bot’s DMs while the other will be open to the current room channel. This makes it a lot easier to interact with others and send commands simultaneously.

Using Commands

Commands are the primary way you interact with Alter Ego. You can use commands in both in DMs and in room channels.

To use a command, enter the command prefix (by default .)¹ and append it with the command you wish to use. For instance, if we want to use the inspect command, we send the following in Discord:

.inspect

We should now see that Alter Ego has sent a response to our command.

Whoops! It seems like we have to actually specify what we are trying to look at for the inspect command to work. Let’s try again. How about we try inspecting the room we’re in? To do this, append “room” as an argument after the command.

.inspect room

Awesome! It seems that we’re in the ceramics studio, maybe we can make a vase for our flowers…

The inspect command is one of the many commands you can use to interact with Alter Ego. While all of them are different, they all work in essentially the same way:

1. Enter the command prefix² (.).
2. Enter the command (e.g. inspect, give).
3. Enter one or more arguments (e.g. room, kyra bottle).
4. Send the command string in either the bot DM or a room channel.

If you wish to learn about what other commands are available, refer to the commands reference.

Clicking on Interactables

Have you noticed those blue and red buttons in the screenshot above? How about the dropdown menu? These are interactables and they allow you to perform common actions in Alter Ego with your mouse or touch screen, all without using any commands! Let’s try them out.

If we click on the Inspect dropdown, we see a list of items in the room that we can have a look at.

Let’s try and have a look at the UTILITY CART by clicking on the dropdown menu item.

Nice, we know what the UTILITY CART looks like now! Ignore the Drop dropdown for now, we will cover that in a later chapter.

Now let’s try clicking on one of the buttons in the original message. We will click on the blue Move HALL button and see what happens.

Awesome! We’ve moved to the basement hall—all without sending a single command. Convenient right?

At the moment, interactables allow you to inspect things, move to rooms, pick up items, craft held items, and more. This means that most of what you will do in Alter Ego can be replaced with interactables.

Seeking Help

Important

Not all functions can be replaced by interactables. Just because something isn’t possible to do with interactables, doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Always see if there is a command for what you’re trying to do before giving up.

Even though interactables can do a lot, not all functions can be replaced by interactables (such as using items or solving puzzles), so there are still some commands that you will have to learn. Alter Ego has many commands and it’s not always clear to a beginner on how to use them. That’s where the help command comes in handy. Let’s try it out for ourselves. We’ll type the help command in our Bot DMs.

.help

Wow! Isn’t that neat? The help command gives us the entire list of commands that we can use! There are even interactable buttons on the bottom so we can go to the next page of commands.

We see on the list that there is a command named inventory that let’s us see what we are carrying. Let’s see how we can use that command. To do that, we append the name of the command as an argument after the help command.

.help inventory

Looking at this help entry, we can see that it includes something called aliases. Aliases are other ways you can invoke a command. In this case, we can see that the inventory command only has one: .i, whereas other commands may have multiple aliases. These aliases let you use commands easier, especially when you are using multiple of the same command.

The help entry also includes examples on how to use the command. In this case, there is only one way to use it, but other commands may have more complex example usages.

Finally, each help entry has details about the command. In this case, it explains what the inventory command does and the specifics on using it. With this information, we can list our character’s inventory no problem!

1. The command prefix is customizable by the moderator. If your moderator uses another prefix, use that instead. ↩

2. This is not strictly necessary in bot DMs. They are still required in room channels. ↩

Interacting with Things

Before you can interact with something in the game world, you must inspect it.

Why inspect things? That’s because it would be almost impossible to interact with something if you don’t know that it exists in the first place! This chapter will teach you how to inspect things in the world and how to interact with them.

Inspecting Things

One of the things you will do most in Alter Ego is inspect things. Whether it be an item, a fixture, or another player, inspecting allows you to get an idea of how you can interact with them.

Remember when we learned how to use commands earlier? If you do, then you already know the basics of inspecting. We will dive deeper on how to use the command and more importantly how to interpret its output here.

The Inspect Command

To inspect something, you use the inspect command. The first thing you should do when you’re not sure what to do is to inspect the room that you’re in. This is done automatically for you when you first enter a room, giving you information on what you can interact with.

Tip

Many commands have short form aliases! This can save you a lot of time when using commands repeatedly. Try using the help command to see if your favorite command also has one!

Let’s try inspecting a room together. We will use the short form alias this time for brevity.

.x room

It seems that we’re in the Stoke Hall Common Room. The first section of this output we see is a banner showing the name of the room. The next section a written description of what the room looks like and what is in the room. We then see a section on the occupants of the room. There is then a section about the floor of the room. Finally, there are a number of interactables at the bottom of the output.

Let’s have a look at the description of the room. If you’re wondering how we can tell what we can inspect, most things that can be inspected will be in ALL CAPS (except for exits). For instance, we can see that we can inspect the ARMCHAIR in the room.

.x armchair

Now that we know how to use the inspect command, we can have a good look at everything in Alter Ego!

Inspecting with Interactables

Important

Not all things can be inspected with interactables. When in doubt, use the command instead.

See the Inspect dropdown menu in the image above? That is the interactable used for inspecting things. We’ll click on the dropdown and select something else in the room and see what happens.

Let’s see, how about we have a look at the COFFEE TABLE? Let’s click on it.

Not only do we know how to inspect things using a command, we can also just click on them! Bet that makes inspecting a heck of a lot faster doesn’t it?

Picking Items Up

Did you notice that there aren’t just furniture around the room, but also things around we can take? For instance, the coffee table that we inspected has a TABLOID MAGAZINE and a TELEVISION GUIDE on it.

The Take Command

Tip

If there are multiple items with the same name in a room. You can specify which one by using the container it is from. For instance, if there are many spoons in a dining room, we can take only the spoon in front of us:

.take spoon from table 4

To take something, you use the take command. The take command allows you to take something from the room and put it in an open inventory slot. Keep in mind that we must have a free hand to take something, but since we’re not carrying anything in our hands right now, we can take anything we want.

To use the take command we send .take followed with the item we want to take. Let’s take the TABLOID MAGAZINE from the coffee table.

.take tabloid magazine

Nice, we now have a tabloid magazine in our possession. Wonder what kind of gossip it has? Turns out that we can also inspect the items in our hand!

Tip

If an item in a room has the same name as an item in your inventory, you can inspect your item by putting my before it. For instance, if there are a bunch of sandwiches on the counter and you wish to inspect the one you’re holding:

.inspect my sandwich

.x tabloid magazine

Taking with Interactables

Just like with inspecting, we can take items from around the room with interactables. Let’s inspect the coffee table again.

We have the TABLOID MAGAZINE in one hand, so our other hand is free, so if we press the Take TELEVISION GUIDE button, we can take that too!

Now that we have the television guide, we can find the airing times for any show we want! Although… who even uses TV guides these days? Or even watches live TV?

Your Inventory and You

After raiding the coffee table, our hands are now full with reading material. Since we can’t go around all day holding those, how do we put things in pocket (or bag)? This is where your inventory comes in. Each player has an inventory where they can put the items they are carrying. Your inventory also includes the clothes that you are wearing.

The Inventory Command

To look at your inventory, you use the inventory command. The inventory command lists everything that we have equipped and also items that we have stashed.

Let’s see what we are carrying with us by sending the .inventory command.

.inventory

Important

Remember, we equip items in equipment slots and stash items in inventory slots.

Nice! We can see that we’re carrying the magazine and the TV guide in each of our hands. We also see that we have a number of equipment slots and inventory slots.¹

Inventory entries with square brackets [] are equipment slots whereas those with round brackets () are inventory slots.

For instance, we have a BAG equipment slot with nothing [] equipped, whereas our RIGHT HAND and LEFT HAND have a [TABLOID MAGAZINE] and a [TELEVISION GUIDE] equipped respectively.

Pieces of equipment can have inventory slots that we can stash items into. For instance, our PANTS have two inventory slots: LEFT POCKET and RIGHT POCKET.

The Stash Command

Now let’s say we want to take the magazine with us to read later. We can do this by stashing it in one of our inventory slots.

The stash command allows you to stash an item in one of your hands to one of your inventory slots. To use the stash command, you send .stash followed by an item in your hands then the inventory slot you want to stash it in.

Let’s stash our magazine in our left pocket.

.stash tabloid magazine in left pocket of light blue jeans

If we check our inventory again, we can see that the magazine has indeed been stashed in our left pocket.

Stashing with Interactables

Using the stash command can get tedious, given the length of the arguments. That’s why you can also stash with interactables!

If we have a look at our inventory again, we can see that there are buttons that let us stash items with a single click.

Let’s try stashing our TV guide in our right pocket this time with the STASH TELEVISION GUIDE in RIGHT POCKET of LIGHT BLUE JEANS button.

Nice! We put that guide in our pocket without needing to type the full command.

Getting Rid of Stuff

It’s all well and good that we can put stuff in our inventory, but how can we get rid of it? It would be pretty rude to just take the magazine and the guide from the common room right? So let’s try to put them back where they were on the coffee table.

First, we have to unstash them from our inventory and return it to our hands before we can drop them.

The Unstash Command

Note

While you can specify the container to unstash an item from (i.e. .unstash television guide from right pocket of light blue jeans), this is only necessary when you have multiple of the same item in your inventory.

The unstash command lets you remove an item from one of your inventory slots and place it in your hand. To use it, send .unstash followed by the item you want to unstash.

Let’s try unstashing the TV guide.

.unstash television guide

If we look at our inventory, we can see that the TV guide has been returned to one of our hands.

Unstashing with Interactables

As with the stash command, we can unstash items by clicking on the corresponding button in our inventory. We will also unstash our TABLOID MAGAZINE, but we will leave that out of the guide for brevity.

The Drop Command

Important

If you use the drop command without specifying where, you’ll end up dropping it on the floor!

Now that we have our TV guide and tabloid magazine back in our hands, we can put it back on the coffee table with the drop command. To use the drop command, type the .drop command followed by where you want to drop the item.

Let’s try dropping the TV guide on on the coffee table.

.drop television guide on coffee table

Now all we have to do is to put the magazine back as well.

Dropping with Interactables

As with picking up items, we can use interactables to drop them as well. To do this, we first have to inspect the place we want to drop the item on.

.x coffee table

If we click on the Drop TABLOID MAGAZINE button, we can drop that as well.

Now everything is back where it should be!

Using Items

While just looking at and taking items can be interesting, you can use some items as well!

Not all items can be used, but using items is very important! For instance, to not starve, you have to eat regularly. To do that, you must eat (use) food. Alter Ego games often contain puzzles, some of which might involve using certain items such as a remote control. Some doors might also be unlocked by pressing (using) a button on the wall.

Not only can you use items that are in your inventory, you can use items around the game world too regardless of if they can be picked up. So go around, explore, and try and use stuff!

The Use Command

To use an item, you use the use command. As there are many ways to use something, this is a command that has many aliases. Some of them include .eat, .drink, and .activate. It usually doesn’t matter which one you use,² so don’t worry about which alias to use!

Have you ever been in a situation where you find yourself holding a bass guitar? Well if you do, perhaps your first instinct is to use it. To use an item, type the .use command followed by the item or fixture (something in a room that can’t be moved by a player e.g. a piano) you want to use.

Let’s try and use our BASS GUITAR and see what happens.

.use BASS GUITAR

Now we’re ready to jam!

Using with Interactables

We can also use interactables to use things. Let’s have a look at our inventory.

.i

As we have the BASS GUITAR in our hands, we see that a Use dropdown menu³ has appeared at the bottom of our inventory!

Let’s open that dropdown by clicking on it.

Looks like the only thing we can use is our BASS GUITAR. Let’s click on it.

Nice! Now we’re really making a name for ourselves in history or rock n’ roll!

1. Inventory slots can be configured by your moderator, so don’t worry if this inventory looks different from yours! ↩

2. This is true except for a few edge cases. For instance, it’s not possible to .lock or .unlock a sandwich. In general, if the sentence makes sense, it should be possible! ↩

3. Wondering why it’s a dropdown when you can only hold up to two items? Sometimes using an item can have dangerous, irreversible effects. You wouldn’t want to poison yourself by using a CYANIDE PILL because you accidentally pressed a button. Since it’s a dropdown, you have to perform two clicks or taps to use it, making it less likely that you’ll use something by accident. ↩

Moving Around

Using Alter Ego, you can explore detailed game worlds and role play in them. To do that, we must be able to move around the world. Earlier, we briefly touched on moving to another room with interactables, but this chapter will go into the details about how to move around like a champ.

The Move Command

The move command lets you move between rooms in Alter Ego. To use it, type the .move command followed by the exit you want to go to.

Before we can go somewhere, we need to find out where we can go. Let’s do that by inspecting the room.

.x room

The interactables give it away, but it seems like the only exit in this room is the DOOR. Without interactables, though, it should usually be pretty clear what is an exit, and what is a fixture. Exits will usually (but not always) have a word such as DOOR, HALL, or PATH in their name. In some cases, they might even be a proper noun. There can sometimes be fixtures with the same name as an exit in a room (meaning you can inspect them), but this is rarely the case.

In any case, let’s try using the move command.

.move door

We’ve moved to a new room! If you navigate over from your DMs with Alter Ego to the game’s server, you’ll find that the single room channel you have access to has changed.

The occupants list said You don't see anyone here., and sure enough, on the member list in the channel for this room, it’s just us, Alter Ego, and the moderator. We also don’t have permission to view the message history in this channel; this is normal. If we did, we would be able to see everything that happened in this room before we got here, which could really break our immersion!

Tip

When you enter a new room, the first thing you should do is navigate to the server and open the channel for it. That way, the slice of message history that you have access to will begin immediately when you enter the room. If you wait until later, you might not be able to see that someone has been trying to talk to you, or that someone was doing something suspicious when you entered.

If you head back to your DMs with Alter Ego, you’ll notice that the description of Hall 0 specifically described the room from the perspective of someone entering from DORM 1. Every exit in a room can have a unique description for when a player enters from it. If someone had entered from DORM 2, DORM 3, DORM 4, or any of the other exits in this room, they would have been sent a slightly different perspective of the room!

Note

When you inspect a room by sending .inspect room, you will be sent the description of the room from the perspective of the first exit it has. This may not be the exit you originally entered from, so the perspective can vary slightly. Try your best to visualize the layout of the room so you don’t get disoriented!

Before we proceed to the next room, let’s go back to our dorm for a moment. We’ll use the shortest alias for the move command this time:

.m dorm 1

Now that we’re back in Dorm 1, we can move back to the hall in a different way. We know from experience that the DOOR in Dorm 1 leads to a room named Hall 0. If we know the name of a room that’s connected to the room we’re currently in, we can also use its name, instead of the name of the exit leading to it. So, for example, if we type:

.m hall 0

It worked! If you know the name of a room, you can always use that in your move command. This can make it much easier to get around, especially if the game has a lot of exits with vague names like DOOR 1, DOOR 2, and so on.

There’s one last thing to keep in mind. When you want to move to another room, you can only move to ones that are directly connected to the room you’re currently in by at least one exit. Even if you know the name of a room, you won’t be able to move there if it isn’t connected to your current room. If you have the Free Movement role, though, you can move to any room you want.

Moving with Interactables

Now that we are in a different room, let’s try using interactables. See those blue buttons below the room description? Let’s click on Move HALL DOOR.

How convenient! We can move to different rooms without having to type a single command! The only downside is that we have to remember which exit leads to which room, as the buttons use the names of the exits, instead of the names of the rooms they lead to.

The Run Command

Did you notice how when we pressed the Move HALL DOOR button, there was a message that said You start walking toward the HALL DOOR.? This is because it takes time to move from room to room. If a room only has one exit (like the room we started off in, Dorm 1), it will take no time at all, but for rooms with multiple exits, the amount of time it takes to move from one room to another can vary.

While it may seem simple at first glance, when you move in Alter Ego, you are actually moving around in a 3D space. How this works is quite complicated, but most of it is hidden from view; if you want to learn all of the technical details, see this section.

However, to give a brief overview, every exit has a set of coordinates in 3D space, and when you enter a room, your position matches the coordinates of the exit you entered from. When you move to another exit, Alter Ego calculates the amount of time it will take for you to move from your current position to that exit’s coordinates based on your character’s speed stat. Once that amount of time has elapsed, you will finally move to the desired exit.

So, what if the exit you want to move to is quite far from your current position? You might be in a hurry; maybe you’re short on time, or maybe someone is chasing you around with a weapon. This is where the run command comes in handy.

The run command works exactly the same as the move command, with a few key differences. Let’s try it out.

.run hall 5

Nice! We got here much faster than if we had used the regular move command. Alter Ego even specified You start running toward HALL 5. instead of the usual message.

Now that we’ve used the run command, what are the differences between it and the move command?

1. You will move at double your usual speed, and
2. You will consume three times as much stamina while moving.

Stamina is another one of your character’s stats. It determines how long you can move around continuously before getting tired. Whenever you are moving, you are consuming stamina; whenever you are not moving, your stamina is recovering. If you run out of stamina, you will become weary, and you will be completely unable to move for a set period of time while your stamina recovers.

So, as you can see, while the run command is useful for getting around quickly, it should be used sparingly. The last thing you want is to become completely immobilized when you’re trying to get somewhere; that would be totally counterproductive.

How do you know if you’re getting low on stamina? Alter Ego will give you a warning when you’ve depleted half of it—if you see this, that’s your sign to take a break soon!

Running with Interactables

As you’ve no doubt already noticed, you can also run using interactables. Continuing from Hall 5, let’s press the red button labeled Run HALL 3.

Nice! Being able to run with just the click of a button will definitely help us get around faster.

Stopping

By now, you’ve probably noticed that when you start moving or running to another room, Alter Ego will send an interactable that says Stop. If you are currently moving, you can cancel your movement by pressing this button, or by using the stop command, like so:

.stop

Whichever method you choose, Alter Ego will confirm that you’ve stopped moving.

One thing to keep in mind that when you’re in the process of moving, your position is constantly being updated as you get closer to your destination. When you stop, your latest position will be preserved, and that will be your new starting position if you decide to move again.

Locked Doors

Since we’re still in Hall 3, let’s try moving to DOOR 4.

.m door 4

Shoot! It’s locked! We can’t go inside. According to the room description, there is a PANEL on the wall next to DOOR 4, so let’s try inspecting it.

.x panel

Since there is a fixture mentioned next to DOOR 4, that means there is probably a puzzle attached to it that might be able to unlock the door. Let’s try using the PANEL and see what happens.

.use panel

There is a puzzle! This means we might be able to unlock DOOR 4, but we probably need a key of some sort. If we don’t have the key, though, we’ll just have to try again later. It’s not worth wasting our time trying to open it if we don’t have what we need.

Queuing Movement

In addition to being able to enter the names of rooms, the move and run commands offer one additional advantage over interactables: the ability to queue future movements. If, after writing the name of an exit or room in your move or run command, you enter the greater-than character (>), you can then enter the name of another exit or room in the destination to move to. Let’s give it a try.

.m hall 5 > hall 4

Wow! Immediately after entering Hall 5, we started moving to Hall 4 without having to do a thing. Of course, we had to know that you could get to Hall 4 from Hall 5, so this isn’t something we could have done if we didn’t remember it. If we had tried to move to Hall 0 from Hall 5 instead, Alter Ego would have told us there was no such destination once we arrived in Hall 5. So, queuing your movements is something you can only do effectively if you are already very familiar with the map. Once you are, though, you can get around much more efficiently.

Important

When queuing your movements, Alter Ego will only parse the next destination in the queue after you finish moving to the previous one. If one of the destinations in your queue is invalid, or the exit is locked, you won’t find out until you’ve progressed up to that point in the queue.

You can queue as many movements as you like, and you can even mix together exit names and room names. Movement queues are very flexible. Let’s try a roundabout way to get to the Kitchen from Hall 4:

.m hall 5 > hall 1 > hall 2 > kitchen

Now that our movements are queued, now’s a good time to take a break. Maybe we can get up to use the restroom, or switch to another tab to respond to the friend that sent us a DM.

When we come back, we’ve arrived in the Kitchen! Hooray!

Let’s step back outside for a moment. Have you ever wanted to run around in circles? Well, Alter Ego allows you to do just that. If you find a set of rooms that you can travel around in a loop, you can queue your movements like so:

.run hall 4 > hall 5 > hall 3 > hall 2 > hall 4 > hall 5 > hall 3 > hall 2 > hall 4 > hall 5 > hall 3 > hall 2

And then, you’ll run around the loop three times. Just be sure to keep an eye on your stamina!

If you decide to stop while you’re moving through your queue—whether by using the stop command or by pressing the Stop interactable—not only will you immediately stop moving, but your movement queue will be cleared.

Expressing Yourself

Alter Ego is a game about role-playing with others. So what is a role-playing game without talking? This chapter will teach you how to express yourself using words (and more!) in-game.

Talking with Others

Talking in Alter Ego is simple; it doesn’t even involve any commands! To talk, navigate to your room channel and start sending messages. That’s it! Now everyone in the room can read what your character is speaking.

Let’s try that out.

Hello, everyone.

Simple, right? In Alter Ego, dialog is done in a script style, where spoken words are sent by themselves, without any sort of quotation marks. It’s just like sending a regular Discord message!

This might be somewhat jarring for role players who are more familiar with a paragraph style, but there are good reasons for this! The most obvious one is that Alter Ego gameplay is much more fast-paced, and writing quotation marks and sentences like “She said.” takes time that could be better spent elsewhere. If you like the expressiveness and introspection of paragraph-style role play, don’t worry. Alter Ego has several tools you might like—we’ll get to those in a little bit.

Shouting

Aren’t there times when you’re angry, or frightened, or just want to LET IT ALL OUT?! That’s when you shout so loudly that everyone in the house can hear you right? Good news is that you can do that too in Alter Ego. Bad news is that it’s just as embarrassing for everyone involved.

To shout in Alter Ego, you have two options:

1. Type your message in ALL CAPS. Watch out, though! If there are any lowercase letters, it won’t count as shouting. So HELLO EVERYONE! will count as shouting, but HELLO everyone! won’t.
2. Begin your message with Discord’s heading Markdown characters. You can type between one to three hash/pound sign characters (#) and then a space, followed by the words you want to say, and it will count as shouting—you don’t need to write in all uppercase this way. Although the size of the text can vary depending on how many hash characters you enter, they all function exactly the same.

Shouting in Alter Ego works in just about the same way as real life; characters that are in adjacent rooms can hear you shout. This is one example of where your character’s voice descriptor comes into play.

Let’s try it out together. We will shout loudly a few times and see if others notice.

HELLO? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?
# I am shouting very loudly!
## I am shouting a little less loudly, but I am still shouting!
### This, too, counts as shouting! Can you still hear me?

So, did anyone hear us? Let’s check on a nearby room to find out:

Yes they did! It even used our character’s voice descriptor instead of her name, since not everyone will be able to recognize her by her voice.¹

Speaking Quietly

Do you ever get sad or frightened, and start to speak quietly? Maybe you’re too shy to speak up, or you always find yourself muttering quietly to yourself. You can do that in Alter Ego, too!

To speak quietly, start your message with Discord’s subtext Markdown characters. You can type a hyphen followed by a hash/pound sign and then a space (-# ) before the words you want to say, and it will be considered quiet dialog.

Let’s try it out:

-# I see... nobody is here...

So, what does this do? Not much! If your dialog is written in ALL CAPS, this will cancel it out, and it won’t be considered shouting. Other than that, speaking this way doesn’t have any special effects for the time being.

Speaking Out-of-Character

There are times when we must speak out-of-character (OOC). For instance, when we want to tell others that we’re stepping away from the keyboard, or if we want to comment on something funny.

Important

Any message that starts with a ( is considered to be OOC. So don’t include any dialog in them! Keep in mind, though, that even if you begin your message with Discord’s Markdown formatting characters, if the first character after them is (, it will still count as an OOC message.

To speak OOC in Alter Ego, we start our message with an opening parenthesis (. This tells Alter Ego that our message is OOC and that it shouldn’t be shown in spectate channels.² Think of these messages as being off-the-record, as people spectating you won’t see them.

Let’s try this out by saying that we’re going to the restroom.

(brb girls bio break

There, now everyone won’t think we just disappeared into thin air.

The Say Command

If you’ve looked through the list of commands, you may have noticed that there’s a say command. Maybe you’ve even tried it yourself, only for Alter Ego to tell you that you have no reason to use it. What’s the deal with that?

It’s pretty simple. Sometimes, you won’t have access to the room channel, but you’d still be able to speak. For example, maybe you’ve found an ONNA MASK lying around, and you decided to put it on. Now your identity has been concealed. Now you can use the say command to speak.

How do you do that? Simple! Just type the command, and then enter whatever it is you want to say. Let’s try it out.

.say I've found this strange mask... do any of you know anything about it?

You won’t get any message from Alter Ego, but it will send a webhook message in the room channel communicating the dialog you said, like so:

For the most part, you won’t be using the say command except in rare situations. But it comes in handy when you do need it!

Sharing Secrets

While it’s all well and good to talk to everyone in the room (or everyone in adjacent rooms if we’re shouting), there are times when subtlety is warranted. This is where whispering comes in handy.

The Whisper Command

If you wish to talk to other players in secret, you can whisper to them. This is done through the use of the whisper command. To whisper to one or more players, send .whisper [player] [player2]... while you are in the same room as the other player(s).

Let’s say we want to whisper to our friend Huiyu.

.whisper huiyu

This opens a whisper channel between us and Huiyu where we can share secrets!

Now let’s try and say something to Huiyu in the whisper channel. Hmm… how about telling her about our secret plan to achieve world domination through the use of bunnies?

Huiyu, it's very important that you keep this between us. I've just come into possession of a *very large rabbit,* and I'd like your help using it to conquer the world.

Others in the room can see that we are whispering, but can’t actually hear what we’re saying.³

Group Whispers

Note

You can’t add someone to a whisper channel that already exists, but if a person leaves the room or becomes otherwise incapacitated, they will be removed from the whisper channel.

Let’s try starting a whisper circle with more people. I think our friends Jenny and Aisha would like to join our secret plan as well so let’s bring them into the fold.

We’re going to start a new whisper channel with all three of them.

.whisper huiyu jenny aisha

Performing Gestures

Do you ever want to do something non-verbal, like smile, shrug your shoulders, or point at something? Great news! Alter Ego has a whole system to do exactly that. These are called gestures. This allows you to communicate with other players non-verbally, without having to think too much about how to convey what you want to do in words.

The Gesture Command

If you wish to perform a gesture, you can use the gesture command. Before we can do any gestures, though, we need to know which ones are available to us. Let’s take a look by sending this command:

.gesture list

Wow! There are thirteen pages to look through!⁴ This is helpful if you want to discover gestures you didn’t know existed, or if you’re confused what a certain gesture does—the brief description explains that. But for the most part, you can usually perform a gesture just by guessing its name. Let’s try it out, shall we?

.gesture smile

Simple enough, right? It looks almost as if we sent this message ourselves, but the text of the gesture is contained in a block that makes it clear that this isn’t spoken dialog.

What if we want to shrug, though? Should we enter shrug shoulders, or just shrug? Most gestures have the shortest name they can have, so that they can be done without too much effort. So in this case, let’s go with shrug. And for even more convenience, let’s use the short-form alias of the gesture command:

.g shrug

That’s easy, but what if we want to point at something? Thankfully, gestures can be made to require a target. Did you notice that in the gesture list, there were several gestures that seemed to have duplicates, where the only difference was that the name ended with at? Gestures that require targets usually have names with prepositions at the end. That way, after you type the name of the gesture, all you need to do is type the name of the target. So, you’re usually typing something that makes grammatical sense. For example, let’s try pointing at our friend Huiyu:

.g point at huiyu

It worked! If you’re ever confused about a gesture, remember that you can always check its description in the list.

Narrating Your Actions

What if you want to communicate non-verbally, but gestures just aren’t cutting it? Maybe there isn’t a gesture for what you want to communicate, or maybe the action you want to do is just too complex to be described in a simple gesture. Or perhaps, you just want to sprinkle some movement into what is otherwise a standard dialog message? You can do all of those things, with narrations!

Important

All of Alter Ego’s built-in narrations are written in third-person present tense. You should do your best to write your narrations in this form.

Code Block Narrations

For many years, Alter Ego offered no way to narrate your actions aside from gestures. As a result, a pattern of using code blocks as narrations emerged. While this is largely no longer necessary (we will see why in a moment), they can still offer some utility, especially if all you want to do is sprinkle a narration into your regular dialog.

Discord allows you to type inline code blocks by surrounding text with tics (`). You can send these in any message to denote that something is not part of the usual dialog. Let’s give it a try:

I have been busy with... `She pauses, bringing a finger to her chin.` Several things. What about you?

See how the text we surrounded in tics looks different from the rest of the message? That’s a code block. It looks clearly distinct, which makes it useful for writing short narrations like this. The main downside is that it doesn’t allow you to use formatting characters within it, so you can’t write anything in bold, italics, or any other forms of emphasis.

Warning

Alter Ego doesn’t treat narrations sprinkled into dialog with code blocks as distinct from the rest of the dialog. They will be treated as spoken dialog so don’t type anything in them that you don’t want other people hearing.

The Narrate Command

As of Alter Ego version 2.0, there’s a new way of narrating your character’s actions that offers a lot more flexibility: the narrate command.

To use the narrate command, type the command itself, followed by whatever it is you want to narrate. Let’s try a simple example:

.narrate She nervously rubs her arm and turns her head away, averting her eyes.

It looks just like a gesture, doesn’t it? They work very similarly! The narrate command allows you to write much more complex narrations than gestures can provide, making it perfect for expressing your character non-verbally.

The other advantage of the narrate command that makes it significantly better than using code block narrations is that it allows you to use Discord’s Markdown characters to emphasis and style to your narrations. Let’s try another example, this time using the short-form alias for the narrate command:

.n Kyra crosses her arms, brows furrowed. She looks absolutely **furious** as she glares intently at the person across from her. The fact that she can maintain her dignity and composure even when her anger is *this* palpable makes the daggers in her eyes feel that much sharper.

She huffs indignantly, and then begins to speak with low, steady tone of voice, every word feeling deliberate and calculated.

You can even include code blocks in the narrate command! This can be helpful in showing people what you’ve found, if you have an item in-game that you would be able to take notes on.

.n She shows TABLET 9 to Ava. On the screen is the notes app with her final calculations.
```
Sloth:      Computer  1:   1 x  7 =   7 -> ??
Shrimp:     Computer  2:   2 x 15 =  30 -> ??
Fox:        Computer  3:   3 x 18 =  54 -> ??
Leopard:    Computer  4:   4 x  4 =  16 -> ??
Tortoise:   Computer  5:   5 x  3 =  15 -> ??
Shark:      Computer  6:   6 x 11 =  66 -> ??
Dog:        Computer  7:   7 x 14 =  98 -> ??
Owl:        Computer  8:   8 x 13 = 104 -> ??
Cow:        Computer  9:   9 x  2 =  18 -> ??
Dolphin:    Computer 10:  10 x 17 = 170 -> ??
Raven:      Computer 11:  11 x  6 =  66 -> ??
Duck:       Computer 12:  12 x  5 =  60 -> ??
Boa:        Computer 13:  13 x 10 = 130 -> ??
Beaver:     Computer 14:  14 x  1 =  14 -> ??
Eel:        Computer 15:  15 x 16 = 240 -> ??
Sheep:      Computer 16:  16 x  8 = 128 -> ??
Cat:        Computer 17:  17 x  9 = 153 -> ??
Frog:       Computer 18:  18 x 12 = 216 -> ??
```

Pretty cool! As you can see, the narrate command offers a lot of flexibility.

Spectate Channels

Did you know? Alter Ego has a feature called spectate channels. There’s a channel for every player in the game—including you!—in which everything that player says, hears, sees, and does is mirrored in real-time. These are a powerful feature of Alter Ego’s, as they can easily make spectating a game almost as fun as playing in it yourself.

Spectate channels may be hidden from you while you’re playing, but when the game is over, you should be given access to them automatically. Since everything is logged there in real time, they offer a means of reading back on old Alter Ego role plays from the perspective of any character, in chronological order.

So, what does a spectate channel look like? Let’s open up Kyra’s channel, shall we?

It looks just like a normal Discord channel, but everything—room descriptions, narrations, dialog, whispers, and more—is stored in one place, sent in chronological order. It makes keeping track of a given player’s perspective very easy, as you see everything that they see. Player dialog and narrations are even mirrored here using webhook messages, similar to the say command!

Important

If you edit dialog messages quickly after you send them, those edits will be reflected in spectate channels. However, the avatar you had when you sent the message will be immortalized in the webhook message; it can’t be changed once it’s been sent. For that reason, it is highly recommended you set your avatar to an image of your character. If you have Discord Nitro, you can set your avatar for just the server, and leave your main avatar untouched; your server avatar will take priority when your messages are mirrored in spectate channels. This is true of every situation where Alter Ego uses webhooks, including gestures and narrations.

Monologuing

Do you ever wish you could write down your character’s inner thoughts, but you don’t want other players to be able to read them? That’s where monologs come in handy!

The Monolog Command

Note

Although the American form of the word monologue—monolog—is rarely used, it has been chosen for the sake of symmetry with Alter Ego’s use of the form dialog. However, the more common monologue is an accepted alias of the command.

The monolog command works similarly to the narrate command. The key difference is that when you use the monolog command, the output will only be sent to you, and to your spectate channel. This not only allows you to keep track of what your character is thinking, but also makes it clear to spectators.

Let’s give it a try!

.monolog Why is all of this alcohol here...?

Alter Ego will send us a copy of our monolog:

But if we look in Kyra’s spectate channel, it looks different:

As you can see, it looks similar to a narration, but the container block doesn’t have an accent color, indicating that it’s not exactly the same. And sure enough, if you look in the room channel or the spectate channels of other players, you won’t see a thing.

Tip

Whether you want to write monologs in first or third person is a matter of personal preference. Just try to be consistent!

Just like with the narrate command, you can format monologs however you like. Let’s try it out, this time using one of the short-form aliases for the command:

.mn An asteroid...

> *"Axiom two: This facility is a nuclear bunker.*
>
> *Designed to withstand the end of life as we know it upon the surface of the Earth. Namely, nuclear warfare. But probably useful for climate collapse, too."*

Stephanie... she was right, then? Is that this facility's true purpose?

Wow, that was dark! But hopefully you get the idea by now. Monologs are another powerful tool Alter Ego offers you to enhance your role playing experience.

Now that you know how to express yourself, have fun role playing to your heart’s content!

1. It’s possible for players to recognize each other by the sounds of their voice. If someone who recognized Kyra’s voice was in the room, they would receive a private message saying Kyra shouts "HELLO? CAN ANYONE HEAR ME?" in a nearby room. and the like, every time she shouted. If you’re curious how that works, see this section. ↩

2. Don’t worry about knowing what spectate channels are yet, we’ll be going into them later. ↩

3. Technically it is possible for other players to hear our whispers, but this has historically been rare. To learn more, check out this section. ↩

4. There may be more or fewer pages depending on if your Moderator has added or removed gestures from the game. There may also be fewer pages if you are inflicted with certain status effects that prevent you from performing specific gestures. ↩

Discord

Discord is a free voice and text chat program that’s designed for gamers. Due to many of its features, Alter Ego was designed specifically to use it via the discord.js API.

Features

Discord members congregate in servers. Servers may be publicly accessible or open only to members who are sent an invite link to that server. Further, text and voice chat can take place in different channels in a server. Within a server, different members may be granted specific permissions. These permissions can be given to specific roles or assigned to members on a channel by channel basis. Permissions exist to give members the ability do several different things, including:

• Create and delete channels.
• Grant and revoke permissions to specific members.
• Kick and ban members from the server.
• Change a member’s nickname within the server.
• See a channel on the channel list and read messages within it.
• Delete and pin messages within a channel.
• Read the message history of a channel.
• And many more.

In every channel, a member list is displayed on the right-hand side which displays all of the members that can read that channel. Members can be in a server without having a Discord account using the Discord browser app, however these members will cease to exist after they exit the app. With a Discord account, members can be in a server indefinitely, even when they’re offline.

Discord members can also direct message each other outside of a server. They can create group DMs as well.

Gameplay Implementation

This section lists how Discord is used to facilitate the game.

A game is contained in one and only one Discord server. It is run by Alter Ego.

Every Player is represented by a Discord server member, aside from NPCs. Each Player must have their own Discord account, unless they are an NPC. A single account cannot be used for multiple Players.

Every Room is represented by a Discord text channel. When a Player moves to a given Room, they will be granted permission to read that channel, and their permission to read the channel of the Room they were previously in will be revoked. This creates the effect of only being in one Room at a time. In a Room, a Player can see all of the other Players that are in the Room on the user list on the right side of the screen. Messages sent by a Player to a Room channel act as dialog from that Player, enabling communication between Players in a Room.

Every Whisper is also represented by a Discord text channel. When a Whisper is created between two or more Players, a new channel will be created in the Whisper category, and only the Players in the Whisper will be granted read access to that channel. When a Player leaves the Room or is otherwise removed from the Room’s channel, their read access to all Whispers they were in will be revoked. Their name will also be removed from the Whisper name, whose channel name will be edited accordingly. When all Players in a Whisper leave the Room, the Whisper channel will either be archived or immediately deleted, depending on the AUTO_DELETE_WHISPER_CHANNELS setting.

Every spectate channel also has a Discord text channel. When Player data is loaded from the spreadsheet, Alter Ego will check to see if that Player already has a spectate channel in the Spectate category. If not, it will create one with that Player’s name. It will not do this if there are already 50 spectate channels in the category.

When a Player enters a Room, inspects a Fixture or Room Item, or otherwise does something that requires text from the Spreadsheet be sent, Alter Ego will send the text to that Player via DM. Any Narration regarding a Player action will generally be sent to the channel of the Room that Player is in.

Displaying Content

Discord offers many ways to display content. Alter Ego makes use of several of these.

Markdown

Discord has its own implementation of Markdown. This allows users to style text in various ways. Alter Ego interacts with Discord Markdown in the following ways:

• When a Player sends a message to a Room channel as a Header of any size, Alter Ego considers this to be shouted dialog, and communicates it to neighboring Rooms.
• When a Player sends a message to a Room channel as Subtext, Alter Ego considers this to be quiet dialog, and will not communicate it to neighboring Rooms, even if it is in all uppercase letters.

Display Components

Discord has a variety of Display Components, which allow bots to send messages with highly customizable appearances.

Alter Ego has its own system of message display types. These are pre-defined sets of Display Components that can be sent by Alter Ego with ease. They are detailed here.

STANDARD

The STANDARD message display type is used in standard Narrations. It consists of text inside of a Container Component. The accent color used is set by the STANDARD_MESSAGE_DISPLAY_ACCENT_COLOR setting.

WARNING

The WARNING message display type is used in Narrations meant to warn Players. It consists of text inside of a Container Component. The accent color used is set by the WARNING_MESSAGE_DISPLAY_ACCENT_COLOR setting.

ALERT

The ALERT message display type is used in Narrations meant to convey a sense of danger or urgency. It consists of text inside of a Container Component. The accent color used is set by the ALERT_MESSAGE_DISPLAY_ACCENT_COLOR setting.

MINOR

The MINOR message display type is used in Narrations meant to communicate information that isn’t important. It uses Markdown, consisting of Subtext in a Block Quote. Messages sent with the MINOR message display type are sent with the SUPPRESS_NOTIFICATIONS Flag, so that they will not trigger a notification for users.

PLAIN_TEXT

The PLAIN_TEXT message display type is used to send a message as plain text, with no Display Components.

PLAYER

The PLAYER message display type is used to send Narrations on behalf of a Player. They are used when a Player performs a Gesture or sends a Narration with the narrate command. It consists of a Webhook message in which the username is the Player’s display name, and the avatar is their current display icon or Discord avatar. The content of the Narration consists of text inside of a Container Component. It uses the same accent color as a message sent with the STANDARD message display type.

MONOLOG

The MONOLOG message display type is used to send Monologs on behalf of a Player. It consists of a Webhook message that functions identically to the PLAYER message display type. However, the Container Component does not have an accent color.

Interactive Components

Discord has several Interactive Components that Alter Ego uses to simplify many common tasks. The two main categories that Alter Ego uses are Action Rows and Modals.

For more information, see the article on Interactables.

Limitations

Discord servers have a number of limits. The following limitations are relevant to Alter Ego and the game:

• A server can have at most 500 channels - text, voice, and categories combined. Once 500 channels are reached, no more channels can be created.
  • Because each Room is represented by its own channel, and because there are 10 channels (including categories) minimum that Alter Ego requires outside of Room and Whisper channels, a single game can have at most about 440 Rooms. This number would consist of 8 categories for Rooms, each containing 50 channels, as well as a 9th category containing only 31 channels. This number does not account for spectate channels. Theoretically, a single game could have up to 491 Rooms, but only if Whispers are disabled, no Players have spectate channels, and the Whisper and Spectator categories are deleted.
• A channel category can have at most 50 channels - text and voice combined. Once 50 channels are reached, no more channels can be created in the category.
  • If a game has more than 50 Rooms, additional Room categories will have to be created.
• Message limit: 2,000 characters. Nitro users have a message limit of 4,000 characters. (note: user/channel/role mentions and emojis contain more characters than are shown)
  • If a description (without formatting characters) is longer than 2,000 characters, Alter Ego will not be able to send it to a Player.
  • If a Player with Discord Nitro sends a message in a Room or Whisper channel that is longer than 2,000 characters, it will not be sent to spectate channels. Players should be discouraged from doing this.
• Username/nickname: 32 characters.
  • A Player’s name must be 32 characters or fewer.

Another limit involves the Read Message History permission. When a member doesn’t have this permission (which is recommended for gameplay purposes), they will not be able to see messages sent any time they didn’t have permission to read a channel during their current Discord session. A Discord session can loosely be defined as the period of time starting when a member opens the Discord application and ending when they close it. This can mean different things depending on what version of the Discord application the user is using:

• On the Discord desktop app, a session ends when the user logs out, closes the app, refreshes the app, puts their computer into sleep mode, or turns off their computer.
• On the Discord browser app, a session ends when the user logs out, closes the tab, refreshes the page, closes their browser, or puts their computer into sleep mode.
• On the Discord mobile app, a session ends when the user logs out, closes the app, locks their device, or turns off their device. The session may also end when the user switches to a different app, though this depends on what operating system the device uses and how long the Discord app is inactive.

When a session ends, all messages that a user without the Read Message History permission was previously able to read will disappear when the user opens Discord again. For this reason, the Discord desktop app provides the best experience when playing the game because it most easily retains a session. The Discord browser app also works somewhat well for this purpose. However, using the Discord mobile app to play is severely not recommended. Unless the user keeps the app open constantly, never switches to another app, and never locks their device, a continuous session cannot be guaranteed, and thus the message history they have access to will clear very frequently. If you would like to see this issue resolved, upvote this thread in the Discord Feedback forums.

Known bugs

• Occasionally, when a Player moves to a new Room, the member list for that Room will appear blank. This can usually be fixed by the user opening a channel in a different category and then opening the Room channel again.
• Occasionally, when a Player leaves a Room, their read permission for all of the Whispers they were in will not be revoked. Additionally, the channel name may not be updated.

Commands

Commands are messages sent to Alter Ego in order to interface with the game. In general, they allow a Discord user to influence the game world in some way.

Commands are loaded from the commands directory when Alter Ego is booted up. Each command is a JavaScript file with a .js extension. This file contains all of the command’s logic which Alter Ego uses to interpret the content of the message which sent the command and carry out the desired behavior.

All commands are passed through the commandHandler module before being executed. The purpose ouf this module is to determine who is sending the command, and if they have permission to do so. All commands are restricted to a single permission level based on the sender’s Discord roles in the game server.

Player commands

Player commands are usable by users with the Player role. These commands allow Players to interact with the game world of their own volition.

Player commands can only be used when a game is in progress. They can be sent to Alter Ego through DM or in the channel corresponding with the Room that the Player is in. The Player must be alive to use commands, and they must not be inflicted with a Status Effect which disables the command they’re trying to use. With few exceptions, Players cannot use commands when edit mode is enabled. If Alter Ego accepts the Player’s command and it was sent in a Room channel, the message in which the command was issued will be deleted.

If a command is issued in DMs, the message does not need to begin with the command prefix (. by default). However, if it is sent in a Room channel, then the command prefix is required.

craft

Crafts two items in your inventory together.

Aliases

.craft .combine .mix .c

Examples

.craft DRAIN CLEANER and PLASTIC BOTTLE
.combine BREAD and CHEESE
.mix RED VIAL with BLUE VIAL
.craft SOAP with KNIFE

Details

Creates a new item using the two items in your hands. The names of the items must be separated by “with” or “and”. If no recipe for those two items exists, the items cannot be crafted together. If any of the resulting items is particularly large, this will be narrated in the room, so other players will see you craft them.

You can view a list of all recipes that you can craft with the items in your inventory using the recipes command. Some crafting recipes can be reversed once performed using the uncraft command. For more information on both of these commands, use the help command.

dress

Takes and equips all items from a container.

Aliases

.dress .redress

Examples

.dress WARDROBE
.dress LAUNDRY BASKET
.redress MAIN POCKET of BLUE BACKPACK

Details

Takes all items from a container of your choosing and equips them, if possible. You must have a free hand to take items with. This will be narrated, so any other players in the room will see you dress.

Items will be equipped in the order in which they appear in the game’s data, which should be the order they appear in the container’s description. If an item is equippable to an equipment slot, but you already have something equipped to that slot, it will not be equipped, and you will not be notified when this happens. If the container you choose has multiple inventory slots (for example, a backpack with several pockets), you can specify which slot to dress from. Otherwise, you will dress from all slots.

drop

Discards an item from your inventory.

Aliases

.drop .discard .put .place .d

Examples

.drop FIRST AID KIT
.discard BASKETBALL
.put KNIFE in SINK
.d TOWEL on BENCHES
.drop KEY in RIGHT POCKET of PLAID SKIRT
.d WRENCH on TOP RACK of TOOL BOX

Details

Discards an item from your inventory and leaves it in the room you’re currently in. The item you want to drop must be in one of your hands. If you discard a very large item (a sword, for example), this will be narrated in the room, so other players will see you drop it.

If you want to put the item in a specific fixture or item in the room, add a preposition after the name of the item, followed by the container’s name. Every container has a set preposition which should be fairly obvious. For example, a fixture called “DESK” is likely to have the preposition “on”. However, if the preposition is unclear, “in” will always work. Keep in mind that not all fixtures and items can be item containers. If you don’t specify a container, you will simply leave the item on the floor.

If the container has multiple inventory slots (for example, a backpack with several pockets), you can also specify which slot you want to put the item in. To do this, enter the name of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the name of the container. If you don’t specify an inventory slot, you will put it in the first slot it has.

You can only put items in containers in the room that you’re in. If you want to put an item in one of your inventory items, use the stash command.

equip

Equips an item.

Aliases

.equip .wear .e

Examples

.equip PLAGUE DOCTOR MASK
.wear WHITE PARKA
.e KNIT WOOL SWEATER to SHIRT

Details

Equips an item to one of your equipment slots. The item you want to equip must be in one of your hands. When you equip an item, it will be narrated in the room, so other people can see you equip it, regardless of its size. It will then appear in your description, unless it’s covered by another equipped item. For example, something equipped to your PANTS slot is likely to cover something equipped to your UNDERWEAR slot.

Each item can only be equipped to certain equipment slots, if they’re equippable at all. For example, a mask is likely to only be equippable to the FACE slot. If you are unable to equip an item to its default equipment slot, you can specify which slot you want to equip it to. To do this, enter “to” after the name of the item, followed by the name of one of your equipment slots. You can view a list of all of your equipment slots with the inventory command.

To equip many items at once, use the dress command. If you wish to remove one of your equipped items, use the unequip command.

gesture

Performs a gesture.

Aliases

.gesture .g

Examples

.gesture smile
.g point at DOOR 1
.gesture wave Johnny
.g sit CHAIR
.gesture list

Details

Performs one of a set of pre-defined gestures. Everybody in the room with you will see you do this gesture. This allows you to communicate non-verbally, though some gestures cannot be performed if you have certain status effects. For example, if your face is concealed with a mask, you cannot use gestures like “smile” or “frown”, as nobody would be able to see it. To see a list of all of the gestures you can currently perform, send the gesture command followed by “list”.

Certain gestures may require a target to perform them. For example, a gesture might require you specify an exit, a fixture, another player, etc. To specify a target, enter the name of the target directly after the name of the gesture. Note that a gesture can only be performed with one target at a time.

give

Gives an item to another player.

Aliases

.give

Examples

.give Astrid EMBALMING FLUID
.g Flint BIRTHDAY PRESENT

Details

Transfers an item from your inventory to another player in the room. The item selected must be in one of your hands. The receiving player must also have a free hand, or else they will not be able to receive the item. If a particularly large item is given (a chainsaw, for example), it will be narrated in the room, so other players in the room will see you giving it to the recipient.

help

Lists all commands available to you.

Aliases

.help

Examples

.help
.help move

Details

Lists all commands available to the user. If a command is specified, displays the help menu for that command.

hide

Hides you in a fixture.

Aliases

.hide .unhide

Examples

.hide DESK
.hide SHOWER 1
.unhide

Details

Allows you to use a fixture in a room as a hiding spot. When hidden, you will be removed from the room’s channel so that when other players enter the room, they won’t see you on the user list. They will also not see you listed as an occupant when they enter the room. When players speak in the room that you’re hiding in, you will hear what they say. While hidden, many of your actions will be restricted. For example, you will only be able to inspect and take items that are in the fixture you’re hiding in.

Under normal circumstances, a whisper channel will be created for you to speak in. Most players will be unable to hear what you say in this channel. However, if you want to speak so that everyone can hear you (while having your identity remain a secret), use the say command. If someone hides in the same hiding spot as you, you will be placed in a whisper channel together. If someone inspects or tries to hide in the fixture that you’re hiding in, your position will be revealed.

If you wish to come out of hiding, use the unhide command.

inspect

Learn more about a fixture, item, or player.

Aliases

.inspect .investigate .examine .look .x

Examples

.inspect DESK
.examine KNIFE
.look JUG OF ORANGE JUICE in REFRIGERATOR
.x WOOLEN MITTENS in MAIN POUCH of RED BACKPACK
.investigate my PISTOL
.look Kiara
.examine an individual wearing a PLAGUE DOCTOR MASK
.look Marielle's CIRCLE GLASSES
.x an individual wearing a PLAGUE DOCTOR MASK's BLACK CLOAK
.inspect room

Details

Tells you about a fixture, item, or player in the room you’re in. A fixture is something in the room that you can interact with but not take with you. An item is something that you can both interact with and take with you. If you inspect a fixture, everyone in the room will see you inspect it. The same goes for very large items.

If there are multiple items with the same name in the room, you can specify which one you want to inspect using the name of the container it’s in. To do this, you must enter the container’s preposition before its name. If you don’t know its preposition, “in” will always work. If you are inspecting an item contained inside another item that has multiple inventory slots (for example, a backpack with several pockets), you can specify which of the container’s slots you want to search in, by entering the name of the slot followed by “of” before the container item’s name.

You can also inspect items in your inventory. If you have an item with the same name as an item in the room you’re currently in, you can specify that you want to inspect your item by adding “my” before the item name.

To inspect a player, enter their display name as it appears when you enter the room or when they perform an action. You can even inspect visible items in their inventory by adding ’s to the end of their name, followed by the name of the item you want to inspect. No one will see you do this, but you will receive slightly less info when inspecting another player’s items.

To see the description of the room you’re in without having to leave and come back, you can enter “room”.

inventory

Lists the items in your inventory.

Aliases

.inventory .i

Examples

.inventory
.i

Details

Lists all of the equipment slots you have available, and any items that are equipped to each one. Your “RIGHT HAND” and “LEFT HAND” equipment slots are your hands, which are your main ways of interacting with inventory items. You can manage the items in these equipment slots primarily with the take and drop commands. For all other equipment slots, you can equip items to them with the equip command, and remove items from them with the unequip command.

If any of your equipped items have inventory slots, then you can store other items inside of them. These inventory slots will be listed underneath the equipped item, and any items they contain will be listed in parentheses. To store an item in one of these inventory slots, use the stash command. To retrieve one and put it in your hand, use the unstash command. Be warned that items that you have stashed in inventory slots can be stolen by other players, sometimes without you noticing.

In your inventory, the names of all items will be contained in code blocks. This makes it easier to copy them so that you can paste them into other commands.

knock

Knocks on a door.

Aliases

.knock

Examples

.knock DOOR 1

Details

Knocks on a door in the room that you’re in. This will be narrated in the room you’re in, and in the room that the exit leads to. You can knock on a door even if it’s locked. However, some exits don’t have doors. If they don’t, you will be unable to knock on them.

monolog

Narrates your inner thoughts.

Aliases

.monolog .monologue .mo .mn

Examples

.monolog Kyra stares intently at the screen. What could this jumble of text mean, exactly?
.monologue I can't believe this. How did this even happen?
.monolog No matter what happens, there won't be anything she can do to help anyone after she dies here. That's what hurts most of all.
.monologue He could have forgotten about her. Honestly, he seemed to be pretty close to it just now, right? But this photo album... He suddenly remembers so much more than he thought he would.

Details

Narrates your inner thoughts privately. You will receive a copy of your monolog in DMs, and it will be sent to your spectate channel. Other players in the room will not be able to see or hear your private thoughts, so you can enter anything you like. However, keep in mind that if you send the command in the room channel, it will still appear there before being deleted. For that reason, this command works best when it is sent in DMs. Please note that you cannot send a monolog that exceeds Discord’s character limit, which is 2000 characters.

move

Moves you to another room.

Aliases

.move .go .exit .enter .walk .m

Examples

.move DOOR 1
.enter Kitchen
.go locker-room
.exit DOOR
.move DOOR 1>DOOR 1>DOOR 1
.walk HALL 1 > HALL 2 > HALL 3 > HALL 4
.m Lobby>Path 3>Path 1>Park>Path 7>Botanical garden

Details

Moves you to another room. You must specify an exit in the room you’re currently in, or the name of the desired room, if you know it. Unless you have the free movement role, you can only move to a room directly connected to the one you’re currently in. It will take time for you to move to your destination. How much time it takes depends on its distance from your current position, and your speed. While you are moving, you will use stamina. If you are close to running out of stamina, you will receive a warning. If you run out of stamina entirely, you will become weary, and you will be unable to move for some time. You can recover lost stamina by staying in one place for a while.

Once you reach the destination, you will be removed from your current room channel and put into the channel corresponding to the room you specify, as long as the exit leading to it isn’t locked.

When you enter a new room, its description will be sent to you via DMs. However, it is recommended that you open the new channel immediately so that you can start seeing messages as soon as you’re added.

You can also create a queue of movements to perform such that upon entering one room, you will immediately start moving to the next one. To do this, separate each destination with >.

Note that if you are carrying any large items in your hands (for example, a sword), they will be mentioned when you exit or enter a room.

narrate

Narrates your non-verbal actions.

Aliases

.narrate .n

Examples

.narrate She slowly sinks behind the podium.
.n 06 shakes his head, as if he's clearing a thought from his mind.
.narrate Their eyes widen and they cross their arms, looking down. They'd clearly never considered this before.
.n He coughs a little, blood trickling down his face. His smile doesn't waver, though.

Details

Narrates non-verbal actions. This narration will be sent to the room or hiding spot you’re currently in. This behaves similarly to the gesture command, but it allows you to write more complex narrations. Please note that you cannot send a narration that exceeds Discord’s character limit, which is 2000 characters.

recipes

Lists all recipes available to you.

Aliases

.recipes

Examples

.recipes
.recipes GLASS
.recipes POT OF RICE

Details

Lists all recipes you can carry out with the items in your inventory and items in the room. Even if all of the ingredients necessary for a recipe are in the room you’re in, if you don’t have at least one of them in your inventory, there will be no results. However, if you supply the name of an item in your inventory, you will receive a list of all recipes that use that item as an ingredient, even if the remaining ingredients are not available.

There are two types of recipes: crafting recipes and processing recipes.

To carry out a crafting recipe, you must have both of the ingredients in your hands and combine them with the craft command. These recipes take no time. Some crafting recipes are reversible. If they are, you can use the uncraft command to get the ingredients again.

To carry out a processing recipe, use the drop command to place all the ingredients in a fixture, and then activate the fixture with the use command. These recipes take a set amount of time to complete. If you did it correctly, you’ll receive a message indicating that the process has begun, and then another message when it finishes, as long as you’re still in the same room as the fixture you used to process it. If the fixture was already activated when all of the ingredients were put in, you won’t receive a message when it’s initiated or completed, but the recipe will still be carried out so long as all of the ingredients are in place.

run

Runs to another room.

Aliases

.run

Examples

.run DOOR 1
.run Kitchen
.run locker-room
.run DOOR
.run DOOR 1>DOOR 1>DOOR 1
.run HALL 1 > HALL 2 > HALL 3 > HALL 4
.run Lobby>Path 3>Path 1>Park>Path 7>Botanical garden

Details

Moves you to another room by running. This functions identically to the move command, however you will move twice as quickly and lose stamina at three times the normal rate.

You must specify an exit in the room you’re currently in, or the name of the desired room, if you know it. Unless you have the free movement role, you can only move to a room directly connected to the one you’re currently in. It will take time for you to move to your destination. How much time it takes depends on its distance from your current position, and your speed. Once you reach the destination, you will be removed from your current room channel and put into the channel corresponding to the room you specify, as long as the exit leading to it isn’t locked.

When you enter a new room, its description will be sent to you via DMs. However, it is recommended that you open the new channel immediately so that you can start seeing messages as soon as you’re added.

You can also create a queue of movements to perform such that upon entering one room, you will immediately start moving to the next one. To do this, separate each destination with >.

Note that if you are carrying any large items in your hands (for example, a sword), they will be mentioned when you exit or enter a room.

say

Sends your message to the room you’re in.

Aliases

.say .speak

Examples

.say What happened?
.speak Did someone turn out the lights?

Details

Sends your message to the channel of the room you’re currently in as dialog. It will appear in the channel with a webhook, meaning it will use the display name and display avatar that you have in-game. By default, your display name is your character’s name, and your display avatar is the avatar you have in the game server, or your account’s avatar. However, if something has changed your display name or avatar (for example, if you are wearing a mask), then those will be used instead.

This command is only available to players with certain status effects. In most situations, you should send your message to the room channel directly.

sleep

Puts you to sleep.

Aliases

.sleep

Examples

.sleep

Details

Puts you to sleep by inflicting you with the asleep status effect. In most situations, you will not be able to wake back up again without moderator assistance. This should be used at the end of the day before the game pauses to ensure you wake up feeling well rested.

If you are able to wake back up of your own volition, you can do so with the wake command.

stash

Stores an inventory item inside another inventory item.

Aliases

.stash .store .s

Examples

.stash LAPTOP in BEIGE SATCHEL
.store SWORD in SHEATH
.stash OLD KEY in RIGHT POCKET of BLACK DRESS PANTS
.s WATER BOTTLE in SIDE POUCH of GREEN BACKPACK

Details

Moves an item from your hand to another item in your inventory. You can specify any item in your inventory that has the capacity to hold items by entering the container item’s preposition followed by its name. If you don’t know its preposition, “in” will always work.

If the container has multiple inventory slots (for example, a backpack with several pockets), you can also specify which slot you want to put the item in. To do this, enter the name of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the name of the container. If you don’t specify an inventory slot, you will put it in the first slot it has. Note that each slot has a maximum capacity that it can hold, so if it’s too full or too small to contain the item you’re trying to stash, you won’t be able to stash it there.

If you stash a very large item (a sword, for example), this will be narrated in the room, so other players will see you stash it.

To retrieve a stashed item and put it in your hand, use the unstash command.

status

Shows your status.

Aliases

.status

Examples

.status

Details

Shows you what status effects you’re currently afflicted with. Note that some status effects may not be visible to you. You will also be unable to see their durations.

steal

Steals an item from another player.

Aliases

.steal .pickpocket

Examples

.steal from Vivian's BEIGE SATCHEL
.pickpocket from Kyra's LAB COAT
.steal Michio's RIGHT SLEEVE of PASTEL HAORI
.pickpocket Olavi's LEFT POCKET of BLUE TRENCH COAT
.steal from an individual wearing a PLAGUE DOCTOR MASK's BLACK CLOAK
.pickpocket an individual wearing a BUCKET's SIDE POUCH of BLUE BACKPACK

Details

Attempts to steal an item from another player in the room. You must specify one of the player’s equipped items to steal from. You can see a list of their equipped items by inspecting them with the inspect command. Then, you can steal from it by entering their name followed by ’s and the name of the equipped item.

If you inspect their equipped items, you may also learn what inventory slots each one has, if any. You can specify which inventory slot to steal from by entering the name of the slot followed by “of” before the equipped item’s name. If no inventory slot is specified, but the equipped item has multiple slots (for example, a pair of pants with several pockets), one slot will be randomly chosen. If the inventory slot contains multiple items, you will attempt to steal one at random.

There are three possible outcomes that can result from attempting to steal an item: you steal the item without them noticing, you steal the item but they notice, and you fail to steal the item because they notice in time. If you happen to steal a very large item, the other player will notice you taking it regardless of whether you were successful or not, and so will everyone else in the room.

Your dexterity stat has a significant impact on how successful you are at stealing an item. If you have a high dexterity stat, you are more likely to succeed. Various status effects affect the outcome as well. For example, if the player you’re stealing from is asleep or unconscious, they won’t notice you stealing their items no matter what.

stop

Stops your movement.

Aliases

.stop .st

Examples

.stop

Details

Stops you in your tracks while moving to another room. Your distance to that room will be preserved, so if you decide to move to that room again, it will not take as long. This command will also cancel any queued movements.

take

Takes an item and puts it in your inventory.

Aliases

.take .get .grab .t

Examples

.take BUTCHERS KNIFE
.get FIRST AID KIT
.t BOTTLE OF MIDAZOLAM from MEDICINE CABINET
.take TOWEL from BENCHES
.grab HAMMER from TOP RACK of TOOLBOX
.t KEY from RIGHT POCKET of PLAID SKIRT

Details

Takes an item from the room you’re in and puts it in your inventory. You must have a free hand to take an item. If you take a very large item (a sword, for example), this will be narrated in the room, so other players will see you take it.

If there are multiple items with the same name in a room, you can specify which container you want to take it from. To do this, you must enter the container’s preposition before its name. If you don’t know its preposition, “in” will always work. If you want to take an item from another item that has multiple inventory slots (for example, a backpack with several pockets), you can specify which of the container’s slots you want to take it from, by entering the name of the slot followed by “of” before the container item’s name.

text

Sends a text message to another player.

Aliases

.text

Examples

.text Elijah Hello. I understand that you have come into possession of some illicit substances, and I would like to partake.
.text Astrid i often paint cityscapes, urban scenes, and portraits of people - but today i decided to experiment with something a bit more abstract. (attached image)
.text Vivian (attached image)

Details

Sends a text message to the player you specify. If an image is attached, it will be sent as well. This command works best when sent via direct message, rather than in a room channel. This command is only available to players with certain status effects. Additionally, even if you have a status effect that enables the use of the command, if the recipient you choose does not, you will not be able to send text messages to them.

time

Shows the current in-game time.

Aliases

.time

Examples

.time

Details

Shows the current in-game time and date. This will show you the time in the timezone that the bot is currently operating in. This may differ from your local time.

uncraft

Separates an item in your inventory into its component parts.

Aliases

.uncraft .dismantle .disassemble .uc

Examples

.uncraft SHOVEL
.dismantle CROSSBOW
.disassemble PISTOL
.uc RING STAND

Details

Separates an item in one of your hands into its component parts. This allows you to reverse a crafting recipe, turning a single product into its two ingredients. Because it produces two items, you will need a free hand in order to use this command. If the item being uncrafted or its components are particularly large, this will be narrated in the room, so other players will see you uncraft it.

If there is no crafting recipe that produces the item you want to uncraft that also allows it to be reversed, then the item cannot be uncrafted.

To see all of the items in your inventory that can be uncrafted, use the recipes command.

undress

Unequips and drops all items.

Aliases

.undress

Examples

.undress
.undress WARDROBE
.undress LAUNDRY BASKET
.undress MAIN POCKET of BLUE BACKPACK

Details

Unequips all items you have equipped and drops them in the room you’re currently in. You will undress completely, including any items in your hands. This will be narrated, so any other players in the room will see you undress.

If you want to put your items in a specific fixture or item in the room, add the container’s name. No preposition is necessary. If you don’t specify a container, you will simply leave the items on the floor.

If the container has multiple inventory slots (for example, a backpack with several pockets), you can also specify which slot you want to put the items in. To do this, enter the name of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the name of the container. If you don’t specify an inventory slot, you will put the items in the first slot it has. Keep in mind that the specified container must have a large enough capacity to hold all of the items in your inventory.

unequip

Unequips an item.

Aliases

.unequip .remove .u

Examples

.unequip PLAGUE DOCTOR MASK
.remove WHITE PARKA
.u KNIT WOOL SWEATER from SHIRT

Details

Unequips an item you currently have equipped. The item will be placed in your hand, so you must have a free hand. When you unequip an item, it will be narrated in the room, so other people can see you unequip it, regardless of its size. It will then be removed from your description, and any equipped items that it was covering will become visible. For example, if you unequip something from your PANTS slot, it is likely that whatever is equipped to your UNDERWEAR slot will then appear in your description.

You can specify which equipment slot you want to unequip the item from, if you want. This can be useful if you have multiple items with the same name equipped to different equipment slots. To do this, enter “from” after the name of the item you want to unequip, followed by the name of the equipment slot you want to unequip it from. You can view a list of all of your equipment slots with the inventory command.

To unequip many items at once, use the undress command. If you wish to equip an item again, use the equip command.

unstash

Moves an inventory item into your hand.

Aliases

.unstash .retrieve .r

Examples

.unstash LAPTOP
.retrieve SWORD from SHEATH
.unstash OLD KEY from RIGHT POCKET of BLACK DRESS PANTS
.r WATER BOTTLE from SIDE POUCH of GREEN BACKPACK

Details

Moves an inventory item from another item in your inventory into your hand. You must have a free hand to unstash an item. If you unstash a very large item (a sword, for example), this will be narrated in the room, so other players will see you unstash it.

If you have multiple inventory items with the same name as the one you want to unstash, you can specify which item to retrieve it from. To do this, you must enter “from” before the container’s name. If the container has multiple inventory slots (for example, a backpack with several pockets), you can specify which of the container’s slots you want to unstash the item from, by entering the name of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the container item’s name.

To store an item in one of your inventory items, use the stash command.

use

Uses an item in your inventory or a fixture in a room.

Aliases

.use .unlock .lock .type .activate .deactivate .flip .push .press .ingest .consume .swallow .eat .drink

Examples

.use FIRST AID KIT
.eat CHICKEN FRIED RICE
.drink COFFEE
.swallow ORANGE CAPSULE
.use OLD KEY CHEST
.use LIGHTER CANDLE
.lock LOCKER 1
.type KEYPAD Proboscis Monkey
.unlock LOCKER 1 12-22-11
.press RED BUTTON
.flip LEVER
.activate BLENDER

Details

Uses an item from your inventory. Not all items have programmed uses. Those that do will inflict you with or cure you of a status effect of some kind. Status effects can be good, bad, or neutral, but it should be fairly predictable what kind of effect a particular item will have on you.

Some items can be used on fixtures in the room. For example, using a key on a locker will unlock the locker, using a crowbar on a crate will open the crate, etc.

Some fixtures are capable of turning items into other items. This is known as processing a recipe. For example, an oven can turn raw food into cooked food. In order to use fixtures to process recipes, drop the items in the fixture and use it. For more information, see the help details for the recipes command.

You can even use fixtures in the room without using an item at all. However, not all fixtures are usable in this way. Those that are usable without an item have puzzles attached, which can result in many different outcomes depending on how they’re used. When interacting with a puzzle, anything entered after the name of the fixture will be treated as a password, combination, or selection. These inputs are almost always case-sensitive. If the fixture is a lock of some kind, you can re-lock it using the lock command. Other fixtures may require a puzzle to be solved before they do anything special.

wake

Wakes you up.

Aliases

.wake .awaken .wakeup

Examples

.wake
.awaken
.wakeup

Details

Wakes you up when you’re asleep. However, you may not be able to use this command without moderator assistance.

whisper

Allows you to speak privately with the selected player(s).

Aliases

.whisper .w

Examples

.whisper Jun
.w Florian Michio Ava

Details

Creates a channel for you to whisper to the selected recipients. Only you and the people you select will be able to read messages posted in the new channel, but everyone in the room will be notified that you’ve begun whispering to each other. You can select as many players as you want as long as they’re in the same room as you. When one of you leaves the room, they will be removed from the channel. If everyone leaves the room, the whisper channel will be deleted.

Eligible commands

Eligible commands are usable by users with the Eligible role (or the Tester role if Alter Ego is in debug mode). These commands have extremely limited use, only usable by Players before they’ve been given the Player role.

Aside from the help command, Eligible commands can only be used when a game is in progress. They can only be sent in the user’s DMs, or in the general channel (or the testing channel if debug mode is on). If Alter Ego accepts the user’s command and it was sent in the server, the message in which the command was issued will be deleted.

If a command is issued in DMs, the message does not need to begin with the command prefix (. by default). However, if it is sent in a channel in the server, then the command prefix is required.

Below is a list of all eligible commands, as well as information about each one.

help

Lists all commands available to you.

Aliases

.help

Examples

.help
.help play

Details

Lists all commands available to the user. If a command is specified, displays the help menu for that command.

play

Joins a game.

Aliases

.play

Examples

.play

Details

Adds you to the list of players for the current game.

Moderator commands

Moderator commands are usable by users with the Moderator role. These commands allow moderators to control the game world and Players. They allow many built-in restrictions placed on Players’ actions to be bypassed.

Most moderator commands can only be used when a game is in progress, but some can be used when this isn’t the case. With the exception of the delete command (which can be used in any channel), all moderator commands must either be sent to the bot commands channel or in a Room channel.

If a command is issued in the bot commands channel, the message does not need to begin with the command prefix (. by default). However, if it is sent in a Room channel, then the command prefix is required.

addplayer

Adds a player to the game.

Aliases

.addplayer

Examples

.addplayer @cella

Details

Adds a user to the list of players for the current game. This command will give the specified user the Player role and add their data to the Players and Inventory Items spreadsheets. This will be generated using the data in the Player Defaults section of your .env file. However, their name will be set as whatever their current nickname is in the server. So, you should set their nickname to their character’s name before using this command. Note that edit mode must be turned on in order to use this command. After using this command, you may edit the new player’s data. Then, the Players sheet must be loaded, otherwise the new player will not be created correctly, and their data may be overwritten.

clean

Cleans the room items and inventory items sheets.

Aliases

.clean .autoclean

Examples

.clean
.autoclean

Details

Combs through all room items and inventory items and deletes any whose quantity is 0. All game data will then be saved to the spreadsheet, not just room items and inventory items. This process will effectively clean the spreadsheet of room items and inventory items that no longer exist, reducing the size of both sheets. Note that edit mode must be turned on in order to use this command. The room items and inventory items sheets must be loaded after this command finishes executing, otherwise data may be overwritten on the sheet during gameplay.

craft

Crafts two items in a player’s inventory together.

Aliases

.craft .combine .mix .c

Examples

.craft Kris DRAIN CLEANER and PLASTIC BOTTLE
.combine Colette's SLICE OF BREAD and SLICE OF CHEESE
.mix Flint RED VIAL with BLUE VIAL
.c Sid's BAR OF SOAP with CARVING KNIFE

Details

Creates a new item using the two items in the given player’s hands. The prefab IDs or container identifiers of the items must be separated by “with” or “and”. If no recipe for those two items exists, the items cannot be crafted together. If any of the resulting items is non-discreet, this will be narrated in the room, so other players will see the player craft them.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

createroomcategory

Creates a room category.

Aliases

.createroomcategory .register

Examples

.createroomcategory Floor 1
.register Floor 2

Details

Creates a room category channel with the given name. The ID of the new category channel will automatically be added to the roomCategories setting in your serverconfig.json file. If a room category with the given name already exists, but its ID hasn’t been registered in the roomCategories setting, it will automatically be added.

Keep in mind that if ROOM_CATEGORIES is set in your .env file, room categories registered with this command will not persist when the bot is rebooted. For that reason, the ROOM_CATEGORIES setting should not be set unless you plan to manage room category IDs manually. To do this, you will have to create a category channel in Discord without using this command, and add its ID to the ROOM_CATEGORIES setting manually, then reboot the bot.

dead

Lists all dead players.

Aliases

.dead .died

Examples

.dead
.died

Details

Lists all dead players.

delete

Deletes multiple messages at once.

Aliases

.delete

Examples

.delete 3
.delete 100
.delete @Alter Ego 5
.delete @tobyp4904 75

Details

Deletes multiple messages at once. You can delete up to 100 messages at a time. Only messages from the past 2 weeks can be deleted. You can also choose to only delete messages from a certain user. Note that if you specify a user and for example, 5 messages, it will not delete that user’s last 5 messages. Rather, it will search through the past 5 messages, and if any of those 5 messages were sent by the given user, they wil be deleted.

This command can be used in any channel in the server.

destroy

Destroys an item.

Aliases

.destroy .ds

Examples

.destroy VOLLEYBALL at beach
.ds CAN OF GASOLINE on SHELVES at Warehouse
.destroy NOTE in LOCKER 1 at Men's Locker Room
.ds WRENCH in TOOL BOX 1 at beach-house
.destroy WHITE GLOVES in BREAST POCKET of TUXEDO 3 at dressing room
.ds all in TRASH CAN at lounge
.destroy Nero's KATANA
.ds Yuda's RIGHT HAND
.destroy Vivian's VIVIANS LAPTOP in VIVIANS SATCHEL
.ds SHOTPUT BALL in Cassie's MAIN POCKET of LARGE BACKPACK 1
.destroy all in Hitoshi's HITOSHIS TROUSERS
.ds all in Evad's FRONT POCKET of DENIM OVERALLS 6

Details

Destroys an item in the specified location or in the player’s inventory. The prefab ID or container identifier of the item must be given.

To destroy a room item, the display name or ID of the room it’s in must be given at the end of the command, following “at”. To destroy an inventory item, the name of the player must be given followed by 's before the item’s identifier.

It is possible to specify the container from which to destroy the item. To do so, add the container’s preposition or “in” after the item’s identifier, followed by the container’s name. If the container is another item, its identifier or prefab ID must be used. The ID of the inventory slot to destroy the item from can also be specified, followed by “of”. If you enter “all” in place of an item’s identifier and specify a container, all items in that container will be destroyed.

It is also possible to destroy an inventory item by specifying only the ID of the equipment slot it’s equipped to instead of the item’s identifier. This will destroy whatever is equipped to that equipment slot.

Note that if you destroy an inventory item, the player will be notified if it is an item they have equipped, and its unequipped commands will be executed. The player will not be notified if it is an item they have stashed.

dress

Takes and equips all items from a container for a player.

Aliases

.dress .redress

Examples

.dress Ezekiel WARDROBE
.dress Kelly LAUNDRY BASKET 7
.redress Luna MAIN POCKET of BLUE BACKPACK

Details

Takes all room items from the given container and equips them for the given player, if possible. The container’s name must be given, or its container identifier if it is a room item. The specified player must have a free hand to take an item. The player dressing will be narrated in the room they’re in.

Items will be equipped in the order in which they appear on the spreadsheet. If an item is equippable to an equipment slot, but the player already has something equipped to that slot, it will not be equipped, and they will not be notified when this happens. If the container has multiple inventory slots, you can specify which slot to dress from by entering the ID of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the container. Otherwise, the player will dress from all slots.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

drop

Drops the given item from a player’s inventory.

Aliases

.drop .discard .put .place .d

Examples

.drop Fable's LARGE KNIFE
.discard Fable LARGE KNIFE on COUNTER
.put Kyra's COOKIE SHEET 3 in OVEN
.place Kanda's WATERMELON in CRATE 1
.d Ava WRENCH on TOP RACK of TOOL BOX

Details

Discards an item from the given player’s inventory and leaves it in the room they’re in. The item must be in one of the player’s hands. The item’s prefab ID or container identifier must be used. If the player discards a non-discreet item, this will be narrated in the room, so other players will see them drop it.

A container to drop the item into can be specified. To do so, add the container’s preposition or “in” after the item’s identifier, followed by the container’s name. If the container is a room item, its prefab ID or container identifier must be used. If you don’t specify a container, the player will leave the item on the DEFAULT_DROP_FIXTURE defined in the game’s settings.

If the container has multiple inventory slots, you can also specify which slot to put the item in. To do this, enter the ID of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the container’s identifier. If an inventory slot is not specified, the player will put the item in the container’s first inventory slot.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

dumplog

Dump current game state to file.

Aliases

.dumplog

Examples

.dumplog

Details

Dumps a log of the most recently used commands, as well as current internal game state. This will generate two files. The data_commands file will contain all successfully-issued commands that have been used recently, but keep in mind that the bot only stores up to 10,000 commands at a time. The data_game file will contain the entirety of the bot’s internal memory relating to the game, with certain data types being truncated when nested. Because these files can be quite large, and Discord has a maximum file size limit of 10 MiB, they will be compressed into a .gz file before being sent. If the file size exceeds this, they will instead be saved to disk.

This command is for debugging purposes, and has no use during regular gameplay. If you discover a bug that was not caused by moderator error, please use this command and attach these files to a new Issue on the Alter Ego GitHub page.

editmode

Toggles edit mode for editing the spreadsheet.

Aliases

.editmode .em

Examples

.editmode
.em
.editmode on
.em on
.editmode off
.em off

Details

Toggles edit mode on or off, allowing you to make edits to the spreadsheet. When edit mode is turned on, Alter Ego will no longer save the game to the spreadsheet automatically. Additionally, all player activity, aside from speaking in room channels or in whispers, will be disabled. Players who don’t have the unconscious behavior attribute will be notified when edit mode is enabled, so use it sparingly. Data will be saved to the spreadsheet before edit mode is enabled, so you must wait until the confirmation message has been sent before making any edits, or your edits will be overwritten. When you are finished making edits, be sure to load the updated spreadsheet data before disabling edit mode.

endgame

Ends the game.

Aliases

.endgame

Examples

.endgame

Details

Ends the game. All players will be removed from whatever room and whisper channels they were in. The Player and Dead roles will be removed from all players, and they will be given the Spectator role.

This command will clear all game data in memory. While it is possible to load all data from the spreadsheet again after using this command, players will need to have their roles reassigned manually.

equip

Equips an item for a player.

Aliases

.equip .wear .e

Examples

.equip Kyra's PLAGUE DOCTOR MASK
.wear Lain WHITE PARKA
.e Dexter KNIT WOOL SWEATER to SHIRT

Details

Equips an item to one of the given player’s equipment slots. The item to equip must be in one of the player’s hands. When an item is equipped, it will be narrated in the room, regardless of whether it is discreet or not. If the item’s prefab has any equipped commands, they will be executed when it is equipped.

Any item can be equipped to any equipment slot with this command, regardless of whether its prefab is equippable or what equipment slots it is restricted to. To specify which equipment slot to equip the item to, enter “to” after the prefab ID or container identifier of the item, followed by the ID of the equipment slot. If no equipment slot is specified, the player will equip it to the first equipment slot its prefab is restricted to.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

event

Triggers or ends an event.

Aliases

.event .trigger .end

Examples

.event trigger RAIN
.event end EXPLOSION
.trigger INTRUDER LOOSE ALERT
.end BLACKOUT

Details

Triggers or ends the specified event.

If trigger is used, the event must not already be ongoing. Its triggered commands will be executed. If end is used, the event must be ongoing. Its ended commands will be executed.

exit

Locks or unlocks an exit.

Aliases

.exit .room .lock .unlock

Examples

.exit lock Carousel DOOR
.exit unlock Chancellor's Quarters DOOR
.lock warehouse DOOR 3
.unlock floor-b1-hall-3 ELEVATOR

Details

Locks or unlocks an exit in the specified room. The corresponding entrance in the room the exit leads to will also be locked/unlocked. When an exit is locked, players will be unable to move through that exit.

If the exit can also be locked or unlocked using the bot commands of a puzzle, you should not lock/unlock it with this command. Instead, use the puzzle command to solve/unsolve it, so that the exit remains in sync with the puzzle that controls it.

find

Search in-game data.

Aliases

.find .search .f

Examples

.find room dorm 201
.search rooms stoke-hall
.f fixture DESK
.find fixtures at Chancellor's Office
.search prefab FRIED RICE
.f items THIGH HIGH
.find room item LIFE PRESERVER at beach
.search items in TRASH CAN
.f room items on PREP STATIONS at dining-hall-kitchen
.find roomitems COLORED PENCILS in MAIN POUCH of BACKPACK at school store
.search recipes uncraftable
.f recipes crafting producing GLASS OF ORANGE JUICE
.find recipes processing using MILK, RAW EGG producing PANCAKE BATTER, EGGSHELL
.search puzzles LOCK
.f puzzle COMPUTER at infirmary
.find events snow
.search status effects medicated
.f players an individual wearing a
.find inventory items on JACKET
.search inventoryitems in RIGHT POCKET of DEFAULT PANTS
.f inventoryitem in Phoebe's RIGHT HAND
.find inventory item in julie's MAIN POCKET of LUNA PURSE
.search inventoryitem Lillie's BLUE FLANNEL
.f gestures smile
.find flag SEASON FLAG

Details

Search in-game data and display results with row numbers. You can search for any entry on the spreadsheet, but you must specify which kind of data to find. With no arguments, all entries of that data type will be displayed. Results will be divided into pages, with no more than 15 entries per page, or however many will fit in one Discord message. To narrow down the results, you can add a search query. Queries are case-insensitive, and any entries which contain the search query will be displayed. To examine an entry in more detail, use the view command.

It is also possible to add specifiers to your search for certain data types. Fixtures, Room Items, and Puzzles can be filtered by location by ending your search query with “at” followed by the name of a Room. Recipes can be filtered by type by starting your search with “crafting”, “uncraftable”, or “processing”. It is also possible to filter Recipes by comma-separated lists of ingredients and products. To filter by ingredients, prefix the list with “using”; to filter by products, prefix the list with “producing”. When using specifiers, it is not actually necessary to provide a search query; the results will simply be all entries that match the specified criteria.

Room Items and Inventory Items can be filtered by container name and slot, by entering “[preposition] ([slot name] of) [container name]”. The container name is also a search query, so any container whose name, plural name, Prefab ID, or container identifier contains the given string will be displayed; the same is not true for the slot, however. It is also possible to filter Inventory Items by Equipment Slot and Player. To filter by Equipment Slot, enter “in” or “on”, followed by the name of an Equipment Slot. To filter by Player, enter their name followed by 's, directly after the preposition, if there is one. Keep in mind that it is not possible to filter by Equipment Slot and container at the same time.

To view search results in more detail, use the view command.

fixture

Activates or deactivates a fixture, or sets its recipe tag.

Aliases

.fixture .object .activate .deactivate

Examples

.fixture activate BLENDER
.fixture deactivate MICROWAVE
.fixture tag BLENDER puree
.activate KEURIG Kyra
.deactivate OVEN Noko
.fixture activate FIREPLACE Log Cabin
.fixture deactivate FOUNTAIN flower-garden
.fixture tag BLENDER puree kitchen
.activate FREEZER gabriella "Gabriella plugs in the FREEZER."
.deactivate WASHER 1 laundry-room "WASHER 1 turns off"

Details

This command has three sub-commands:

• activate: Activates the specified fixture. When a fixture is activated, it will begin processing the recipe with the highest count of ingredients satisfied by the room items contained inside of it. If no recipe is found, it will look for one that it can process every second while it is activated.
• deactivate: Deactivates the specified fixture. It will stop processing and looking for recipes.
• tag: Sets the fixture’s recipe tag. This will immediately stop any ongoing recipe processes. If it is currently activated, it will begin looking for recipes it can process that satisfy the new tag. The spreadsheet will be updated with the new tag on the next save.

Keep in mind that a fixture can only be activated/deactivated if it has a recipe tag. If there is a puzzle whose state is supposed to match that of the fixture’s, you must use the puzzle command to update it separately.

If there are multiple fixtures with the same name, you can specify the room the fixture is in.

Alternatively, you may specify a player to activate/deactivate the fixture. In this case, only fixtures in the same room as the player can be activated/deactivated. When a player is supplied, a narration will be sent.

It is possible to supply a custom narration for the fixture being activated/deactivated. Simply add a string of text surrounded by quotation marks at the end of the command. This can be done even without supplying a player.

The activate and deactivate sub-commands support NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

flag

Set and clear flags.

Aliases

.flag .setflag .clearflag

Examples

.flag set COLD SEASON FLAG true
.setflag HOT SEASON FLAG False
.flag set TV PROGRAMMING 4
.setflag INDOOR TEMPERATURE 25.3
.flag set TV PROGRAMMING += 1
.setflag INDOOR TEMPERATURE -= 4.1
.flag set SOUP OF THE DAY "French Onion"
.setflag BLOOD SPLATTER “TWO MILKMEN GO COMEDY”
.flag set PRECIPITATION `findEvent('RAIN').ongoing === true || findEvent('SNOW').ongoing === true`
.setflag RANDOM ANIMAL `getRandomString(['dog', 'cat', 'mouse', 'owl', 'bear'])`
.flag clear BLOOD SPLATTER
.clearflag TV PROGRAMMING

Details

Set and clear flags.

• set: Sets the flag value as the specified input. If the flag does not already exist, then a new one will be created with the specified name. The specified value must be a boolean, number, or string. String values must be surrounded by quotation marks. To add or subtract from the flag’s current number value, prefix the number to add or subtract with += or -=. If you want to set the flag’s value script, surround your input with `tics`. This script will immediately be evaluated, and the flag’s value will be set accordingly. Whether the flag’s value or value script is set, the flag’s set commands will be executed, unless the flag was set by another flag.

• clear: Clears the flag value. This will replace the flag’s current value with null. When this is cleared, the flag’s cleared commands will be executed unless the flag was cleared by another flag.

gesture

Performs a gesture for the given player.

Aliases

.gesture .g

Examples

.gesture Astrid smile
.g Ezekiel point at DOOR 1
.gesture Holly wave Johnny
.g Dexter sit CHAIR
.gesture list
.g list Kyra

Details

Makes the given player perform one of a set of pre-defined gestures. Everybody in the room with them will see them do this gesture. This allows them to communicate non-verbally, though they cannot perform a gesture if they have one of the gesture’s disabled statuses. To see a list of all of the gestures they can currently perform, send the gesture command followed by “list” and the name of the player. Omitting the name of a player after “list” will simply list all gestures on the sheet.

Certain gestures may require a target to perform them. To specify a target, enter the identifier of the target directly after the ID of the gesture. For a room item or inventory item, this must be its container identifier or prefab ID. For any other type of target, it should be its name. Note that a gesture can only be performed with one target at a time.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

give

Gives a player’s item to another player.

Aliases

.give

Examples

.give Kanda's EMBALMING FLUID to Astrid
.give Lucia BIRTHDAY PRESENT BOX 9 to Flint

Details

Transfers an item from the first player’s inventory to the second player’s inventory. Both players must be in the same room. The item selected must be in one of the first player’s hands. The receiving player must also have a free hand, or else they will not be able to receive the item. If the giving player gives a non-discreet item to the receiving player, it will be narrated in the room.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

help

Lists all commands available to you.

Aliases

.help

Examples

.help
.help status

Details

Lists all commands available to the user. If a command is specified, displays the help menu for that command.

hide

Hides a player in the given fixture.

Aliases

.hide .unhide

Examples

.hide Xenia DESK
.hide Kiara SHOWER 1
.unhide Aisha

Details

Forcibly hides a player in the specified fixture. They will be able to hide in the specified fixture even if it is attached to a lock-type puzzle that is unsolved, and even if the hiding spot is beyond its capacity. To force them out of hiding, use the unhide command.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

inspect

Inspects something for a player.

Aliases

.inspect .investigate .examine .look .x

Examples

.inspect Michio DESK
.examine Fable LARGE KNIFE
.look Ava JUG OF ORANGE JUICE in REFRIGERATOR
.x Florian WOOLEN MITTENS in MAIN POUCH of RED BACKPACK 1
.investigate Ai AIS PISTOL
.look Jun Amadeus
.examine Kanda Huiyu
.look Jackie Kyra's KYRAS GLASSES
.x Unit_026 Jackie's JACKIES NECKLACE
.inspect Aisha room

Details

Inspect something for the given player. The target must be the “room” argument, a fixture, a room item, a player, or an inventory item, and it must be in the same room as the given player. The description will be parsed and sent to the player. If the target is a fixture, or a non-discreet room item or inventory item belonging to the player, a narration will be sent in the room.

When inspecting a room item or inventory item, the prefab ID or container identifier must be used. If the target is a room item, you can specify which one to inspect by appending its container’s preposition or “in” after the item’s identifier, followed by the container’s name (if the container is a fixture or puzzle) or prefab ID or container identifier (if the container is a room item).

If the target is an inventory item, you can specify the player that the inventory item belongs to by preceding the item’s identifier with the player’s name followed by 's. The player can even inspect their own inventory items this way. However, a player cannot inspect another player’s non-discreet or stashed inventory items. Note that if a player inspects a different player’s inventory items, a narration will not be sent.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

instantiate

Generates an item.

Aliases

.instantiate .create .generate .is .gn

Examples

.instantiate RAW FISH on FLOOR at Beach
.create PICKAXE in LOCKER 1 at mining-hub
.generate 3 EMPTY DRAIN CLEANER in CUPBOARDS at Kitchen
.instantiate GREEN BOOK in MAIN POCKET of LARGE BACKPACK 1 at dorm-library
.is 4 SCREWDRIVER in TOOL BOX at Beach House
.gn WET CLAY POT (quality = excellent) on POTTERY WHEEL at Art Studio
.instantiate KATANA in Nero's RIGHT HAND
.create GORILLA MASK on Evad's FACE
.generate VIVIANS LAPTOP in Vivian's VIVIANS SATCHEL
.is 2 SHOTPUT BALL in Cassie's MAIN POCKET of LARGE BACKPACK
.gn 3 GACHA CAPSULE (color=metal + character=upa) in Asuka's LEFT POCKET of GAMER HOODIE

Details

Generates a room item or inventory item in the specified location. The prefab ID must be used. A quantity can also be set by supplying a number before the prefab ID. If no quantity is given, the item will be instantiated with a quantity of 1.

If the prefab has procedural options, they can be manually selected in parentheses. To do this, write the name of the procedural tag and the poss tag to select within it, separated by an equal sign (=). Multiple procedural selections can be made, separated by a plus sign (+).

To instantiate a room item, the display name or ID of the room must be given at the end, following “at”. The container to put it in must also be specified after the prefab’s ID, preceded by the container’s preposition or “in”. If the container is a fixture with a child puzzle, the puzzle will be its container. If the container is another room item, the container’s identifier, prefab ID, or name can be used.

To instantiate an inventory item, the name of the player must be given followed by 's. It is possible to instantiate an inventory item directly to a player’s equipment slot by specifying the equipment slot’s ID. In this case, the player will be notified that they equipped the item, and the prefab’s equipped commands will be executed. However, a container item can be specified instead by entering its preposition or “in” followed by its identifier, prefab ID, or name. The player will not be notified when the item is instantiated this way.

If the container to instantiate the item into is a room item or inventory item, the ID of the inventory slot to instantiate the item into can be specified, followed by “of” before the container’s identifier.

inventory

Lists a given player’s inventory.

Aliases

.inventory .i

Examples

.inventory Nero
.i Aisha

Details

Lists all of the given player’s equipment slots, and any items equipped to each one. The player’s stashed items will be listed underneath the container they’re inside of, in parentheses. They will be preceded by the ID of the inventory slot they’re in.

In the player’s inventory, the identifiers of all items will be contained in code blocks. This makes it easier to copy them and paste them into other commands.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

kill

Kills a player.

Aliases

.kill .die

Examples

.kill Platt
.die Strickland Wu Obi Katou

Details

Kills the listed players. Player names must be separated by a space.

When a player is killed, they are removed from the list of living players and added to the list of dead players. This prevents them from using any player commands, thus making them unable to interact with the game world. When a player dies, they are dead permanently. To bring them back to life, they must be manually edited on the spreadsheet. Only use this command if you are absolutely sure.

Upon death, the player will be removed from whatever room and whisper channels they were in. The player will be notified, and a narration will be sent indicating that they have died. All status effects the player had will be cleared. They will retain any items they had in their inventory, but they will not be accessible in any way. In order to make the player’s corpse inspectable, it must be manually added to the appropriate location as a fixture, and their inventory items must be manually added as room items.

A dead player will retain the Player role. To remove the Player role and give them the Dead role, use the reveal command.

knock

Knocks on a door for a player.

Aliases

.knock

Examples

.knock Kanda DORM 2

Details

Knocks on an exit for the given player. This will be narrated in the room they’re in, and in the room that the exit leads to. If an exit has the not knockable exit tag, it cannot be knocked on.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

latch

Latches onto an NPC.

Aliases

.latch .unlatch

Examples

.latch unit_050
.latch Haru
.latch
.unlatch

Details

Latches onto an NPC player. If you issue a player-controlling command in a channel that the selected NPC is in while you are latched, you do not have to specify which player to control. However, if you wish to control a different player in that channel, you must still specify their name.

While latched, you can also speak for that NPC without using the say command. However, keep in mind that this prevents you from sending narrations as a moderator in that channel.

Note that you cannot latch onto any player that is not an NPC.

To clear your latch, send the latch command without specifying an NPC, or use the unlatch alias.

living

Lists all living players.

Aliases

.living .alive

Examples

.living
.alive

Details

Lists all living players.

load

Loads game data.

Aliases

.load .reload .las .lar

Examples

.load all start
.las
.load all resume
.lar
.load all
.load rooms
.load fixtures
.load prefabs
.load recipes
.load room items
.load roomitems
.load puzzles
.load events
.load status effects
.load players
.load inventory items
.load inventories
.load gestures
.load flags

Details

Loads game data from the spreadsheet and stores it in memory. You must specify what spreadsheet tab to load from. When data from a particular tab is loaded, all data that was previously in memory for that tab will be cleared and replaced with the newly-loaded data.

If there are any errors with the loaded game data, you will be warned, and the game cannot progress until they are fixed and reloaded. However, some game data cannot be checked for errors with the load command. To check for errors in your descriptions, use the parse command. At this time, it is not possible to check for errors in bot commands that appear on the spreadsheet, until they are executed.

If game entities referenced data that has been reloaded (for example, fixtures reference the room they’re located in), the references will be updated to point to the new data, if possible. However, references can be broken, if newly-loaded data does not contain the entities that other entities reference, and you will not be warned when this occurs. So, it is good practice to load all game data together periodically.

To start the game, load all data and append “start” or “resume”. When “start” is used, each living player will be sent the description of the room they load into. When “resume” is used, the game is still started, but room descriptions will not be sent to players. In general, “start” should be used when starting a game for the first time, and “resume” should be used whenever the bot is rebooted. However, you do not have to do this if the AUTO_LOAD setting in your .env file is set to true.

If you are loading data while a game is in progress, you should use the editmode command first.

location

Tells you a player’s location.

Aliases

.location .l

Examples

.location Gabriella
.l Amy

Details

Tells you the given player’s location, with a link to the channel.

move

Moves the given player to the specified room or exit.

Aliases

.move .go .enter .walk .m

Examples

.move Kiki DOOR 2
.enter Kiki Lingling Maple Wally biosphere-garden
.go living Dining Hall
.m all ELEVATOR

Details

Forcibly moves the given players to the specified room or exit. When a player is moved, they will be removed from the room channel they were already in and added to the destination room channel. They will move to the given destination immediately, without consuming any stamina, and with no regard for whether the room is adjacent to their current room or the exit leading to it is locked.

You can select multiple players by separating their names with a space. If instead of providing the names of players, you enter “living” or “all”, all living players will be moved to the specified room, except for players who are already in that room, NPCs, and players with the Free Movement role.

When this command is used to move a player to a room that is not adjacent to their current room, the narration in the destination room will not specify which exit they entered from.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

narrate

Narrates an NPC’s non-verbal actions.

Aliases

.narrate .n

Examples

.narrate Ai She lands with a curtsy while balancing a tray with a tall stack of tablets on it in one hand.
.n Unit_050 It sits up straight on the piano bench and prepares to play.
.narrate Sid She is utterly perplexed by the $100 bill that's suddenly in the tip jar.
.n Haru He walks over to the plushie rack and takes the used dog plushie. He puts it under the counter for safekeeping. Definitely not for easy access.

Details

Narrates non-verbal actions for an NPC. The name of an NPC must be specified. This narration will be sent to the room or hiding spot the NPC is currently in. This behaves similarly to the gesture command, but it allows you to write more complex narrations. Please note that you cannot send a narration that exceeds Discord’s character limit, which is 2000 characters.

This command cannot be used to narrate actions for a non-NPC player. To do that, send a message in the room or whisper channel they’re currently in. This will be treated as a narration, but it will be clearly indicated as having been written by you.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

occupants

Lists all occupants in a room.

Aliases

.occupants .o

Examples

.occupants floor-b1-hall-1
.o Ultimate Conference Hall

Details

Lists all occupants currently in the given room. If an occupant is in the process of moving, their move queue will be included, along with the time remaining until they reach the next room in their queue. Note that the displayed time remaining will not be adjusted according to the HEATED_SLOWDOWN_RATE setting. If a player in the game has the heated status effect, movement times for all players will be displayed as shorter than they actually are. Occupants with the hidden behavior attribute will also be listed alongside their hiding spots.

ongoing

Lists all ongoing events.

Aliases

.ongoing .events

Examples

.ongoing
.events

Details

Lists all events which are currently ongoing, along with the time remaining on each one, if applicable.

online

Lists all online players.

Aliases

.online

Examples

.online

Details

Lists all players who are currently online.

parse

Checks your descriptions for errors.

Aliases

.parse .testparser

Examples

.parse
.parse Kyra
.parse plaintext
.parse Ezekiel plain
.testparser

Details

Runs all of your descriptions through the parser module. It will parse every single one and output the plain-text results to a text file that will be sent to the command channel. If there are any errors with your descriptions, they will be listed alongside the resulting file. It is important to fix all errors and warnings, or undesired behavior may occur during gameplay.

You can input a player name to parse the text as if that player is reading it. This is useful if you want to see how descriptions will appear to a given player. If you do not supply one, descriptions will be parsed as if they are being read by a player named Cella.

You can specify “plain” or “plaintext” to output a file which consists only of plain text, with no XML. If you do, a dictionary file will be generated and sent with the results. This dictionary will consist of all words that comprise the IDs and names of in-game entities. Alter Ego will not run spellchecking for you, but you can use these files in your preferred spellchecking program to look for errors. You will likely still need to add more words to the dictionary yourself in order to avoid false flags in your preferred spellchecker; the dictionary Alter Ego generates will simply act as a useful base.

puzzle

Solves or unsolves a puzzle.

Aliases

.puzzle .solve .unsolve .attempt

Examples

.puzzle solve TERMINAL
.puzzle unsolve SEARCH QUERY
.solve AISHA PROGRAM Ava
.unsolve BURIED TREASURE Jackie
.solve USERNAME jl
.solve USERNAME doublehelix
.puzzle solve CALL BUTTON Floor B2 Hall 1
.puzzle unsolve SWITCH dorm-6
.solve IRONWOOD TREES Jackie "Jackie takes a sturdy stance, holding her ax with confidence. With one-! two-! *three-!* swings, she chops through an IRONWOOD TREE, and it falls out of the way."
.unsolve LOGIN infirmary "The COMPUTER automatically logs out"
.puzzle attempt AISHA PROGRAM 05 4C 91 F1 04 1F AB F0 Ava
.attempt 3D PRINTER rabbit Huiyu

Details

Solves or unsolves a puzzle. You may specify an outcome, if the puzzle has more than one solution. When a puzzle is solved, it will execute the solved commands for the outcome it was solved with. When a puzzle is unsolved, it will execute the unsolved commands for the outcome it currently has. If there is a fixture whose state is supposed to match that of the puzzle’s, you must use the fixture command to update it separately.

If there are multiple puzzles with the same name, you can specify the room the puzzle is in.

Alternatively, you may specify a player to solve/unsolve the puzzle. In this case, only puzzles in the same room as the player can be solved/unsolved. When a player is supplied, a narration will be sent.

It is possible to supply a custom narration for the puzzle being solved/unsolved. Simply add a string of text surrounded by quotation marks at the end of the command. This can be done even without supplying a player.

Additionally, if you specify a player, you can make them attempt the puzzle with the attempt option. This makes it possible to force the player to fail the puzzle because they didn’t provide a correct solution or they didn’t satisfy the requirements for the puzzle to be solved/unsolved.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

restore

Restores a player’s stamina.

Aliases

.restore

Examples

.restore Flint

Details

Sets the given player’s stamina to its maximum value. This is based on their current max stamina, not their default stamina. Note that this does not automatically cure the weary status effect.

reveal

Gives a player the Dead role.

Aliases

.reveal

Examples

.reveal Platt
.reveal Strickland Wu Obi Katou

Details

Removes the Player role from the listed players and gives them the Dead role. All listed players must be dead.

roll

Rolls a die.

Aliases

.roll

Examples

.roll
.roll Sadie
.roll Christopher Nero
.roll str Ai
.roll strength Aisha Huiyu
.roll perception Kanda
.roll per Kyra Amadeus
.roll dexterity Flint
.roll dex Elijah Lucia
.roll spd Luna
.roll speed Xenia Fury
.roll stamina Danica
.roll sta Ezekiel Kelly

Details

Rolls a die. You can set the minimum and maximum possible values in your .env file with the DICE_MIN and DICE_MAX settings, respectively.

If a stat and a player are specified, the result will have the modifier of the player’s specified stat added to it. If two players are specified, any status effects the second player has which affect the first player will be applied to the first player, whose stats will be recalculated before their stat modifier is applied. Additionally, if a strength roll is performed using two players, the second player’s dexterity modifier will be inverted and applied to the first player’ s roll. Any modifiers will be mentioned in the result, but please note that the result sent has already had the modifiers applied.

Valid stat inputs are: str, strength, per, perception, dex, dexterity, spd, speed, sta, stamina.

save

Saves the game data to the spreadsheet.

Aliases

.save

Examples

.save

Details

Manually saves the game data to the spreadsheet. Ordinarily, game data is automatically saved to the spreadsheet periodically, as defined by the AUTOSAVE_INTERVAL in your .env file. However, this command allows you to save at any time, even when edit mode is enabled.

say

Sends a message.

Aliases

.say

Examples

.say #general Hello. My name is Alter Ego.
.say #park Haru taps the left part of the wall in certain locations in order, and it begins descending, revealing the entrance to PATH 10.
.say amy One appletini, coming right up.

Details

Sends a message. A channel or player must be specified. Messages can be sent to any channel in the server, but if it is sent to a room channel, it will be treated as a narration.

If the name of a player is specified and that player is an NPC, the player will speak in the channel of the room they’re in. Their dialog will be treated just like that of any normal player’s. The image URL set in the player’s Discord ID will be used for the player’s avatar. It is not possible to use this command on a non-NPC player.

It is possible to speak for an NPC without using this command. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

set

Sets a fixture, puzzle, or group of room items as accessible or inaccessible.

Aliases

.set

Examples

.set accessible puzzle ROCK CLIMBING WALL
.set inaccessible puzzle LOGIN Infirmary
.set accessible fixture BUNSEN BURNER
.set inaccessible fixture UNDERBRUSH path-2
.set accessible puzzle items LOCK robotics-lab
.set inaccessible puzzle items LOOSE CRATE
.set accessible fixture items DOLLHOUSE
.set inaccessible fixture items TOP OF THE SHELVES Library

Details

Sets a fixture, puzzle, or group of room items as accessible or inaccessible. You have to specify whether to set a fixture or puzzle, even if you want to set a group of room items. When you use the optional “items” argument, it will set all of the items contained in that fixture or puzzle as accessible/inaccessible at once. This will also update the accessibility of all child items contained inside of those room items. It is not possible to set the accessibility of individual room items.

You can also specify a room display name or ID at the end of the command. If you do, only fixtures/puzzles/room items in the room you specify can be set as accessible/inaccessible. This is useful if you have multiple fixtures or puzzles with the same name in different locations.

setdefaultroomicon

Sets the default room icon.

Aliases

.setdefaultroomicon

Examples

.setdefaultroomicon https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1290826220367249489/1441259427411001455/sLPkDhP.png
.setdefaultroomicon

Details

Sets the icon that will display by default when the given room’s information is sent to a player, if there exists no specific icon for that room. The icon given must be a URL with a .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .webp, or .avif extension. To reset the default icon, simply do not specify a new icon.

Note that this will not persist across bot reboots. When the bot is rebooted, the default room icon will be reverted to whatever is set for the DEFAULT_ROOM_ICON_URL setting in your .env file.

setdest

Updates an exit’s destination.

Aliases

.setdest

Examples

.setdest Truck DOOR Mountain Cave TRUCK
.setdest Mountain Entrance TRUCK Mountain Entrance TRUCK
.setdest motor-boat PORT docks BOAT
.setdest wharf MOTOR BOAT wharf MOTOR BOAT

Details

Replaces the destination for the specified room’s exit. Given the following initial room setup:

If the destination for room-1’s EXIT A is set to room-3’s EXIT D, players passing through EXIT A would emerge from EXIT D from that point onward. The Rooms sheet will be updated to reflect the updated destination, like so:

Note that this will leave room-2’s EXIT B and EXIT C without exits that lead back to them, which will result in errors next time rooms are loaded. To prevent this, this command should be used sparingly, and all affected exits should have their destinations reassigned.

setdisplayicon

Sets a player’s display icon.

Aliases

.setdisplayicon .sdi

Examples

.setdisplayicon kyra https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/697623260736651335/912103115241697301/mm.png
.setdisplayicon kyra

Details

Sets the icon that will appear as the given player’s avatar when their communications are mirrored as webhook messages. Webhook messages are primarily sent in spectate channels to reflect a player’s dialog, narrations, and monologs. However, webhook messages are also sent in room and whisper channels when a player uses the say, gesture, and narrate commands. Because NPCs don’t have Discord accounts, all of their communications are sent as webhook messages.

To set a player’s display icon, you must provide an image URL with an extension of .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .webp, or .avif. To reset a player’s display icon to their default display icon, simply specify the player without providing an image URL.

When player data is reloaded, all players will have their display icon reverted to their default display icon. For standard players, this is their server avatar, or their account avatar if they don’t have one set. For NPCs, this is the display icon given for them on the sheet in lieu of a Discord user ID.

Note that if the player is inflicted with a status effect with the concealed behavior attribute, their display icon will be updated to the image URL set in the DEFAULT_CONCEALED_ICON_URL setting in your .env file, thus overwriting one that was set manually. However, this command can be used to update their display icon again afterwards. When the status is cured, it will be reset to their default display icon.

This command will not change the player’s avatar when they send messages to room channels normally.

setdisplayname

Sets a player’s display name.

Aliases

.setdisplayname .sdn

Examples

.setdisplayname Sadie Zinnia
.sdn Kyra an individual wearing a PLAGUE DOCTOR MASK
.setdisplayname Sadie Sadie

Details

Sets the name that will be used to refer to a player in narrations in lieu of their actual name. It will also be set as their username when their communications are reflected with webhook messages. Webhook messages are primarily sent in spectate channels to reflect a player’s dialog, narrations, and monologs. However, webhook messages are also sent in room and whisper channels when a player uses the say, gesture, and narrate commands. Because NPCs don’t have Discord accounts, all of their communications are sent as webhook messages.

To set a player’s display name, enter their actual name, followed by the new display name. Display names can contain spaces, but they have a maximum length of 32 characters. If the display name does not begin with a proper noun, the first letter should not be capitalized.

Setting a player’s display name will not change their name on the spreadsheet, and when player data is reloaded, their display name will be reverted to their actual name.

Note that if the player is inflicted with a status effect with the concealed behavior attribute, their display name will be updated, thus overwriting one that was set manually. However, this command can be used to update their display name again afterwards. When the status is cured, their display name will be reset.

This command will not change the player’s nickname in the server.

setpronouns

Sets a player’s pronouns.

Aliases

.setpronouns

Examples

.setpronouns Lain female
.setpronouns Amadeus neutral
.setpronouns Platt male
.setpronouns Unit_050 it/it/its/its/itself/false
.setpronouns Asuka she/it/her/its/herself/false
.setpronouns Hollow ey/em/eir/eirs/emself/true
.setpronouns Aeries xey/xem/xeir/xeirs/xemself/true

Details

Sets the pronouns that will be used in the given player’s description and other places where pronouns are used. This will not change their pronouns on the spreadsheet, and when player data is reloaded, their pronouns will be reverted to their original pronouns.

To set a player’s pronouns, enter their name, followed by a set of pronouns. Pronoun sets must be given in the form: subjective/objective/dependent possessive/independent possessive/reflexive/plural. However, you can use shorthand for the most common pronoun sets:

• “female” (she/her/her/hers/herself/false),
• “male” (he/him/his/his/himself/false), and
• “neutral” (they/them/their/theirs/themself/true).

Note that if the player is inflicted with a status effect with the concealed behavior attribute, their pronouns will be set to “neutral”, thus overwriting any that were set manually. However, this command can be used to update their pronouns again afterwards. When the status is cured, their pronouns will be reset.

setroomicon

Sets a room’s icon.

Aliases

.setroomicon

Examples

.setroomicon Living Room https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1290826220367249489/1441259427411001455/sLPkDhP.png
.setroomicon kitchen

Details

Sets the icon that will display when the given room’s information is sent to a player. This will override whatever is set as the DEFAULT_ROOM_ICON_URL setting in your .env file, but only for the given room. The icon given must be an attachment or URL with a .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .webp, or .avif extension. To reset a room’s icon, simply do not specify a new icon. When this command is used, the new icon will be saved to the sheet in place of the old one.

setupdemo

Sets up a demo game.

Aliases

.setupdemo

Examples

.setupdemo

Details

Populates an empty spreadsheet with default game data as defined in the demodata.json config file. This will create a game environment to demonstrate most of the basic game mechanics.

If the channels for the demo game’s rooms don’t exist, they will be created automatically. This command will not create any players for you. Once the demo data has been saved to the spreadsheet, you can use the startgame or addplayer commands to add players, or manually add them to the spreadsheet. It is recommended that you have at least one other Discord account to use as a player. Once the spreadsheet has been fully populated, you can use the load command with the arguments all start to begin the demo.

If there is already data on the spreadsheet, it will be overwritten. Only use this command if the spreadsheet is currently blank.

setvoice

Sets a player’s voice.

Aliases

.setvoice

Examples

.setvoice Kyra a deep modulated voice
.setvoice Spektrum a high digitized voice
.setvoice Persephone multiple overlapping voices
.setvoice Ghost a disembodied voice
.setvoice Typhos Diego
.setvoice Nero Haru
.setvoice Kyra

Details

Sets a player’s voice descriptor that will be used when the player’s dialog is heard by someone who can’t see their face.

To set a player’s voice, enter their name, followed by a voice descriptor. It is assumed that voice descriptors will be written in the form “a(n) [adjective] voice”. It is also possible to enter the name of another player (living or dead) instead of a voice descriptor. In this case, the first player’s voice will sound exactly like the second player’s, which they can use to deceive other players.

Setting a player’s voice will not change their voice descriptor on the spreadsheet, and when player data is reloaded, their voice will be reverted to their original voice descriptor.

Note that unlike other commands which change a player’s characteristics, the player’s voice will not be changed by being inflicted or cured of a status effect with the concealed behavior attribute. If this command is used to change a character’s voice, it must be used again to change it back to normal. It can be reset to their original voice descriptor by specifying the player without providing a voice descriptor.

startgame

Starts a game.

Aliases

.startgame .start

Examples

.startgame 24h
.start 1h
.startgame 30m
.start 0.25m

Details

Starts a new game with a timed delay. You must specify an amount of time as a number followed by a unit, either hours (h) or minutes (m). During this time, server members with the Eligible role will be able to voluntarily add themselves to the game as players using the play command in the general channel. If debug mode is on, they must have the Tester role, and send the command in the testing channel. When this occurs, they will be given the Player role, and they will be added to the game’s data as players with default player data as defined in the Player Defaults section of your .env file.

When the timer you set reaches 0, all of the player data will be saved to the Players sheet. After that, you can edit their data to accurately reflect their characters. If you edit their data before the timer expires, it will be overwritten. When you are ready to begin the game, use the load command with the all start arguments.

Only use this command if you are not planning to add players to the sheet yourself. Any data already on the Players and Inventory Items sheets will be overwritten by this command. If you just want an easier way to populate those sheets without having to fill them out manually, use the addplayer command.

stash

Stores a player’s inventory item inside another inventory item.

Aliases

.stash .store .s

Examples

.stash Vivian VIVIANS LAPTOP in VIVIANS SATCHEL
.store Nero's KATANA in KATANA SHEATH
.s Kyra's MASTER KEY in RIGHT POCKET of KYRAS LAB COAT 5
.s Haru WATER BOTTLE in SIDE POUCH of GREEN BACKPACK 1

Details

Moves an item from the given player’s hand into an inventory slot of one of their container items. The held item and container item’s prefab ID or container identifier must be used. If the player stashes a non-discreet item, this will be narrated in the room.

The container item’s identifier must be preceded by its preposition or “in”. If the container item has multiple inventory slots, you can also specify which slot to stash the item in. To do so, enter the ID of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the container’s identifier. If an inventory slot is not specified, the player will stash the item in the container’s first inventory slot. Note that it is not possible to stash an item in an inventory slot if doing so would make it exceed its capacity.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

stats

Lists a given player’s stats.

Aliases

.stats

Examples

.stats Lucia

Details

Lists the given player’s default and current stats, as well as the roll modifiers they have based on each of their current stats, in square brackets. The maximum weight the player can currently carry will be listed, as well as how much weight they are currently carrying. Additionally, the player’s current stamina will be listed as a numerator over their current maximum stamina. This shows how much stamina they have remaining.

status

Inflict, cure, or view status effects on players.

Aliases

.status .inflict .cure

Examples

.status add Ava Huiyu Kyra heated
.inflict Xenia heated
.status add Florian Michio Kanda Jackie asleep
.inflict all deafened
.status remove Flint injured
.cure Elijah injured
.status remove Astrid Kiara drunk
.cure living asleep
.status view Amadeus
.status Mara

Details

This command has three sub-commands:

• add/inflict: Inflicts the specified players with the given status effect. Those players will receive the “Description When Inflicted” message for the specified status effect. If they already have that status effect and there is a status listed in the “When Duplicated” column, they will be cured of the given status effect and inflicted with that instead. If the inflicted status has a timer, the players will be cured and then inflicted with the status effect in the “Develops Into” column when the timer reaches 0, if there is one. If the status effect is fatal, they will simply die when the timer reaches 0 instead.
• remove/cure: Cures the specified players of the given status effect. Those players will receive the “Description When Cured” message for the specified status effect. If there is a status listed in the “When Cured” column, they will then be inflicted with that status effect.
• view/status: Views all of the status effects that one player currently has, along with the time remaining on each one, if applicable. This sub-command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

If, when using the inflict or cure sub-commands, you enter “living” or all“ instead of providing the names of players, all living players will be inflicted/cured of the given status effect, except for NPCs and players with the Free Movement role.

tag

Adds, removes, or lists a room’s tags.

Aliases

.tag .addtag .removetag .tags

Examples

.tag add Kitchen video surveilled
.tag remove Kitchen audio surveilled
.addtag vault soundproof
.removetag freezer cold
.addtag Command Center video monitoring, audio monitoring
.removetag command-center video monitoring, audio monitoring
.tag list Kitchen
.tags Kitchen

Details

This command has three sub-commands:

• add/addtag: Adds a comma-separated list of tags to the given room. Events that affect rooms with that tag will immediately apply to the given room, and any tags that give a room special behavior will immediately activate those functions. The new tags will be added to the spreadsheet on the next save.
• remove/removetag: Removes a comma-separated list of tags from the given room. Events that affect rooms with that tag will immediately stop applying to the given room, and any tags that give a room special behavior will immediately stop functioning. The tags will be removed from the spreadsheet on the next save.
• list/tags: Displays the list of tags currently applied to the given room.

take

Takes the given item for a player.

Aliases

.take .get .grab .t

Examples

.take Nero BUTCHERS KNIFE
.get Unit_039 FIRST AID KIT
.t Olavi BOTTLE OF MIDAZOLAM from MEDICINE CABINET
.take Sadie TOWEL from BENCHES
.grab Evad HAMMER from TOP RACK OF TOOLBOX 1
.t Vivian CHEST KEY from RIGHT POCKET of VIVIANS SKIRT 4

Details

Takes an item from the room the given player is in and puts it in their inventory. They must have a free hand to take an item. The item’s prefab ID or container identifier must be used. If the player takes a non-discreet item, this will be narrated in the room.

You can specify a container to take the item from. To do so, enter “from” after the item’s identifier, followed by the container’s name. If the container is a room item, its prefab ID or container identifier must be used. If the container item has multiple inventory slots, you can also specify which slot to take the item from. To do so, enter the ID of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the container’s identifier.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

testspeeds

Checks the move times between each exit.

Aliases

.testspeeds

Examples

.testspeeds players
.testspeeds stats

Details

Calculates the amount of time it takes to move between every exit in the game. Sends the results as a text file to the command channel. An argument must be provided. If the “players” argument is given, then the move times will be calculated for each player in the game. Note that the weight of any items the players are carrying will affect their calculated speed. If the “stats” argument is given, then the move times will be calculated for hypothetical players with speed from 1-10.

text

Sends a text message from an NPC to a player.

Aliases

.text

Examples

.text Amy Florian I work at the bar.
.text Amy Florian Here's a picture of me at work. (attached image)
.text ??? Sadie This is a message about your car's extended warranty.
.text ??? Lisa (attached image)

Details

Sends a text message from the given NPC to a player. If an image is attached, it will be sent as well. It is possible to send a text message to any player, even those that don’t have a status effect with the receive text behavior attribute.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command. However, keep in mind that if you send a text with an attached image in the NPC’s room channel, the message will be deleted, and the attachment may not send properly.

uncraft

Uncrafts an item for a player.

Aliases

.uncraft .dismantle .disassemble .uc

Examples

.uncraft Olavi SHOVEL
.dismantle Avani ASSEMBLED CROSSBOW
.disassemble Juno LOADED PISTOL
.uc Ray RING STAND WITH SUPPORT RING

Details

Separates an item in one of the given player’s hands into its component parts. This reverses the process of a crafting recipe, using the product of the recipe as an ingredient, and creating its ingredients as products. This will produce two items, so they will need a free hand in order for this command to be usable. If there is no crafting recipe that produces the given item which allows it to be uncrafted again, this command cannot be used.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

undress

Unequips and drops all items for a player.

Aliases

.undress

Examples

.undress Haru
.undress Aisha LOCKER 1
.undress Astrid LAUNDRY BASKET 17
.undress Xenia MAIN POCKET of XENIAS BACKPACK

Details

Unequips all of the player’s equipped items and drops them in the room they’re currently in. They will undress completely, including any items in their hands. However, any items whose prefab is not equippable will not be removed with this command. They can be forcibly removed with the unequip command. When the player undresses, it will narrated in the room.

A container to drop the items into can be specified. To do so, enter the container’s name. No preposition is necessary. If the container is a room item, its prefab ID or container identifier must be used. If you don’t specify a container, they will leave the items on the DEFAULT_DROP_FIXTURE defined in the game’s settings.

If the container has multiple inventory slots, you can also specify which slot to put the items in. To do this, enter the ID of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the container’s identifier. If an inventory slot is not specified, the player will put the items in the container’s first inventory slot. However, they will not be able to undress into an inventory slot if the combined size of their items would overfill it.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

unequip

Unequips an item for a player.

Aliases

.unequip .remove .u

Examples

.unequip Kyra's PLAGUE DOCTOR MASK
.remove Lain WHITE PARKA
.u Dexter KNIT WOOL SWEATER from SHIRT

Details

Unequips an item from one of the given player’s equipment slots. The item will be placed in their hand, so they must have a free hand. When an item is unequipped, it will be narrated in the room, regardless of whether it is discreet or not. If the item’s prefab has any unequipped commands, they will be executed when it is unequipped.

You can unequip any item with this command, even if its prefab is not equippable. You can also specify which equipment slot to unequip the item from. To do so, enter “from” after the prefab ID or container identifier of the item, followed by the ID of the equipment slot.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

unstash

Moves an inventory item into a player’s hand.

Aliases

.unstash .retrieve .r

Examples

.unstash Vivian's VIVIANS LAPTOP
.retrieve Nero KATANA from KATANA SHEATH
.r Kyra's MASTER KEY from RIGHT POCKET of KYRAS LAB COAT 5
.r Haru WATER BOTTLE from SIDE POUCH of GREEN BACKPACK 1

Details

Moves an inventory item from a container item in the given player’s inventory into their hand. They must have a free hand to unstash an item. The item’s prefab ID or container identifier must be used. If the player unstashes a non-discreet item, this will be narrated in the room.

It is possible to specify a container to unstash an item from. To do so, enter “from” after the item’s identifier, followed by the container item’s prefab ID or container identifier. If the container item has multiple inventory slots, you can also specify which slot to unstash the item from. To do so, enter the ID of the inventory slot followed by “of” before the container’s identifier.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

use

Uses an item in the given player’s inventory.

Aliases

.use

Examples

.use Princeton FIRST AID KIT
.use Michio TOOTHBRUSH WITH TOOTHPASTE
.use Unit_039 ADHESIVE BANDAGE Huiyu "It applies an ADHESIVE BANDAGE over the wound, to prevent it from becoming infected again."
.use Kanda's SYRINGE OF ESTRADIOL on Florian "Count Kanda quickly pushes the needle the rest of the way, injecting all of the fluid into Florian's body."

Details

Uses an item in one of the given player’s hands. You can specify a second player for the first player to use the item on. Both players must be in the same room. If no second player is given, the first player will use the item on themself.

When an item is used, it will inflict or cure the targeted player of any status effects listed under the “Gives Status Effect(s)” and “Cures Status Effect(s)” columns for its prefab. If it has a limited number of uses, its uses will be decremented by 1. If it reaches 0, the item will transform into its next stage prefab, or be destroyed if it doesn’t have one.

When a player uses an item, a narration will be sent in the room. It is possible to supply a custom narration for the item being used. Simply add a string of text surrounded by quotation marks at the end of the command.

Note that you cannot solve puzzles using this command. To do that, use the puzzle command.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

view

View a game entity.

Aliases

.view .v

Examples

.view room 496
.v room chancellors-office
.view exit 497
.v fixture 21
.view prefab 75
.v prefab COMBAT BOOTS
.view recipe 43
.v room item 1173
.view item 692
.v puzzle 81
.view event 16
.v event SUNRISE
.view status effect 92
.v status refreshed
.view player 4
.v player Sid
.view inventory item 70
.v inventoryitem 381
.view gesture 102
.v gesture point at
.view flag 7
.v flag AUTO LIGHTS

Details

View in-game data. You can view any entry on the spreadsheet, but you must specify which kind of data to find, as well as its row number. If the entity has a unique ID, you can also view it using that. You will be shown most of the data visible on the spreadsheet for that entity. To avoid exceeding Discord’s character limit, some fields may be omitted. These can be viewed with the interactables that are sent alongside the result.

To view a game entity that doesn’t have a unique ID with this command, you must know its row number, which can be found on the spreadsheet. Alternatively, you can obtain it with the find command.

whisper

Initiates a whisper between the given players.

Aliases

.whisper .w

Examples

.whisper Nestor Jun
.w Sadie Elijah Flint
.whisper Amy Asuka Clean it up.
.w Amy Asuka The mess you made. Clean it up now.

Details

Creates a channel for the given players to whisper in. Only the selected players will be able to read messages posted in the new channel, but a narration will be sent in the room indicating that they’ve begun whispering to each other. You can select as many players as you want as long as they’re all in the same room.

When a player in the whisper leaves the room, they will be removed from the channel. If everyone leaves the room, the whisper channel will be deleted or archived, depending on the AUTO_DELETE_WHISPER_CHANNELS setting in your .env file.

If one of the players listed is an NPC, any text that remains after the list of players will be sent to the new whisper channel as dialog from that NPC. After the channel has been created, sending the command again with a different string of text at the end will make the NPC whisper that text as dialog in the channel.

This command supports NPC latching. For more information, see the help details for the latch command.

Bot Commands

Bot commands are not usable by any Discord user. These commands are passed into the commandHandler module directly by Alter Ego. Their purpose is to allow greater flexibility in behavior for Prefabs, Events, Puzzles, and Flags. They allow many built-in restrictions placed on Players’ actions to be bypassed.

Bot commands can only be used when a game is in progress. They can only be entered on the spreadsheet. Unlike other commands, bot commands must not start with the command prefix.

Bot commands which act upon Players generally have three different arguments that can be used in place of a Player’s name, but this isn’t always the case.

These arguments are:

• player
  • The command will act on the Player who caused the command to be executed. For Prefabs, this is the Player who equipped/unequipped the Inventory Item. For Puzzles, this is the Player who solved/unsolved the Puzzle.
• room
  • The command will act on all Players in the same Room as the Player who caused the command to be executed. Alternatively, for Events, this is all Players in all Rooms affected by the Event.
• all
  • The command will act on all living Players, except for NPCs and Players with the Free Movement role.

destroy

Destroys an item.

Aliases

destroy ds

Examples

destroy VOLLEYBALL at beach
ds CAN OF GASOLINE on SHELVES at Warehouse
destroy NOTE in LOCKER 1 at Men's Locker Room
ds WRENCH in TOOL BOX 1 at beach-house
destroy WHITE GLOVES in BREAST POCKET of TUXEDO at dressing room
ds all in TRASH CAN at lounge
destroy player BLUE BIRD MUSIC BOX
ds all FACE
destroy room NUMBERED BRACELETds Vivian's VIVIANS LAPTOP in VIVIANS SATCHEL
destroy SHOTPUT BALL in Cassie's MAIN POCKET of LARGE BACKPACK 1
ds all in Hitoshi's HITOSHIS TROUSERS
destroy all in Evad's FRONT POCKET of DENIM OVERALLS 6

Details

Destroys an item in the specified location or in the player’s inventory. The prefab ID or container identifier of the item must be given.

To destroy a room item, the display name or ID of the room it’s in must be given at the end of the command, following “ at“. To destroy an inventory item, the name of the player must be given followed by 's before the item’s identifier.

If, when destroying an inventory item, “player” is supplied instead of a player’s name, then the given item will be destroyed from the inventory of the player who caused this command to be executed. If “room” is supplied instead, then the command will be executed on all players in the room as the initiating player. If “all” is supplied instead, then the command will be executed on all living players, including NPCs and players with the Free Movement role.

It is possible to specify the container from which to destroy the item. To do so, add the container’s preposition or “ in“ after the item’s identifier, followed by the container’s name. If the container is another item, its identifier or prefab ID must be used. The ID of the inventory slot to destroy the item from can also be specified, followed by “of”. If you enter “all” in place of an item’s identifier and specify a container, all items in that container will be destroyed.

It is also possible to destroy an inventory item by specifying only the ID of the equipment slot it’s equipped to instead of the item’s identifier. This will destroy whatever is equipped to that equipment slot.

Note that if you destroy an inventory item, the player will be notified if it is an item they have equipped, and its unequipped commands will be executed. The player will not be notified if it is an item they have stashed.

event

Triggers or ends an event.

Aliases

event trigger end

Examples

event trigger RAIN
event end EXPLOSION
trigger INTRUDER LOOSE ALERT
end BLACKOUT

Details

Triggers or ends the specified event.

If trigger is used, the event must not already be ongoing. Its triggered commands will be executed. If end is used, the event must be ongoing. Its ended commands will be executed.

Triggered/ended commands will not be executed if this command was called by the triggered/ended commands of another event. They will executed if they were called by the commands of a different type of game entity, however.

exit

Locks or unlocks an exit.

Aliases

exit room lock unlock

Examples

exit lock Carousel DOOR
exit unlock Chancellor's Quarters DOOR
lock warehouse DOOR 3
unlock floor-b1-hall-3 ELEVATOR

Details

Locks or unlocks an exit in the specified room. The corresponding entrance in the room the exit leads to will also be locked/unlocked. When an exit is locked, players will be unable to move through that exit.

fixture

Activates or deactivates a fixture, or sets its recipe tag.

Aliases

fixture object activate deactivate

Examples

fixture activate BLENDER
fixture deactivate MICROWAVE
fixture tag BLENDER puree
activate KEURIG Kyra
deactivate OVEN player
fixture activate FIREPLACE Log Cabin
fixture deactivate FOUNTAIN flower-garden
fixture tag BLENDER puree kitchen
activate FREEZER player "player plugs in the FREEZER."
deactivate WASHER 1 laundry-room "WASHER 1 turns off"

Details

This command has three sub-commands:

• activate: Activates the specified fixture. When a fixture is activated, it will begin processing the recipe with the highest count of ingredients satisfied by the room items contained inside of it. If no recipe is found, it will look for one that it can process every second while it is activated.
• deactivate: Deactivates the specified fixture. It will stop processing and looking for recipes.
• tag: Sets the fixture’s recipe tag. This will immediately stop any ongoing recipe processes. If it is currently activated, it will begin looking for recipes it can process that satisfy the new tag. The spreadsheet will be updated with the new tag on the next save.

Keep in mind that a fixture can only be activated/deactivated if it has a recipe tag. If there is a puzzle whose state is supposed to match that of the fixture’s, you must use the puzzle command to update it separately.

If there are multiple fixtures with the same name, you can specify the room the fixture is in.

Alternatively, you may specify a player to activate/deactivate the fixture. In this case, only fixtures in the same room as the player can be activated/deactivated. When a player is supplied, a narration will be sent. You may also enter “ player“ instead of directly specifying the name of a player. In this case, the player who caused this command to be executed will be the one made to activate/deactivate the fixture.

It is possible to supply a custom narration for the fixture being activated/deactivated. Simply add a string of text surrounded by quotation marks at the end of the command. This can be done even without supplying a player. If the “ player“ argument is used, the text “player” (case-sensitive) within a custom narration will be replaced with the display name of the player who activates/deactivates the fixture.

It is recommended that you do not add line breaks to cells on the sheet. To add line breaks to the narration, enter \n. It will be replaced with an actual line break in the sent message.

Likewise, because the normal comma character is used as a delimiter in lists of bot commands, you can use the full-width comma character instead (，), and it will be replaced with a normal comma in the message.

flag

Set and clear flags.

Aliases

flag setflag clearflag

Examples

flag set COLD SEASON FLAG true
setflag HOT SEASON FLAG False
flag set TV PROGRAMMING 4
setflag INDOOR TEMPERATURE {THERMOSTAT}
flag set TV PROGRAMMING += 1
setflag INDOOR TEMPERATURE -= 4.1
flag set player BALANCE += 150
setflag player BALANCE -= 21.5
flag set SOUP OF THE DAY "French Onion"
setflag BLOOD SPLATTER “player WAS HERE”
flag set PRECIPITATION `findEvent('RAIN').ongoing === true || findEvent('SNOW').ongoing === true`
setflag RANDOM ANIMAL `getRandomString(['dog', 'cat', 'mouse', 'owl', 'bear'])`
flag clear BLOOD SPLATTER
clearflag TV PROGRAMMING
flag clear player DEBT
clearflag player DEBT

Details

Set and clear flags.

• set: Sets the flag value as the specified input. If the flag does not already exist, then a new one will be created with the specified name. The specified value must be a boolean, number, or string. String values must be surrounded by quotation marks. If a string contains “player”, and the command was executed because of a player’s actions, it will be replaced with their display name. To add or subtract from the flag’s current number value, prefix the number to add or subtract with += or -=. If you want to set the flag’s value script, surround your input with `tics`. This script will immediately be evaluated, and the flag’s value will be set accordingly. Whether the flag’s value or value script is set, the flag’s set commands will be executed, unless the flag was set by another flag.

• clear: Clears the flag value. This will replace the flag’s current value with null. When this is cleared, the flag’s cleared commands will be executed, unless the flag was cleared by another flag.

For both sub-commands, if the command was executed because of a player’s actions, and the ID of the flag contains “ player“ (case-sensitive), “player” will be replaced with the player’s name. If a flag with that ID exists, it will have its value set or cleared accordingly. Otherwise, “player” will be treated as a literal part of the ID.

instantiate

Generates an item.

Aliases

instantiate create generate is gn

Examples

instantiate RAW FISH on FLOOR at Beach
create PICKAXE in LOCKER 1 at mining-hub
generate 3 EMPTY DRAIN CLEANER in CUPBOARDS at Kitchen
instantiate GREEN BOOK in MAIN POCKET of LARGE BACKPACK 1 at dorm-library
is 4 SCREWDRIVER in TOOL BOX at Beach House
gn WET CLAY POT (quality = excellent) on POTTERY WHEEL at Art Studio
instantiate KATANA in player RIGHT HAND
create GORILLA MASK on all FACE
instantiate NECK CLAMP to room NECK
generate VIVIANS LAPTOP in Vivian's VIVIANS SATCHEL
is 2 SHOTPUT BALL in Cassie's MAIN POCKET of LARGE BACKPACK
gn 3 GACHA CAPSULE (color=metal + character=upa) in Asuka's LEFT POCKET of GAMER HOODIE

Details

Generates a room item or inventory item in the specified location. The prefab ID must be used. A quantity can also be set by supplying a number before the prefab ID. If no quantity is given, the item will be instantiated with a quantity of 1.

If the prefab has procedural options, they can be manually selected in parentheses. To do this, write the name of the procedural tag and the poss tag to select within it, separated by an equal sign (=). Multiple procedural selections can be made, separated by a plus sign (+).

To instantiate a room item, the display name or ID of the room must be given at the end, following “at”. The container to put it in must also be specified after the prefab’s ID, preceded by the container’s preposition or “in”. If the container is a fixture with a child puzzle, the puzzle will be its container. If the container is another room item, the container’s identifier, prefab ID, or name can be used.

To instantiate an inventory item, the name of the player must be given followed by 's. It is possible to instantiate an inventory item directly to a player’s equipment slot by specifying the equipment slot’s ID. In this case, the player will be notified that they equipped the item, and the prefab’s equipped commands will be executed. However, a container item can be specified instead by entering its preposition or “in” followed by its identifier, prefab ID, or name. The player will not be notified when the item is instantiated this way.

If, when instantiating an inventory item, “player” is supplied instead of a player’s name, then the prefab will be instantiated in the inventory of the player who caused this command to be executed. If “room” is supplied instead, then the command will executed on all players in the room as the initiating player. If “all” is supplied instead, then the command will be executed on all living players, including NPCs and players with the Free Movement role.

If the container to instantiate the item into is a room item or inventory item, the ID of the inventory slot to instantiate the item into can be specified, followed by “of” before the container’s identifier.

kill

Kills a player.

Aliases

kill die

Examples

kill Platt
die Strickland Wu Obi Katou
kill player
die room

Details

Kills the listed players. Player names must be separated by a space. If, instead of specifying the names of players, you enter “player”, then the player who caused this command to be executed will be killed. If “room” is used instead, then all players in the room with the initiating player will be killed, including NPCs and players with the Free Movement role. However, if the command was issued by an event and the “room” argument is used, all players in all rooms that have the event’s room tag will be killed.

When a player is killed, they are removed from the list of living players and added to the list of dead players. This prevents them from using any player commands, thus making them unable to interact with the game world. When a player dies, they are dead permanently. To bring them back to life, they must be manually edited on the spreadsheet. Only use this command if you are absolutely sure.

Upon death, the player will be removed from whatever room and whisper channels they were in. The player will be notified, and a narration will be sent indicating that they have died. All status effects the player had will be cleared. They will retain any items they had in their inventory, but they will not be accessible in any way. In order to make the player’s corpse inspectable, it must be manually added to the appropriate location as a fixture, and their inventory items must be manually added as room items.

A dead player will retain the Player role. To remove the Player role and give them the Dead role, use the reveal command.

move

Moves the given player to the specified room.

Aliases

move go enter walk m

Examples

move Flint Chancellor's Office
enter player general-managers-office
go player Dining Hall
move room ultimate-conference-hall
m all Elevator

Details

Forcibly moves the given players to the specified room. When a player is moved, they will be removed from the room channel they were already in and added to the destination room channel. They will move to the given destination immediately, without consuming any stamina, and with no regard for whether the room is adjacent to their current room or the exit leading to it is locked.

You can select multiple players by separating their names with a space. If instead of providing the names of players, you enter “all”, all living players will be moved to the specified room, except for players who are already in that room, NPCs, and players with the Free Movement role. However, if you instead use “player”, the player who caused this command to be executed will be moved to the given destination. If “room” is used instead, then all players in the room with the initiating player will be moved, including NPCs and players with the Free Movement role. However, if the command was issued by an event and the “room” argument is used, all players in all rooms that have the event’s room tag will be moved.

When this command is used to move a player to a room that is not adjacent to their current room, the narration in the destination room will not specify which exit they entered from.

puzzle

Solves or unsolves a puzzle.

Aliases

puzzle solve unsolve attempt

Examples

puzzle solve TERMINAL
puzzle unsolve SEARCH QUERY
solve AISHA PROGRAM Ava
unsolve BURIED TREASURE Jackie
solve USERNAME jl
solve USERNAME doublehelix
puzzle solve CALL BUTTON Floor B2 Hall 1
puzzle unsolve SWITCH dorm-6
solve DRINK IN PROGRESS player "Amy begins preparing a drink for player."
unsolve DRINK IN PROGRESS player "Amy places a glass of TEQUILA SUNRISE on the BAR counter for player."
puzzle attempt COMPARTMENT player
attempt 3D PRINTER rabbit Huiyu

Details

Solves or unsolves a puzzle. You may specify an outcome, if the puzzle has more than one solution. When a puzzle is solved, it will execute the solved commands for the outcome it was solved with. When a puzzle is unsolved, it will execute the unsolved commands for the outcome it currently has. If there is a fixture whose state is supposed to match that of the puzzle’s, you must use the fixture command to update it separately.

If there are multiple puzzles with the same name, you can specify the room the puzzle is in.

Alternatively, you may specify a player to solve/unsolve the puzzle. In this case, only puzzles in the same room as the player can be solved/unsolved. When a player is supplied, a narration will be sent. You may also enter “player” instead of directly specifying the name of a player. In this case, the player who caused this command to be executed will be the one made to solve/unsolve the puzzle.

It is possible to supply a custom narration for the puzzle being solved/unsolved. Simply add a string of text surrounded by quotation marks at the end of the command. This can be done even without supplying a player. If the “player” argument is used, the text “player” (case-sensitive) within a custom narration will be replaced with the display name of the player who solves/unsolves the puzzle.

Additionally, if you specify a player, you can make them attempt the puzzle with the attempt option. This makes it possible to force the player to fail the puzzle because they didn’t provide a correct solution or they didn’t satisfy the requirements for the puzzle to be solved/unsolved.

It is recommended that you do not add line breaks to cells on the sheet. To add line breaks to the narration, enter \n. It will be replaced with an actual line break in the sent message.

Likewise, because the normal comma character is used as a delimiter in lists of bot commands, you can use the full-width comma character instead (，), and it will be replaced with a normal comma in the message.

say

Sends a message.

Aliases

say

Examples

say Unit_050 Welcome. If you would like to listen to piano music, you may request a song, and I will perform it for you.
say Trash Disposal A strange smell begins emanating from the INCINERATOR.

Details

Sends a message. A room or player must be specified.

If a message is sent to a room, it will be treated as a narration.

If the name of a player is specified and that player is an NPC, the player will speak in the channel of the room they’re in. Their dialog will be treated just like that of any normal player’s. The image URL set in the player’s Discord ID will be used for the player’s avatar. It is not possible to use this command on a non-NPC player.

It is recommended that you do not add line breaks to cells on the sheet. To add line breaks to the command, enter \n. It will be replaced with an actual line break in the sent message.

Likewise, because the normal comma character is used as a delimiter in lists of bot commands, you can use the full-width comma character instead (，), and it will be replaced with a normal comma in the message.

set

Sets a fixture, puzzle, or group of room items as accessible or inaccessible.

Aliases

set

Examples

set accessible puzzle ROCK CLIMBING WALL
set inaccessible puzzle LOGIN Infirmary
set accessible fixture BUNSEN BURNER
set inaccessible fixture UNDERBRUSH path-2
set accessible puzzle items LOCK robotics-lab
set inaccessible puzzle items LOOSE CRATE
set accessible fixture items DOLLHOUSE
set inaccessible fixture items TOP OF THE SHELVES Library

Details

Sets a fixture, puzzle, or group of room items as accessible or inaccessible. You have to specify whether to set a fixture or puzzle, even if you want to set a group of room items. When you use the optional “items” argument, it will set all of the items contained in that fixture or puzzle as accessible/inaccessible at once. This will also update the accessibility of all child items contained inside of those room items. It is not possible to set the accessibility of individual room items.

You can also specify a room display name or ID at the end of the command. If you do, only fixtures/puzzles/room items in the room you specify can be set as accessible/inaccessible. This is useful if you have multiple fixtures or puzzles with the same name in different locations.

setdefaultroomicon

Sets the default room icon.

Aliases

setdefaultroomicon

Examples

setdefaultroomicon https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1290826220367249489/1441259427411001455/sLPkDhP.png
setdefaultroomicon

Details

Sets the icon that will display by default when the given room’s information is sent to a player, if there exists no specific icon for that room. The icon given must be a URL with a .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .webp, or .avif extension. To reset the default icon, simply do not specify a new icon.

Note that this will not persist across bot reboots. When the bot is rebooted, the default room icon will be reverted to whatever is set for the DEFAULT_ROOM_ICON_URL setting in your .env file.

setdest

Updates an exit’s destination.

Aliases

setdest

Examples

setdest Truck DOOR Mountain Cave TRUCK
setdest Mountain Entrance TRUCK Mountain Entrance TRUCK
setdest motor-boat PORT docks BOAT
setdest wharf MOTOR BOAT wharf MOTOR BOAT

Details

Replaces the destination for the specified room’s exit. Given the following initial room setup:

If the destination for room-1’s EXIT A is set to room-3’s EXIT D, players passing through EXIT A would emerge from EXIT D from that point onward. The Rooms sheet will be updated to reflect the updated destination, like so:

Note that this will leave room-2’s EXIT B and EXIT C without exits that lead back to them, which will result in errors next time rooms are loaded. To prevent this, this command should be used sparingly, and all affected exits should have their destinations reassigned.

setdisplayicon

Sets a player’s display icon.

Aliases

setdisplayicon sdi

Examples

setdisplayicon kyra https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/697623260736651335/912103115241697301/mm.png
setdisplayicon player https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/697623260736651335/911381958553128960/questionmark.png
setdisplayicon player

Details

Sets the icon that will appear as the given player’s avatar when their communications are mirrored as webhook messages. Webhook messages are primarily sent in spectate channels to reflect a player’s dialog, narrations, and monologs. However, webhook messages are also sent in room and whisper channels when a player uses the say, gesture, and narrate commands. Because NPCs don’t have Discord accounts, all of their communications are sent as webhook messages.

To set a player’s display icon, you must provide an image URL with an extension of .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .webp, or .avif. To reset a player’s display icon to their default display icon, simply specify the player without providing an image URL. If you enter “player” instead of a player’s name, then the player who caused this command to be executed will have their display icon set.

When player data is reloaded, all players will have their display icon reverted to their default display icon. For standard players, this is their server avatar, or their account avatar if they don’t have one set. For NPCs, this is the display icon given for them on the sheet in lieu of a Discord user ID.

Note that if the player is inflicted with a status effect with the concealed behavior attribute, their display icon will be updated to the image URL set in the DEFAULT_CONCEALED_ICON_URL setting in your .env file, thus overwriting one that was set manually. However, this command can be used to update their display icon again afterwards. When the status is cured, it will be reset to their default display icon.

This command will not change the player’s avatar when they send messages to room channels normally.

setdisplayname

Sets a player’s display name.

Aliases

setdisplayname sdn

Examples

setdisplayname Sadie Zinnia
sdn player an individual wearing a PLAGUE DOCTOR MASK
setdisplayname player
sdn player

Details

Sets the name that will be used to refer to a player in narrations in lieu of their actual name. It will also be set as their username when their communications are reflected with webhook messages. Webhook messages are primarily sent in spectate channels to reflect a player’s dialog, narrations, and monologs. However, webhook messages are also sent in room and whisper channels when a player uses the say, gesture, and narrate commands. Because NPCs don’t have Discord accounts, all of their communications are sent as webhook messages.

To set a player’s display name, enter their actual name, followed by the new display name. Display names can contain spaces, but they have a maximum length of 32 characters. If the display name does not begin with a proper noun, the first letter should not be capitalized. To reset a player’s display name to their actual name, simply specify the player without providing a display name. If you enter “player” instead of a player’s name, then the player who caused this command to be executed will have their display name set.

Setting a player’s display name will not change their name on the spreadsheet, and when player data is reloaded, their display name will be reverted to their actual name.

Note that if the player is inflicted with a status effect with the concealed behavior attribute, their display name will be updated, thus overwriting one that was set manually. However, this command can be used to update their display name again afterwards. When the status is cured, their display name will be reset.

This command will not change the player’s nickname in the server.

setpos

Sets a player’s position.

Aliases

setpos

Examples

setpos player 200 5 350
setpos room 400 -10 420
setpos vivian x 350
setpos player y 10
setpos all z 250

Details

Sets the specified player’s position. If the “player” argument is used in place of a name, then the player who caused the command to be executed will have their position updated. If the “room” argument is used instead, then all players in the same room as the player who caused the command to be executed will have their positions updated. Lastly, if the “ all“ argument is used, then all players will have their positions updated, except for NPCs and players with the Free Movement role. You can set individual coordinates with the “x”, “y”, or “z” arguments and the value to set it to. Otherwise, a space-separated list of coordinates in the order x y z must be given.

setpronouns

Sets a player’s pronouns.

Aliases

setpronouns

Examples

setpronouns Lain female
setpronouns Amadeus neutral
setpronouns Platt male
setpronouns Unit_050 it\it\its\its\itself\false
setpronouns Asuka she\it\her\its\herself\false
setpronouns Hollow ey\em\eir\eirs\emself\true
setpronouns Aeries xey\xem\xeir\xeirs\xemself\true
setpronouns player female
setpronouns player neutral
setpronouns player male
setpronouns player ey\em\eir\eirs\emself\true
setpronouns player

Details

Sets the pronouns that will be used in the given player’s description and other places where pronouns are used. This will not change their pronouns on the spreadsheet, and when player data is reloaded, their pronouns will be reverted to their original pronouns.

To set a player’s pronouns, enter their name, followed by a set of pronouns. If you enter “player” instead of a player’s name, then the player who caused this command to be executed will have their pronouns set. Pronoun sets must be given in the form: subjective\objective\dependent possessive\independent possessive\reflexive\plural. Pay close attention. Because bot command sets are separated by a forward slash (/), you must use a backward slash (\) to separate pronouns in a pronoun set. However, you can also use shorthand for the most common pronoun sets:

• “female” (she\her\her\hers\herself\false),
• “male” (he\him\his\his\himself\false), and
• “neutral” (they\them\their\theirs\themself\true).

Note that if the player is inflicted with a status effect with the concealed behavior attribute, their pronouns will be set to “neutral”, thus overwriting any that were set manually. However, this command can be used to update their pronouns again afterwards. When the status is cured, their pronouns will be reset.

setroomicon

Sets a room’s display icon.

Aliases

setroomicon

Examples

setroomicon Living Room https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1290826220367249489/1441259427411001455/sLPkDhP.png
setroomicon kitchen

Details

Sets the icon that will display when the given room’s information is sent to a player. This will override whatever is set as the DEFAULT_ROOM_ICON_URL setting in your .env file, but only for the given room. The icon given must be a URL with a .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .webp, or .avif extension. To reset a room’s icon, simply do not specify a new icon. When this command is used, the new icon will be saved to the sheet in place of the old one.

setvoice

Sets a player’s voice.

Aliases

setvoice

Examples

setvoice player a deep modulated voice
setvoice player a high digitized voice
setvoice Persephone multiple overlapping voices
setvoice Ghost a disembodied voice
setvoice Typhos Diego
setvoice player Haru
setvoice player

Details

Sets a player’s voice descriptor that will be used when the player’s dialog is heard by someone who can’t see their face.

To set a player’s voice, enter their name, followed by a voice descriptor. It is assumed that voice descriptors will be written in the form “a(n) [adjective] voice”. It is also possible to enter the name of another player (living or dead) instead of a voice descriptor. In this case, the first player’s voice will sound exactly like the second player’s, which they can use to deceive other players. If you enter “player” instead of a player’s name, then the player who caused this command to be executed will have their voice set.

Setting a player’s voice will not change their voice descriptor on the spreadsheet, and when player data is reloaded, their voice will be reverted to their original voice descriptor.

Note that unlike other commands which change a player’s characteristics, the player’s voice will not be changed by being inflicted or cured of a status effect with the concealed behavior attribute. If this command is used to change a character’s voice, it must be used again to change it back to normal. It can be reset to their original voice descriptor by specifying the player without providing a voice descriptor.

Because the normal comma character is used as a delimiter in lists of bot commands, you cannot enter a comma in a voice string with this command. Instead, use the full-width comma character (，). It will be replaced with a normal comma in the voice string.

status

Inflict or cure status effects on a player.

Aliases

status inflict cure

Examples

status add player heated
status add room safe
inflict all deafened
inflict Diego heated
status remove player injured
status remove room restricted
cure Flint injured
cure all deafened

Details

This command has two sub-commands:

• add/inflict: Inflicts the specified player with the given status effect. The player will receive the “ Description When Inflicted“ message for the specified status effect. If they already have that status effect and there is a status listed in the “When Duplicated” column, they will be cured of the given status effect and inflicted with that instead. If the inflicted status has a timer, the player will be cured and then inflicted with the status effect in the “Develops Into” column when the timer reaches 0, if there is one. If the status effect is fatal, they will simply die when the timer reaches 0 instead.
• remove/cure: Cures the specified player of the given status effect. The player will receive the “Description When Cured” message for the specified status effect. If there is a status listed in the “When Cured” column, they will then be inflicted with that status effect.

If instead of providing the name of a player, you enter “all” or “living”, all living players will be inflicted/cured of the given status effect, except for NPCs and players with the Free Movement role. However, if you instead use “player”, the player who caused this command to be executed will be inflicted/cured. If “room” is used instead, then all players in the room with the initiating player will be inflicted/cured, including NPCs and players with the Free Movement role.

tag

Adds or removes a room’s tags.

Aliases

tag addtag removetag

Examples

tag add Kitchen video surveilled
tag remove Kitchen audio surveilled
addtag vault soundproof
removetag freezer cold

Details

This command has two sub-commands:

• add/addtag: Adds a tag to the given room. Events that affect rooms with that tag will immediately apply to the given room, and any tag that gives a room special behavior will immediately activate those functions. The new tag will be added to the spreadsheet on the next save.
• remove/removetag: Removes a tag from the given room. Events that affect rooms with that tag will immediately stop applying to the given room, and any tag that gives a room special behavior will immediately stop functioning. The tags will be removed from the spreadsheet on the next save.

Note that unlike the moderator version of this command, you cannot add/remove multiple tags at once.

wait

Waits a set number of seconds.

Aliases

wait

Examples

wait 5
wait 60
wait 300

Description

Not a true command, but a pseudo-command. When this command is used in a list of commands, Alter Ego will wait for the given number of seconds before executing the next command.

Interactables

The primary way of interacting with Alter Ego is via commands. However, Interactables provide an alternative way of doing so that requires less input. Their main purpose is to provide shortcuts to many of the most commonly-performed Actions in Alter Ego.

Interactables make use of Discord’s Interactive Components: Action Rows. Alter Ego also has limited support for Modals.

This article will provide a general overview of what Interactables are, how they’re created, and how they’re used to facilitate gameplay.

Note

“Interactable” is a term referring to Alter Ego’s implementation of Discord’s Message Components that emit Interactions. The term “Interactable” is not used by Discord.

The Interactable Class

Under the hood, all Interactables derive from an abstract base class named Interactable. It has the following attributes:

Type

• Class attribute: Enum (number) this.type

This is the type of Interactable being created. It can be one of the following:

• BUTTON
• STRING_SELECT_MENU
• STRING_SELECT_MENU_OPTION
• MODAL
• TEXT_INPUT

Custom ID

• Class attribute: String this.customId

This is an ID unique to the Interactable within a single message. Its purpose is to allow the interaction handler to identify which Interactable was used, and to encode the information it needs to execute the right behavior for the Interactable. For more information, see Discord’s documentation on the custom_id field.

Priority

• Class attribute: Number this.priority

This is a number which determines how high up an Interactable will appear in a list of Action Rows. The lower this value, the higher priority the Interactable has.

Respond With Modal

• Class attribute: Boolean this.respondWithModal

This Boolean value indicates whether this Interactable will respond with a Modal Interactable when it is selected.

Action Directive

The Action Directive is the cornerstone of Alter Ego’s system of Interactables. It allows Discord’s Components to encode much more information than they were originally intended to, thus simplifying the process of performing Actions.

An Action Directive is constructed with a specific type of Action, a Player to perform it, and the arguments that will be needed to perform it.

After an Action Directive is constructed, its custom ID is generated by encoding its arguments, and the ID of the user it is being created for, in a hash function. This allows a unique custom ID to be generated for each Interactable that encodes all of the information required to perform an Action for a given user without exceeding Discord’s custom ID character limit of 100.

Once its custom ID has been generated, the Action Directive serves as a directive to perform an Action with those specific parameters, for that specific user.

Interactable Manager

Alter Ego has an Interactable Manager class that allows it to create and manage Interactables. An overview of how it works will be provided here.

Create Action Interactables Methods

The Interactable Manager has a number of public methods to create Interactables to perform Actions for a given Player and user. Which Actions have support for Interactables is detailed on the Action article.

All of these methods can generate multiple Interactables. Most of them can return either an array of Buttons or a String Select Menu based on how many Interactables were generated. For these methods, String Select Menus are typically the secondary choice, in case too many Interactables are to be generated, or if a more detailed description needs to be shown. However, some methods can only generate Buttons, and some can only generate String Select Menus.

Most of these public methods perform some validation to determine which Interactables to create. For example, if a Player’s held item is too large to fit in a given Inventory Slot, the method to create Stash Action Interactables will not generate an Interactable to stash that specific Inventory Item in that specific Inventory Slot. This built-in validation makes it relatively easy to insert Interactables in messages where they might be desired.

A small number of these methods can only generate a Modal—these are a last resort, in case it is impossible to perform an Action using only a Button or a String Select Menu, and they are only ever generated as a response to an Interaction with a different Interactable. Modals are reserved for open-ended Interactions where the user can enter any text they desire, like so:

When an Interactable is created, what’s really happening is that an Action Directive is created for the Action to be performed. The arguments required to perform the Action are converted into strings that can later be used to find the Game Entities needed to perform the Action, and an Action Directive is created with those arguments. Then, for each Action Directive that was created, an Interactable is created with that Action Directive’s custom ID and the Action Directive itself, and the array of all created Interactables is returned, so that they can be inserted into a message to be sent to the user.

The Interactable Cache

When an Interactable is created, it is added to the Interactable Manager’s Interactable cache. This is a Collection where the key is the Interactable’s custom ID, and the value is the Interactable itself.

The cache has a size limit of 500. If the size of the cache exceeds this limit, the oldest Interactable is removed to make space for the new one.

If an Interactable with the same custom ID as the one being added is already in the cache, it is deleted and replaced with the new one. Since Interactables can only have the same custom ID if they have the exact same arguments, no information is lost when this occurs; this effectively “refreshes” its lifetime, making it the most recently-added Interactable.

The Interactable Message Cache

In addition to a cache of Interactables, the Interactable Manager also has a cache of Interactable messages: messages which contain Interactable Components. This is also a Collection. When a message with Interactables is sent, the ID of the channel the message was sent to, as well as its message ID, are used as the key, and added to the message cache. The value of each entry is an array of the custom IDs of all Interactables in the message.

This cache has two limits. The first is that it can only contain up to 50 messages. If the size of the cache exceeds this limit, the message containing all of the Interactables is edited to remove its Action Row Components, the message is removed from the message cache, and the Interactables themselves are removed from the Interactable Cache. The second limit is that Interactable messages are valid for up to 5 minutes. If 5 minutes have passed since the message was added to the cache and it hasn’t already been removed due to exceeding its size limit, it will be removed the same way as if the size limit was exceeded.

When an Interactable message is removed from the cache, it is no longer possible to use any of the Interactables that were sent with the message. Even if Interactables with the same custom IDs still exist in the Interactable cache, they must be attached to a different message. The message that was originally added to the cache no longer has any Interactables to interact with.

Interaction Handler

In addition to the Interactable Manager, Alter Ego also has an Interaction Handler class that allows it to respond to Interaction events.

The only Interactions Alter Ego is programmed to respond to are when a user presses a Button, selects an option from a String Select Menu, or presses the Submit button in a Modal. When one of these events occur, the Interaction Handler retrieves the user who performed the Interaction. If the user isn’t a known Moderator or Player, it ignores the Interaction. If the user is valid, it retrieves the custom ID of the Interaction, and then processes it.

First, the Interaction Handler gets the Interactable corresponding with the custom ID from the Interactable Manager’s Interactable cache. If no such Interactable is found, Alter Ego replies to the Interaction with an error message.

If an Interactable is found, and it has an Action Directive, the corresponding Action is created with the Action Directive’s Player, their location, and the user of the Interaction. If the user is a Moderator, the Action is considered to have been forced. Note that an Action born from an Action Directive will always have an undefined message.

After the Action has been created, the Interaction Handler calls the Action’s parse and validate Interaction arguments functions. The purpose of these functions is to take the arguments of the Action Directive and reconstruct the arguments needed to call the Action’s perform function. How these arguments are parsed and validated depends on the Action being performed, but in general:

1. Parsing the arguments means that the string arguments of the Action Directive are used to find any Game Entities that are needed to perform the Action with the Game Entity Finder.
2. Validating the arguments means ensuring that the Game Entities that were found still actually exist and can be interacted with, and that the Player can actually perform the Action—the state of the game may have changed significantly between when the Interactables were created and when the Interaction occurred, so the Player may not be able to perform it anymore.

If the arguments cannot successfully be parsed, or the parsed arguments are invalid, Alter Ego will reply to the Interaction with an error message, and no Action will be performed.

However, if the Action Directive’s arguments were successfully parsed and validated, the validate function will always return the arguments needed to call the perform function for the given Action. When this occurs, the Action is performed with these arguments, and the Interaction is considered complete. If the Action has a success message, Alter Ego will reply to the Interaction with it.

Data Structures

All game data is stored on a Google Sheet. There are a number of reasons for this:

1. It allows multiple moderators to collaborate and develop the map together.
2. It requires the data be organized in a consistent way which is easily readable by a bot such as Alter Ego.
3. All edits to the spreadsheet are automatically saved, and the moderator(s) can revert the spreadsheet to any previous state they please if need be.
4. Data entered on the spreadsheet is persistent. If Alter Ego crashes, is restarted, or otherwise shuts off, all of the game data will be preserved in its most recent state.

Alter Ego uses the Google Sheets API to load the data from the spreadsheet, as well as make edits to the spreadsheet. The data for each set of data structures in the map is kept in a separate sheet. This section lists all of the persistent game entities that can be found on the sheet, as well as some of the transient data structures that are not saved to the spreadsheet.

Creation

In order to create a workable spreadsheet, the latest version template should be duplicated into a moderator’s Google Drive by accessing this link, opening the File menu, and selecting Make a copy. At this point, they will have a copy that they can edit as they please.

Persistent Game Entity

Persistent game entities are stored both on the sheet and in Alter Ego’s internal game state. When the game is loaded, the data from the sheet is downloaded and the internal game state is updated to reflect the sheet. Conversely, when the game is saved, the state of all persistent game entities is saved to the sheet.

Even though persistent game entities and the sheet are synced, there are attributes that only exist in the internal game data, and are derived from the data on the sheet. These attributes will not have a sheet column that it is associated with and instead will only have a class attribute.

Room

A Room is a data structure used by Alter Ego. It represents a room that Players can move to.

Attributes

Despite being the basis of the game, Rooms have relatively few attributes. Note that if an attribute is internal, that means it only exists within the Room class. Internal attributes will be given in the “Class attribute” bullet point, preceded by their data type. If an attribute is external, it only exists on the spreadsheet. External attributes will be given in the “Spreadsheet label” bullet point.

Display Name

• Spreadsheet label: Room Display Name
• Class attribute: String this.displayName

This is the name of the Room. This can contain any string of characters. This is how the Room will be referred to in most contexts. It will also appear in the heading component when the Room description is is sent to a Player.

ID

• Class attribute: String this.id

This is an internal attribute which serves as the unique identifier of the Room. This is automatically generated from the Room’s display name. It consists of the display name converted to all lowercase with special characters removed, and all spaces converted to hyphens (-). This is to make it align as closely as possible with the characters that are permitted in the names of Discord text channels. It should align perfectly with the name of the Room’s corresponding channel, but as Discord does not have any documentation about exactly what characters are permitted in the name of a text channel, this cannot be 100% guaranteed.

Internally, this is used as the actual ID of the Room. That is, when a Room is looked up, it is by ID, not display name.

Name

Warning

This attribute is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

Use this.id for identification instead, or this.displayName for display purposes.

• Class attribute: String this.name

This internal attribute is a copy of the Room’s ID. It was how Rooms were identified prior to Alter Ego version 2.0. This attribute will be removed in the future.

Channel

• Class attribute: TextChannel this.channel

This is an internal attribute. When the Room data is loaded, Alter Ego will attempt to find the channel whose name matches the ID of the Room. By making the channel a persistent internal attribute, Alter Ego can perform many operations more easily, such as adding a Player to the Room’s channel.

It should be noted that even if a Room’s channel is not part of a room category, Players will still be added to the channel when moving to its associated Room and Narrations will still be sent to the channel, but commands and dialog sent to that channel will not register as commands and dialog. When this occurs, Players and Moderators will be unable to issue commands in the channel, and Player dialog and Moderator Narrations will not be mirrored in spectate channels.

Tags

• Spreadsheet label: Tags
• Class attribute: Set<String> this.tags

This is a comma-separated list of keywords or phrases assigned to a Room that allows that Room, and others with shared tags, to be affected by Events. There are no rules for how tags must be named, and there is no theoretical limit on the number of tags a single Room can have.

Some tags have predefined behavior. Here, each predefined tag will be listed, and its behavior will be detailed:

soundproof

• All dialog spoken inside the Room will not be narrated in adjacent Rooms, even if it is shouted or if Players in adjacent Rooms have the acute hearing behavior attribute.
• Players in the Room will not hear dialog from adjacent Rooms, regardless of the same circumstances.

audio surveilled

• All non-Whispered dialog sent to the Room will be narrated in all Rooms with the audio monitoring tag with an indication of which Room the dialog originated in.
• While there is no limit to how many Rooms can have this tag, applying it to too many could negatively affect Alter Ego’s performance.

audio monitoring

• All non-Whispered dialog sent to any Room with the audio surveilled tag will be sent to the Room with an indication of which Room the dialog originated in.
  • Example: [Break Room] Someone with a crisp voice says "Are you listening to me?"
• All shouted dialog sent to Rooms adjacent to a Room with the audio surveilled tag will be narrated in the Room with the audio monitoring tag, as long as there is at least one Player in the Room with the audio surveilled tag.
  • Example: [Break Room] Someone in a nearby room with an obnoxious voice shouts "SOMEONE HELP!"

video surveilled

• All Narrations sent to the Room will be narrated in all Rooms with the video monitoring tag with an indication of which Room the Narration originated in.
• While there is no limit to how many Rooms can have this tag, applying it to too many could negatively affect Alter Ego’s performance.

video monitoring

• All Narrations sent to any Room with the video surveilled tag will be sent to the Room with an indication of which Room the Narration originated in.
  • Example: [Break Room] Kyra begins inspecting the DESK.
• If the Room also has the audio monitoring tag, then all non-Whispered dialog spoken in any Room with the video surveilled and audio surveilled tags will appear as a more natural dialog message, with the speaker’s display name and display icon alongside the display name of the Room the dialog originated in.

secret

• If the Room also has the audio surveilled or video surveilled tag, then its name will be obscured when dialog and Narrations are transmitted to Rooms with the audio monitoring or video monitoring tags.
  • Example: [Intercom] Someone with a crisp voice says "Are you listening to me?"
  • Example: [Surveillance feed] Kyra begins inspecting the DESK.

Icon URL

• Spreadsheet label: Icon URL
• Class attribute: String this.iconURL

This is an optional image URL that will accompany a Room’s description. The URL must end in .jpg, .jpeg, .png, .gif, .webp, or .avif.

Exits

• Spreadsheet labels: Exit Name, Exit Phrase, Exit Tags, X, Y, Z, Unlocked?, Leads To Room, From Exit, Description When Entering From This Exit
• Class attribute: Collection<String, Exit> this.exits

This is a collection of all of the Room’s Exits, where the key is the Exit’s name. All Rooms that can be accessed via a given Room’s Exits are considered adjacent to the given Room, meaning a Player can freely travel to them, as long as they are unlocked.

All columns on the Rooms sheet from Exit Name onward belong to Exits, rather than the Rooms themselves. For more information, see the article on Exits.

Exit

Warning

This attribute is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

Use this.exits instead.

• Class attribute: Array<Exit> this.exit

This internal attribute was how Exits were stored prior to Alter Ego 2.0. Now, it is always an empty array. This attribute will be removed in the future.

Room Description

• Class attribute: Description this.description

This internal attribute is the description of a Room. It will always be the description for the first Exit in the Room. When a Player enters from the first Exit or inspects the Room, they will receive a parsed version of this string. The Player will not be sent the Room’s description by itself. Instead, they will be sent a message comprised of Discord Components containing:

• The display name of the Room.
• The Room’s default description, or the description of the Exit they entered from.
• The Room’s occupants, excluding the Player themself.
• The description of the Room’s default drop Fixture. If the Room doesn’t have one, “There’s nothing of note about the [name of default drop Fixture].” will be sent instead.
• The Room’s icon URL. If the Room does not have one, then the default Room icon URL will be used instead. If no default Room icon URL is set, then Alter Ego will use the server icon instead. If the server icon is not set, then no image will be sent in the Room’s display name component.

See the article on writing descriptions for more information. Note that because this uses its own custom set of Display Components, it is not possible to manually set the message display type for this Description.

Row

• Class attribute: Number this.row

This is an internal attribute, but it can also be found on the spreadsheet. This is the row number of the first Exit in a Room. Alter Ego uses this data to determine which row of the Rooms spreadsheet contains the default description for a Room.

Occupants

• Class attribute: Array<Player> this.occupants

This is an internal attribute. It is an array of all Players currently in the Room.

Occupants String

• Class attribute: String this.occupantsString

This is an internal attribute. It is a string listing the display names of all of the Room’s occupants in alphabetical order. However, any Players with the hidden behavior attribute are omitted.

Methods

Rooms have a number of functions that can be useful to moderators. This is not an exhaustive list of publicly accessible methods; only ones that are likely to be useful when writing Flag value scripts, or if and var tags in descriptions.

getChannelId

this.getChannelId();

• Purpose: Gets the ID of the channel associated with this room.
• Returns: String
• Parameters: None

generateOccupantsString

this.generateOccupantsString(list?);

• Purpose: Generates a string representing the occupants of the room, sorted alphabetically by display name.
• Returns: String
• Parameters:
  • Array<Player> list - A custom list of players. By default, this is the list of the room’s occupants with hidden players excluded.

generateOccupantsStringExcluding

this.generateOccupantsStringExcluding(player, list?);

• Purpose: Generates a string representing the occupants of the room excluding the given player, sorted alphabetically by display name.
• Returns: String
• Parameters:
  • Player player - The player to exclude.
  • Array<Player> list - A custom list of players. By default, this is the list of the room’s occupants with hidden players and the given player excluded.

getExit

this.getExit(name);

• Purpose: Gets the exit with the given name.
• Returns: Exit
• Parameters:
  • String name - The name of the exit to get.

hasTag

this.hasTag(tag);

• Purpose: Returns true if the room has the given tag.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters:
  • String tag

isAudioSurveilled

this.isAudioSurveilled();

• Purpose: Returns true if the room has the audio surveilled tag.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters: None

isVideoSurveilled

this.isVideoSurveilled();

• Purpose: Returns true if the room has the video surveilled tag.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters: None

isAudioMonitoring

this.isAudioMonitoring();

• Purpose: Returns true if the room has the audio monitoring tag.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters: None

isVideoMonitoring

this.isVideoMonitoring();

• Purpose: Returns true if the room has the video monitoring tag.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters: None

getContainedItems

this.getContainedItems();

• Purpose:Gets all of the items in this room.
• Returns: Array<Room Item>
• Parameters: None

containsNoItems

this.containsNoItems();

• Purpose: Returns true if this room contains no items.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters: None

containsItem

this.containsItem(identifier);

• Purpose: Returns true if this room contains an item with the given identifier or prefab ID.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters:
  • String identifier - The identifier or prefab ID to search for.

getContainedItem

this.getContainedItem(identifier);

• Purpose: Returns the item contained inside of this room with the given identifier or prefab ID. If no such item exists, returns undefined.
• Returns: Room Item
• Parameters:
  • String identifier - The identifier or prefab ID to search for.

Exit

An Exit is a data structure used by Alter Ego. It represents an exit in a Room.

Attributes

Exits are the internal data structure linking Rooms to one another. As such, most of their attributes serve this purpose. Note that if an attribute is internal, that means it only exists within the Exit class. Internal attributes will be given in the “Class attribute” bullet point, preceded by their data type. If an attribute is external, it only exists on the spreadsheet. External attributes will be given in the “Spreadsheet label” bullet point.

Name

• Spreadsheet label: Exit Name
• Class attribute: String this.name

This is the name of the Exit. All letters should be capitalized, and spaces are allowed. For clarity’s sake, it should usually be mentioned in all descriptions of the Room it belongs to, unless it is supposed to be hidden.

Phrase

• Spreadsheet label: Exit Phrase
• Class attribute: String this.phrase

This is a natural-sounding phrase to use to refer to the Exit in Narrations. This is used when a Player begins moving toward the Exit, as well as when they exit into or enter from it.

In general, if the name of an Exit ends with a number or is a proper noun, this should be manually set to just be the name of the Exit. Otherwise, Narrations such as “[Player display name] exits into the DOOR 1.” or “[Player display name] enters from the STOKE HALL.” will be sent, which may sound unnatural.

This only contains what is entered on the sheet. To get the the actual phrase that will be used in Narrations, use the getNamePhrase method.

Tags

• Spreadsheet label: Exit Tags
• Class attribute: Set<String> this.tags

This is a comma-separated list of keywords or phrases assigned to the Exit that give it special behavior. This is not to be confused with Room tags.

Currently, the only tag with programmed behavior is not knockable. If an Exit has this tag, a Player cannot knock on it.

More Exit tags will be added in future releases.

Position

• Class attribute: object this.pos

This is an internal attribute whose properties are the X, Y, and Z coordinates of the Exit. It has the following structure:

interface Pos {
    x: number;
    y: number;
    z: number;
}

For more information, see the article on Maps.

X

• Spreadsheet label: X
• Class attribute: Number this.pos.x

This is the X coordinate of the Exit. This corresponds with the X-axis on a 3D grid.

Y

• Spreadsheet label: Y
• Class attribute: Number this.pos.y

This is the Y coordinate of the Exit. This corresponds with the Y-axis on a 3D grid, which represents vertical height.

Z

• Spreadsheet label: Z
• Class attribute: Number this.pos.z

This is the Z coordinate of the Exit. This corresponds with the Z-axis on a 3D grid.

Unlocked

• Spreadsheet label: Unlocked?
• Class attribute: Boolean this.unlocked

This indicates whether the Exit is unlocked or not. If this is true, then Players can travel through this Exit. If it is false, then the Player will simply be told that the Exit is locked.

Destination Display Name

• Spreadsheet label: Leads To Room
• Class attribute: String this.destDisplayName

This is the display name of the Room the Exit leads to, as entered on the spreadsheet. This must match the Room’s display name on the spreadsheet exactly.

Destination

• Class attribute: Room this.dest

This internal attribute contains a reference to the actual Room object that the Exit leads to. When a Player travels through this Exit, their permission to view the channel of their current Room will be revoked and they will then be given permission to view the channel associated with the Exit’s destination.

Link

• Spreadsheet label: From Exit
• Class attribute: String this.link

This is the name of the Exit in the destination Room that this Exit leads to. That Exit must also have this Exit as its link. That is, Exits must link back to one another in both directions. For example, in a set of two Rooms, each with one Exit only, their Exit tables must look like this:

Description

• Spreadsheet label: Description When Entering From This Exit
• Class attribute: Description this.description

This is the description of the Room coming from this Exit. That is, when a Player enters a Room from this Exit, they will receive a parsed version of this string. The Player will not be sent the Exit’s description by itself. Instead, they will be sent a message comprised of Discord Components containing:

• The display name of the Room.
• The description of the Exit they entered from.
• The Room’s occupants, excluding the Player themself.
• The description of the Room’s default drop Fixture. If the Room doesn’t have one, “There’s nothing of note about the [name of default drop Fixture].” will be sent instead.
• The Room’s icon URL. If the Room does not have one, then the default Room icon URL will be used instead. If no default Room icon URL is set, then Alter Ego will use the server icon instead. If the server icon is not set, then no image will be sent in the Room’s display name component.

See the article on writing descriptions for more information. Note that because this uses its own custom set of Display Components, it is not possible to manually set the message display type for this Description.

Row

• Class attribute: Number this.row

This is an internal attribute, but it can also be found on the spreadsheet. This is the row number of this Exit in a Room.

Methods

Exits have a number of functions that can be useful to moderators. This is not an exhaustive list of publicly accessible methods; only ones that are likely to be useful when writing Flag value scripts, or if and var tags in descriptions.

getNamePhrase

this.getNamePhrase();

• Purpose: Gets a phrase to refer to the exit in narrations.
• Returns: String — If the exit has a phrase assigned to it, returns that. If not, returns the exit’s name if it ends with a number, or the ${this.name} otherwise.
• Parameters: None

getDoorPhrase

this.getDoorPhrase();

• Purpose: Gets a phrase to refer to the door in narrations.
• Returns: String — If the exit’s name phrase ends with a number, includes the word “DOOR”, or has the tag not knockable, returns the exit’s name phrase by itself. Otherwise, returns the door to ${this.getNamePhrase()}.
• Parameters: None

hasTag

this.hasTag(tag);

• Purpose: Returns true if the exit has the given tag.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters:
  • String tag

Fixture

Note

These were previously called Objects, but were renamed in Alter Ego 2.0 to avoid confusion with JavaScript’s Object data type.

A Fixture is a data structure used by Alter Ego. It represents a fixed structure within a Room that cannot be taken or moved by a Player. Their primary purpose is to give structure and interactivity to a Room.

Attributes

Fixtures have relatively few attributes. Although their behavior is mostly static, they are capable of quite a few things. Note that if an attribute is internal, that means it only exists within the Fixture class. Internal attributes will be given in the “Class attribute” bullet point, preceded by their data type. If an attribute is external, it only exists on the spreadsheet. External attributes will be given in the “Spreadsheet label” bullet point.

Name

• Spreadsheet label: Fixture Name
• Class attribute: String this.name

This is the name of the Fixture. All letters should be capitalized, and spaces are allowed. Note that multiple Fixtures can have the same name, so long as they are in different Rooms.

Location Display Name

• Spreadsheet label: Location
• Class attribute: String this.locationDisplayName

This is the display name of the Room that the Fixture can be found in. This must match the Room’s display name on the spreadsheet exactly, or its ID.

Location

• Class attribute: Room this.location

This internal attribute is a reference to the actual Room object the Fixture can be found in.

Accessible

• Spreadsheet label: Accessible?
• Class attribute: Boolean this.accessible

This is a simple Boolean value indicating whether the Fixture can currently be interacted with or not. If this is true, then players can inspect the Fixture, among other things. If it is false, Alter Ego will act as if the Fixture doesn’t exist when a Player tries to interact with it in any way.

Child Puzzle Name

• Spreadsheet label: Child Puzzle
• Class attribute: String this.childPuzzleName

This is the name of a Puzzle that is associated with the Fixture, if any. The child Puzzle must be in the same Room as the Fixture referencing it. If the name of a Puzzle is supplied, then any Room Items contained within the Fixture will technically be contained within the child Puzzle. This allows Room Items to be made inaccessible until the child Puzzle is solved, while also allowing players to take and drop Room Items from/into the Fixture if the child Puzzle is solved. Additionally, when a Fixture containing Room Items is assigned a child Puzzle, the item list must be in the child Puzzle’s already solved description. If no child Puzzle is needed, this cell can simply be left blank on the spreadsheet.

Assigning a child Puzzle to a Fixture is most useful when the Puzzle is intended to contain Room Items. For example, if there is a Fixture named LOCKER, and it has a child Puzzle named COMBINATION LOCK, all of the Room Items contained inside of the LOCKER will actually belong to the COMBINATION LOCK, and Players will be able to solve the COMBINATION LOCK by entering LOCKER instead of the name of the Puzzle itself. This makes it easier to assign unique names to Puzzles while still making it easy for Players to interact with them.

However, a child Puzzle isn’t always needed, even if there is a Puzzle that should ostensibly be linked. For example, suppose there is a Fixture named SHOWER which is intended to contain Room Items such as SOAP and SHAMPOO. It would be beneficial to have a Puzzle in the same location also named SHOWER so that it can use bot commands to clean a Player who solves it, but if it were a child Puzzle, the Room Items would be listed in its already solved description, which may not make sense. If, instead of assigning it as a child Puzzle, the Puzzle simply has the same name as the Fixture, Players will still be able to solve the Puzzle, and Room Items can be listed in the description of the Fixture itself.

Child Puzzle

• Class attribute: Puzzle | null this.childPuzzle

This is an internal attribute which simply contains a reference to the actual Puzzle object whose name matches this.childPuzzleName and whose location is the same as the Fixture. If no child Puzzle name is given, this will be null instead.

Recipe Tag

• Spreadsheet label: Recipe Tag
• Class attribute: String this.recipeTag

This a keyword or phrase assigned to a Fixture that allows it to process Recipes that require that tag. A Fixture can only have a single Recipe tag, but it can be changed with the fixture command. There are no rules for how Recipe tags must be named.

Activatable

• Spreadsheet label: Activatable?
• Class attribute: Boolean this.activatable

This is another Boolean value indicating whether the Fixture can be activated or deactivated by a Player with the use command. If this is true, then a Player can activate and deactivate the Fixture at will. If this is false, then its activation state cannot be altered by a Player. Even if the Fixture is not activatable, it can still be activated and deactivated with the fixture command, and it will still process Recipes if it is activated.

Activated

• Spreadsheet label: Activated?
• Class attribute: Boolean this.activated

This is another Boolean value indicating whether the Fixture is currently checking for and processing Recipes. If this is true, then the Fixture will check every second if it contains the necessary ingredients for any Recipe with a matching tag. If it does, then the Recipe will be processed and the Recipe’s products will be instantiated in the Fixture when it is complete. A Fixture can only process one Recipe at a time. If it is found that the Fixture is able to process multiple Recipes with the ingredients it contains, then it will process whichever Recipe has the highest number of matched ingredients, and the remaining Room Items will be left untouched. If the Fixture is still able to process a Recipe with the remaining Room Items, then it will do so upon finishing the first one, as long as it is not automatically deactivated.

Important

If a Fixture has a child Puzzle, then the ingredients must be contained inside of the child Puzzle, rather than the Fixture itself. Likewise, the products will be instantiated in the child Puzzle.

Automatically Deactivated

• Spreadsheet label: Deactivate Automatically?
• Class attribute: Boolean this.autoDeactivate

This is another Boolean value indicating whether the Fixture will automatically deactivate after processing a Recipe. If this is true, then the Fixture will stop checking for and processing Recipes every time it finishes processing one, even if the Fixture’s activatable attribute is false. Note that if the Fixture is automatically deactivated and no processable Recipe is found, then it will deactivate after one minute of activation. If this is false, then the Fixture will continue checking for and processing Recipes after completing each one.

Hiding Spot Capacity

• Spreadsheet label: Hiding Spot Capacity
• Class attribute: Number this.hidingSpotCapacity

This is a whole number indicating how many Players can hide in this Fixture simultaneously. If this is greater than 0, then that many Players can hide in it, and this value can be bypassed with the use of the hide moderator command. If this is 0, the Fixture cannot be used as a hiding spot at all.

Hiding Spot

• Class attribute: Hiding Spot | null this.hidingSpot

This internal attribute is a reference to the Hiding Spot object belonging to the Fixture. If the hiding spot capacity is 0, this is null.

Preposition

• Spreadsheet label: Preposition
• Class attribute: String this.preposition

This attribute is a string that performs two functions:

1. It determines whether or not the Fixture can contain Items. If it is blank, players cannot take Room Items from or drop Room Items into the Fixture. If it is not blank, then they can.
2. When a Player drops a non-discreet Room Item into the Fixture, Alter Ego will narrate them doing so using this preposition. For example, if the player Nero drops a Room Item named SWORD into a Fixture named CABINET whose preposition is “in”, Alter Ego will send “Nero puts a SWORD in the CABINET.” to CABINET’s Room channel.

Note that a preposition can be multiple words, but in most cases, it should only be one word. Most commands that take a Fixture’s preposition expect it to be one word, so its actual preposition would not be usable in commands if it is more than one word. If multiple words are necessary, care should be taken to ensure that the Narration Alter Ego sends will make grammatical sense. For example, if in the above example, Nero instead dropped the SWORD into a Fixture named DESK, a preposition of “on top” would result in the strange sentence “Nero puts a SWORD on top the DESK.” A preposition of “on top of” or just simply “on” would result in a better sentence.

Description

• Spreadsheet label: Description
• Class attribute: Description this.description

This is the description of the Fixture. When a Player inspects this Fixture, they will receive a parsed version of this string. See the article on writing descriptions for more information.

Unless it is manually specified, this Description will be sent using the PLAIN_TEXT message display type.

Row

• Class attribute: Number this.row

This is an internal attribute, but it can also be found on the spreadsheet. This is the row number of the Fixture.

Process

• Class attribute: object this.process

This is an internal attribute used to process Recipes. It has the following structure:

interface Process {
    /** The recipe being processed. **/
    recipe: Recipe;
    /** The ingredients used in the recipe. */
    ingredients: Array<CollatedItem<RoomItem>>;
    /** The products created during recipe processing. */
    products: Array<RoomItem>;
    /** How many times the given ingredients satisfy the recipe. Only set right before products are instantiated. */
    satisfactoryProcessCount: number;
    /** The duration of the recipe. */
    duration: Duration;
    /** The timer used to track the duration of the recipe. */
    timer: Timer | null;
}

For more information on the Duration data type, see the documentation for Luxon.

Recipe Interval

• Class attribute: Duration | null this.recipeInterval

This is an internal attribute that allows Fixtures to check for and process Recipes every second. If the Fixture does not have a Recipe tag, then this will be null.

Methods

Fixtures have a number of functions that can be useful to moderators. This is not an exhaustive list of publicly accessible methods; only ones that are likely to be useful when writing Flag value scripts, or if and var tags in descriptions.

isItemContainer

this.isItemContainer();

• Purpose: Returns true if the fixture is capable of containing items.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters: None

canCurrentlyContainItems

this.canCurrentlyContainItems(requireEmptySpace?, bypassLimitations?);

• Purpose: Returns true if the fixture is currently capable of being taken from/dropped into.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters:
  • Boolean requireEmptySpace - Whether the container needs to be below max capacity. Defaults to true. Does nothing for fixtures.
  • Boolean bypassLimitations - Whether limitations should be bypassed. If true, the fixture can be processing items. Defaults to false.

getContainedItems

this.getContainedItems();

• Purpose: Gets all of the items this entity contains.
• Returns: Array<Room Item>
• Parameters: None

getContainedItemsForItemList

this.getContainedItemsForItemList(itemListName?, player?);

• Purpose: Gets all of the items that should appear in the fixture’s item list.
• Returns: Array<Room Item>
• Parameters:
  • String itemListName - The name of the item list. Unused.
  • Player player - The player the description is being sent to. Unused.

containsNoItems

this.containsNoItems();

• Purpose: Returns true if this entity contains no items.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters: None

containsItem

this.containsItem(identifier);

• Purpose: Returns true if this entity contains an item with the given identifier or prefab ID.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters:
  • String identifier - The identifier or prefab ID to search for.

getContainedItem

this.getContainedItem(identifier);

• Purpose: Returns the item contained inside of this container with the given identifier or prefab ID. If no such item exists, returns undefined.
• Returns: Room Item
• Parameters:
  • String identifier - The identifier or prefab ID to search for.

getContainedItemsWeight

this.getContainedItemsWeight();

• Purpose: Gets the combined weight of all the items this entity contains.
• Returns: Number
• Parameters: None

isProcessingItems

this.isProcessingItems();

• Purpose: Returns true if the fixture is activated and deactivates automatically.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters: None

getContainingPhrase

this.getContainingPhrase();

• Purpose: Gets the fixture’s name preceded by “the”.
• Returns: String
• Parameters: None

getPreposition

this.getPreposition();

• Purpose: Gets the fixture’s preposition. If no preposition is set, returns “in”.
• Returns: String
• Parameters: None

getIngredientItem

this.getIngredientItem(prefabId);

• Purpose: Gets the actual ingredient item instance that was used as an ingredient in the currently processed recipe. If no such item exists, returns the corresponding ingredient prefab of the currently processed recipe. If no recipe is currently being processed, returns undefined.
• Returns: Prefab | Room Item
• Parameters:
  • String prefabId - The prefab ID to search for.

getProductItem

this.getProductItem(prefabId);

• Purpose: Gets the actual product item instance that was instantiated in the currently processed recipe. If no such item exists, returns the corresponding product prefab of the currently processed recipe. If no recipe is currently being processed, returns undefined.
• Returns: Prefab | Room Item
• Parameters:
  • String prefabId - The prefab ID to search for.

Hiding Spot

A Hiding Spot is a data structure used by Alter Ego. It represents a place where Players can hide to evade detection.

It functions somewhat like a Room contained within a single Fixture. It is its own space where Players can speak and interact with each other, albeit in a very limited and temporary manner.

In a Hiding Spot, Players cannot interact with any Fixtures other than the one they are hidden in. They also cannot interact with any Room Items except for those contained inside of the Fixture the Hiding Spot belongs to.

Hiding Spots do not have a dedicated sheet on the spreadsheet. Rather, they are derived from data on the Fixtures sheet. If a Fixture has a hiding spot capacity greater than 0, a Hiding Spot will be created and assigned to it.

Attributes

Hiding Spots have few attributes.

Name

• Class attribute: String this.name

This is the name of the Hiding Spot. It matches the name of the Fixture it belongs to.

Capacity

• Class attribute: Number this.capacity

This is the capacity of the Hiding Spot. It represents how many Players can hide in it at once. It is inherited from the hiding spot capacity of the Fixture it belongs to.

Occupants

• Class attribute: Array<Player> this.occupants

This is an array of all of the Players currently hidden in this Hiding Spot.

Whisper

• Class attribute: Whisper | null this.whisper

This is the Whisper currently associated with this Hiding Spot. All Hiding Spots have a Whisper when they are occupied. This is so that their occupants can whisper to each other without being heard in the surrounding Room.

Whenever a Player who doesn’t have the no sight behavior attribute is added to the Hiding Spot, the current Whisper is deleted, and a new one is created with the new list of occupants.

When the Whisper is deleted, it is set as null.

Methods

Hiding Spots have a number of functions that can be useful to moderators. This is not an exhaustive list of publicly accessible methods; only ones that are likely to be useful when writing Flag value scripts, or if and var tags in descriptions.

getFixture

this.getFixture();

• Purpose: Gets the fixture this belongs to.
• Returns: Fixture
• Parameters: None.

getLocation

this.getLocation();

• Purpose: Gets the room this hiding spot is in.
• Returns: Room
• Parameters: None.

generateOccupantsString

this.generateOccupantsString(viewerHasNoSightBehaviorAttribute?);

• Purpose: Generates a string representing the occupants of the hiding spot.
• Returns: String
• Parameters:
  • Boolean viewerHasNoSightBehaviorAttribute - Whether or not to return a vague list indicating the quantity of occupants. If this is true, returns the number of occupants followed by people if there is more than 1 occupant, or someone if there is only 1. Defaults to false.

Prefab

A Prefab is a data structure used by Alter Ego. It represents the concept of an item, and is the underlying data structure which gives Room Items and Inventory Items their properties.

Prefabs are static; once loaded from the spreadsheet, they do not change in any way. Thus, the GameEntitySaver class will never make changes to the Prefabs sheet. As a result, the Prefabs sheet can be freely edited without edit mode being enabled.

Attributes

Due to the versatility of functions that different items can have, Prefabs have many attributes. Note that if an attribute is internal, that means it only exists within the Prefab class. Internal attributes will be given in the “Class attribute” bullet point, preceded by their data type. If an attribute is external, it only exists on the spreadsheet. External attributes will be given in the “Spreadsheet label” bullet point.

ID

• Spreadsheet label: Prefab ID
• Class attribute: String this.id

This is a unique identifier for the Prefab. All letters should be capitalized, and spaces are allowed. Though different Prefabs can have many attributes in common, no two Prefabs can have the same ID.

Possible Names

• Spreadsheet label: Prefab Name
• Class attribute: Collection<Map<String, String>, [String, String]> this.possibleNames

A Prefab’s name is what will be shown to Players. It is what they are expected to enter in order to interact with an Item. A Prefab must have a “single name” to refer to a single instance of it, but it can also have a “plural name” to refer to multiple instances of it.

This attribute is a collection of possible names that a Room Item or Inventory Item that uses this Prefab can have. The key of the collection is a procedural selection, which consists of a map where the key is the name of a procedural, and the value is a selected possibility. The value of the collection is a pair of strings, where the first will be the Item’s single name, and the second (if supplied) will be the Item’s plural name.

In effect, this allows Item instances of this Prefab to have different names depending on what procedural selections it generates with. These must correspond with the Prefab’s procedural options.

It is possible to enter this field without specifying any procedural selections. This will make all Item instances of the Prefab have the same single name and plural name. If this is desirable, simply enter the single name of the Prefab. If only one instance of a Prefab is intended to exist, it does not need a plural name. Additionally, it does not need a plural name if it would be the same as its single name. However, if a plural name is desired, it can be added after the single name, separated by a comma.

For example, a Prefab with the single name SCISSORS does not need a plural name, as the plural name would be the same. However, a Prefab with the single name SMALL KNIFE would benefit from a plural name. To enter both, input SMALL KNIFE, SMALL KNIVES into the cell. As demonstrated in these examples, all letters in the Prefab’s names should be capitalized, and spaces are allowed. However, apostrophes and quotation marks will be ignored.

To create names that are set based on an Item instance’s procedural selections, they must be given in the form:

[procedural name=possibility name: SINGLE NAME(, PLURAL NAME)]

Extra whitespace will be ignored.

The same rules as static names apply: if a Prefab doesn’t need a plural name, it can be omitted. So, for example, this is a perfectly valid possible name:

[tea flavor = chamomile: CHAMOMILE TEA]

Multiple possible names can be given, each one separated by a comma, like the following examples:

[cheese=american: AMERICAN CHEESE], [cheese=swiss: SWISS CHEESE], [cheese=colby: COLBY CHEESE], [cheese=colby jack: COLBY JACK CHEESE]

[lunch meat=turkey: TURKEY SANDWICH, TURKEY SANDWICHES], [lunch meat=ham: HAM SANDWICH, HAM SANDWICHES], [lunch meat=chicken: CHICKEN SANDWICH, CHICKEN SANDWICHES], [lunch meat=roast beef: ROAST BEEF SANDWICH, ROAST BEEF SANDWICHES]

[base color=default: MUG, MUGS], [glaze color=red: RED MUG, RED MUGS], [glaze color=orange: ORANGE MUG, ORANGE MUGS], [glaze color=brown: BROWN MUG, BROWN MUGS], [glaze color=yellow: YELLOW MUG, YELLOW MUGS], [glaze color=green: GREEN MUG, GREEN MUGS], [glaze color=teal: TEAL MUG, TEAL MUGS], [glaze color=light blue: LIGHT BLUE MUG, LIGHT BLUE MUGS], [glaze color=indigo: INDIGO MUG, INDIGO MUGS], [glaze color=violet: VIOLET MUG, VIOLET MUGS], [glaze color=pink: PINK MUG, PINK MUGS], [glaze color=white: WHITE MUG, WHITE MUGS], [glaze color=gray: GRAY MUG, GRAY MUGS], [glaze color=black: BLACK MUG, BLACK MUGS], [base color=red: RED MUG, RED MUGS], [base color=white: WHITE MUG, WHITE MUGS]

If an Item is instantiated without procedural selections that satisfy any of the listed possible names, then its names will be set as the first set of possible names listed. If it is instantiated with multiple procedural selections that satisfy the listed possible names, then its names will be set as the first set of possible names that its procedural selections satisfy. Effectively, this means that the earlier in the list a possible name is given, the higher priority it has.

Possible Containing Phrases

• Spreadsheet label: Containing Phrases
• Class attribute: Collection<Map<String, String>, [String, String]> this.possibleContainingPhrases

A Prefab’s containing phrase is what will be used to refer to an Item instance of the Prefab in contexts where grammar is important. This will be how the Item appears in item lists, Narrations, and Notifications. A Prefab must have a “single containing phrase” to refer to a single instance of it, but it can also have a “plural containing phrase” to refer to multiple instances of it. The single containing phrase should almost always include the Prefab’s single name, and the plural containing phrase should almost always include the Prefab’s plural name, if it has one. If the Prefab does not have a plural name because it would be the same as its single name, the plural containing phrase should contain the Prefab’s single name instead.

The structure, syntax, and behavior are mostly identical to that of the Prefab’s possible names. The only differences worth noting are:

• If more than one Item instance of a Prefab is expected to exist, it must have a plural containing phrase, and
• A containing phrase can have lowercase text and symbols, because Players are not expected to enter these.

If variable containing phrases are not desired, it is sufficient to simply enter a single containing phrase into the cell, like so:

a MACHETE

To input a plural containing phrase, enter it after the single containing phrase, with a comma separating the two:

a MACHETE, MACHETES

Lastly, here are a few examples of containing phrases which change based on an Item’s procedural selections:

[tea flavor = chamomile: a cup of CHAMOMILE TEA on a saucer, cups of CHAMOMILE TEA on saucers]

[cheese=american: a slice of AMERICAN CHEESE, slices of AMERICAN CHEESE], [cheese=swiss: a slice of SWISS CHEESE, slices of SWISS CHEESE], [cheese=colby: a slice of COLBY CHEESE, slices of COLBY CHEESE], [cheese=colby jack: a slice of COLBY JACK CHEESE, slices of COLBY JACK CHEESE]

[lunch meat=turkey: a TURKEY SANDWICH with lettuce and tomato, TURKEY SANDWICHES with lettuce and tomato], [lunch meat=ham: a HAM SANDWICH with lettuce and tomato, HAM SANDWICHES with lettuce and tomato], [lunch meat=chicken: a CHICKEN SANDWICH with lettuce and tomato, CHICKEN SANDWICHES with lettuce and tomato], [lunch meat=roast beef: a ROAST BEEF SANDWICH with lettuce and tomato, ROAST BEEF SANDWICHES with lettuce and tomato]

[base color=default: a MUG, MUGS], [glaze color=red: a RED MUG, RED MUGS], [glaze color=orange: an ORANGE MUG, ORANGE MUGS], [glaze color=brown: a BROWN MUG, BROWN MUGS], [glaze color=yellow: a YELLOW MUG, YELLOW MUGS], [glaze color=green: a GREEN MUG, GREEN MUGS], [glaze color=teal: a TEAL MUG, TEAL MUGS], [glaze color=light blue: a LIGHT BLUE MUG, LIGHT BLUE MUGS], [glaze color=indigo: an INDIGO MUG, INDIGO MUGS], [glaze color=violet: a VIOLET MUG, VIOLET MUGS], [glaze color=pink: a PINK MUG, PINK MUGS], [glaze color=white: a WHITE MUG, WHITE MUGS], [glaze color=gray: a GRAY MUG, GRAY MUGS], [glaze color=black: a BLACK MUG, BLACK MUGS], [base color=red: a RED MUG, RED MUGS], [base color=white: a WHITE MUG, WHITE MUGS]

Single Name

• Class attribute: String this.name

This internal attribute is the first possible single name the Prefab has. This is rarely used. It is recommended to use the single name of an Item instance of the Prefab, rather than the single name of the Prefab itself.

Plural Name

• Class attribute: String this.pluralName

This internal attribute is the first possible plural name the Prefab has. This is rarely used. It is recommended to use the plural name of an Item instance of the Prefab, rather than the plural name of the Prefab itself.

Single Containing Phrase

• Class attribute: String this.singleContainingPhrase

This internal attribute is the first possible single containing phrase the Prefab has. This is rarely used. It is recommended to use the single containing phrase of an Item instance of the Prefab, rather than the single containing phrase of the Prefab itself.

Plural Containing Phrase

• Class attribute: String this.pluralContainingPhrase

This internal attribute is the first possible plural containing phrase the Prefab has. This is rarely used. It is recommended to use the plural containing phrase of an Item instance of the Prefab, rather than the plural containing phrase of the Prefab itself.

Discreet

• Spreadsheet label: Discreet?
• Class attribute: Boolean this.discreet

This is a simple Boolean value indicating whether interactions with Room Items and Inventory Items using this Prefab will be narrated or not. Specifically, if this is false, then Alter Ego will send a Narration to the Room if a Player inspects, takes, or drops a Room Item using this Prefab; or inspects, stashes, unstashes, steals, gives, crafts, uncrafts, or moves to another Room carrying an Inventory Item using this Prefab. Additionally, if this is false, then when an Inventory Item using this Prefab is moved to either of the Player’s hands, it will appear in the hands item list in that Player’s description.

Size

• Spreadsheet label: Size
• Class attribute: Number this.size

This is a whole number representing how large the Prefab is. It is not associated with any particular unit of measurement, but instead represents relative sizes. For example, an ID card may have a size of 1 whereas a pistol may have a size of 5 and a ladder may have a size of 30. There are no hard rules to determine what size a Prefab should have, however it should be non-negative.

In general, it is good practice to choose sizes based on the capacities of the most common Inventory Slots in the game. For instance, if most equippable Prefabs with Inventory Slots such as pockets have capacities of 3 or 4, any Prefabs that should not be able to fit in those pockets should have a size of 5 or higher.

It is also good to consider what each Prefab will be used for when deciding on its size. For example, if a Prefab is intended to be used as an ingredient in a Recipe that requires it to be contained inside of another ingredient, and it is possible to input one or more of that ingredient to create a product with that many uses, the Prefab’s size should be set based on the capacity of the Inventory Slot it is expected to be in as part of the Recipe.

As an example of the previous practice, consider a Recipe in which a Prefab CLEAN BLENDER CUP is an ingredient, and it must contain 1X quantity of the Prefab APPLE SLICES, in order to produce 1 BLENDER CUP OF APPLE JUICE with 1X uses. If the CLEAN BLENDER CUP has a single Inventory Slot with a capacity of 10, then it is possible to limit the maximum number of servings that can be produced at once by setting the size of the APPLE SLICES Prefab based on that capacity. For example, if the size is set to 2, then up to 5 APPLE SLICES can be put inside of the CLEAN BLENDER CUP, producing a BLENDER CUP OF APPLE JUICE with 5 uses. If it is instead set to 3, then the maximum number of servings would instead be 3, as no more than 3 APPLE SLICES would fit inside of the CLEAN BLENDER CUP.

Weight

• Spreadsheet label: Weight
• Class attribute: Number this.weight

This is a whole number representing roughly how much the Prefab weighs in kilograms. This number determines whether a Player is capable of taking a Room Item using this Prefab with their strength stat. For more details, see the sections about Room Item and Inventory Item weights.

Usable

• Spreadsheet label: Usable?
• Class attribute: Boolean this.usable

This is another Boolean value indicating whether Inventory Items using this Prefab can be used to inflict/cure one or more Status Effects on the Player using it. If this is false, the Player will be told the Inventory Item has no programmed use. Additionally, if a Player already has all of the Status Effects the Prefab inflicts and doesn’t have any of the Status Effects it cures, the Player will not be able to use the Inventory Item and will instead be told that it has no effect.

Third Person Verb

• Spreadsheet label: Use Verb
• Class attribute: String this.thirdPersonVerb

This is the phrase that will be used in the Narration when a Player uses an Inventory Item with this Prefab. Usage of an Inventory Item will always be narrated, and will use the following format:

[Player displayName] [this.thirdPersonVerb] [InventoryItem singleContainingPhrase].

See the following table for some examples of the resulting Narration:

It’s important to note that this is specifically the verb to use to refer to the player in third person. However, this is strictly a static string. As such, it cannot use the Player’s pronouns. Third person verbs should be written in such a way that pronoun usage is avoided.

If no third person verb is given, “uses” will be used in its place.

Second Person Verb

• Spreadsheet label: Use Verb
• Class attribute: String this.secondPersonVerb

This is a phrase that will be used in Notifications when a Player uses an Inventory Item with this Prefab. It shares the same cell as the third person verb. To supply a second person verb, enter it after the third person verb, separating the two with a comma. Usage of an Inventory Item will always send a Notification to the Player, and will use the following format:

You [this.secondPersonVerb] [InventoryItem singleContainingPhrase].

See the following table for some examples of the resulting Notification:

If no second person verb is given, “use” will be used in its place.

Use Verb

Warning

This attribute is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

Use this.thirdPersonVerb or this.secondPersonVerb instead.

• Spreadsheet label: Use Verb
• Class attribute: String this.verb

Identical to this.thirdPersonVerb. This will eventually be removed.

Uses

• Spreadsheet label: Uses
• Class attribute: Number this.uses

This is a whole number indicating how many times a single instance of this Prefab can be used. For more details, see the sections about Room Item uses and Inventory Item uses.

Effects Strings

• Spreadsheet label: Gives Status Effect(s)
• Class attribute: Array<String> this.effectsStrings

This is a comma-separated list of Status Effects that Inventory Items using this Prefab will inflict the Player with when used.

Effects

• Class attribute: Array<Status Effect> this.effects

This is an internal attribute which contains references to each of the Status Effect objects whose IDs are listed in this.effectsStrings.

Cures Strings

• Spreadsheet label: Cures Status Effect(s)
• Class attribute: Array<String> this.curesStrings

This is a comma-separated list of Status Effects that Inventory Items using this Prefab will cure the Player of when used. Status Effects will turn into their cured condition, if applicable. Note that it will attempt to cure them in the order given. As a consequence, if the next Status Effect in the list is the current Status Effect’s cured condition, it will immediately be cured after being inflicted, turning into its cured condition, and so on. For example, imagine the following series of Status Effects, where each one’s cured condition follows the -> symbol:

starving->famished->hungry->satisfied->full

If a Player with the starving Status Effect uses an Inventory Item whose Prefab has the cures string starving, famished, hungry, satisfied, then the Player will be cured of starving and inflicted with famished, then cured of famished and inflicted with hungry, and so on until the Player is eventually inflicted with full.

In order to avoid this behavior, if a Prefab’s cures string is meant to contain a list of Status Effects in a series, they should be listed in reverse order. In the above example, the cures string should be satisfied, hungry, famished, starving. That way, the Player will only be cured of starving and inflicted with famished.

Cures

• Class attribute: Array<Status Effect> this.cures

This is an internal attribute which contains references to each of the Status Effect objects whose IDs are listed in this.curesStrings.

Next Stage ID

• Spreadsheet label: Turns Into
• Class attribute: String this.nextStageId

This is the ID of the Prefab that Items using this Prefab will turn into once their number of uses reaches 0. Items with infinite uses will never access this attribute. When an Item turns into its next stage, all of its attributes will be replaced with that of the new Prefab. However, the Item’s procedural selections will be carried over to the next stage. If any of its procedural selections do not satisfy the procedural options of the next stage Prefab, they will be discarded.

Note that if an Item has a limited number of uses and this is blank, then it will simply be destroyed once it runs out of uses.

Next Stage

• Class attribute: Prefab | null this.nextStage

This is an internal attribute which simply contains a reference to the actual Prefab object whose ID matches this.nextStageId. If no next stage ID is given, this will be null instead.

Equippable

• Spreadsheet label: Equippable?
• Class attribute: Boolean this.equippable

This is another Boolean value indicating whether Inventory Items using this Prefab can be equipped to one of the player’s Equipment Slots. If this is true, then Players will be able to equip it to one of the Equipment Slots that it’s restricted to. If this is false, they will simply be told that the item is unequippable. Additionally, if this is false, Players will be unable to unequip the Inventory Item if it’s already equipped. Note that a moderator can forcibly equip and unequip Inventory Items for a Player regardless of whether this is true or false. Note that when an Inventory Item is equipped or unequipped, a Narration will always be sent to the Room the Player is in.

Equipment Slots

• Spreadsheet label: Restrict to Equip. Slots
• Class attribute: Array<String> this.equipmentSlots

This is a list of Equipment Slots that Inventory Items using this Prefab can be equipped to. This should be a comma-separated list. If a Player or a moderator attempts to equip an Inventory Item without specifying an Equipment Slot to equip it to, Alter Ego will attempt to equip it to the first Equipment Slot listed here. If something is already equipped to that Equipment Slot, another one will have to be manually specified. Note that if no Equipment Slots are given here, Players will be unable to equip Inventory Items using this Prefab, even if its equippable attribute is set to true. However, moderators can forcibly equip Inventory Items to any of a Player’s Equipment Slots, regardless of whether or not it is listed here.

Covered Equipment Slots

• Spreadsheet label: Covers Equip. Slots
• Class attribute: Array<String> this.coveredEquipmentSlots

This is a list of Equipment Slots that this Prefab will cover when it is equipped. When an Equipment Slot is covered by another equipped Inventory Item, the single containing phrase of whatever Inventory Item is equipped to it will be not appear in the equipment item list in the Player’s description. Only when the Player unequips all Inventory Items whose Prefabs cover that Equipment Slot will the single containing phrase of that Inventory Item appear in the Player description’s equipment item list again.

Commands String

• Spreadsheet label: When Equipped / Unequipped
• Class attribute: String this.commandsString

This is a comma-separated list of bot commands that will be executed when an Inventory Item using this Prefab is equipped. A comma-separated list of bot commands that will be executed when the Inventory Item is unequipped can also be included, with both sets separated by a forward slash (/). If no unequipped commands are desired, then the forward slash can be omitted from the cell. If no equipped commands are desired, the forward slash should be the first character in the cell, with the unequipped commands following it.

Note that when writing equipped and unequipped bot commands, the player argument will always refer to the Player the Inventory Item belongs to.

Equipped Commands

• Class attribute: Array<String> this.equippedCommands

This is an internal attribute which contains a list of commands that will be executed when an Inventory Item using this Prefab is equipped.

Unequipped Commands

• Spreadsheet label: When Equipped / Unequipped
• Class attribute: Array<String> this.unequippedCommands

This is an internal attribute which contains a list of commands that will be executed when an Inventory Item using this Prefab is unequipped.

Inventory

• Spreadsheet label: Contains Inventory Slots
• Class attribute: Collection<String, Inventory Slot> this.inventory

This is a collection of Inventory Slot objects that instances of this Prefab will have, where the key is the Inventory Slot’s ID. Room Items and Inventory Items with Inventory Slots are capable of containing other Items of the same type (i.e. a Room Item can contain other Room Items, and an Inventory Item can contain otherInventory Items).

In order to define an Inventory Slot for a Prefab, the ID of the Inventory Slot and its capacity should be given, separated by a colon (:). For example, a Prefab with the ID “PANTS” might have two Inventory Slots, named “LEFT POCKET” and “RIGHT POCKET”, each with a capacity of 3. In this case, the cell for the “PANTS” Prefab’s Inventory Slots would be LEFT POCKET: 3, RIGHT POCKET: 3. There is no theoretical limit to the amount of Inventory Slots a single Prefab can have.

The size of every Item placed into a single Inventory Slot is added to that Inventory Slot’s takenSpace value. If the quantity of that Item is higher than 1, its size will be multiplied by its quantity before being added. If inserting an Item would cause the Inventory Slot’s takenSpace value to exceed its capacity, it cannot be inserted into that Inventory Slot. Additionally, every Item inserted adds its own weight to the Inventory Slot’s weight. Lastly, the Item itself will be inserted into the Inventory Slot’s items array.

When Inventory Slots are initialized, their takenSpace and weight attributes are set to 0. Their items arrays are initially empty. Prefab Inventory Slots will always retain this initialized state. That is, even if an Item contains other Items in one of its Inventory Slots, the corresponding Inventory Slots of its associated Prefab will remain in its initialized, empty state. Prefabs cannot contain Items. The inventory attribute of Prefabs is merely a template for instances of those Prefabs to use so that they can contain Items.

Preposition

• Spreadsheet label: Preposition
• Class attribute: String this.preposition

This attribute is similar to the preposition attribute in the Fixture class. However, it does not determine whether instances of this Prefab can contain Room Items/Inventory Items. That function is taken care of by the inventory attribute of the Prefab. Otherwise, it functions the same. When a Player drops/stashes a non-discreet Room Item/Inventory Item into an instance of this Prefab, Alter Ego will narrate them doing so using this preposition. For example, if the player Seamus stashes an Inventory Item named MALLET into another Inventory Item named GUITAR CASE whose Prefab has the preposition “in”, Alter Ego will send “Seamus stashes a MALLET in his GUITAR CASE.” to the Room channel Seamus is currently in. If, however, Seamus drops the MALLET Inventory Item into a GUITAR CASE Item in the Room, Alter Ego will send “Seamus puts a MALLET in the GUITAR CASE.”

Description

• Spreadsheet label: Description
• Class attribute: Description this.description

This is the description of the Prefab. When a Player inspects an instance of this Prefab, they will receive a parsed version of this string. Any item lists in a Prefab’s description must be blank. Note that when a Player inspects an Inventory Item that is equipped to one of another Player’s Equipment Slots, all sentences containing item lists will be removed from the description before it is parsed, effectively making it so that Players cannot see what is stashed in that Inventory Item. See the article on writing descriptions for more information.

Procedural Options

• Class attribute: Map<String, Set<String>> this.proceduralOptions

This is an internal attribute which contains a map where all of the keys are the named procedural tags in the Prefab’s description, and the values are all of the named poss tags belonging to each one. For more information, see the procedural and poss sections of the article on writing descriptions.

Procedural options can only affect Prefabs aesthetically. They cannot affect the Prefab’s functionality. So, for example, it is not possible to create procedural options that allow the Prefab to inflict or cure different Status Effects, or alter what Equipment Slots it can be equipped to. Additionally, if a Prefab is usable as an ingredient in a Recipe, or it is used as a requirement or solution to a Puzzle, or is otherwise referenced by other game entities, then all instances of that Prefab, regardless of procedural options, will be treated the same.

So, for example, it is not possible to create a generic KEY Prefab that can be used to unlock specific LOCKER Puzzles based on what procedural selections it was instantiated with. All instances of that KEY Prefab would be able to solve every Puzzle in which it was listed as a requirement. In such a scenario, they would need to be made into multiple entirely different Prefabs.

Procedural options can be used to create Prefabs with different descriptions; that is their primary purpose. However, they can also be used to create Prefabs with names and containing phrases that differ based on which procedural is selected when it is instantiated as an Item. For more information on how to do this, see the sections on possible names and possible containing phrases.

Because procedural options can only affect Prefabs aesthetically, their primary use case is to allow Items to be created with small, minor variations, without making them entirely separate Prefabs. This is extremely useful in reducing the size of the spreadsheet—especially when these Prefabs are used in Recipes.

To give an example, suppose there is a series of crafting Recipes that allow a Player to create a sandwich consisting of one slice of cheese and/or one slice of meat. Because of the mechanics of crafting Recipes, there must be a Prefab for every possible combination of cheese and meat. Assuming meat and cheese will always have the same number of varieties, \(n\), then the number of Prefabs that would be needed to account for every possible combination would be calculated with the formula:

\[ n^2 + 2n \]

And the number of crafting Recipes that would be required to create every variation (keeping in mind that ingredients can be added in any order) would be calculated with the formula:

\[ 2n^2 + 2n \]

In effect, this means that in order to allow the Player to create sandwiches with one of 4 different kinds of meat and/or one of 4 different kinds of cheese, 24 Prefabs and 40 Recipes would need to be created. In order to add just one more kind of meat and one more kind of cheese would necessitate 35 Prefabs and 60 Recipes.

However, this can be avoided by creating just one CHEESE Prefab and one MEAT Prefab, with procedural options for the different kinds. Then, only 3 Prefabs and 4 Recipes need to be created. And since procedural options are significantly easier to add—it is as simple as adding a new tag in the Prefab’s description—this also allows for more varieties of meat and cheese than would be feasible if they were all separate Prefabs.

Row

• Class attribute: Number this.row

This is an internal attribute, but it can also be found on the spreadsheet. This is the row number of the Prefab.

Inventory Slot

Note

Not to be confused with Equipment Slots.

An Inventory Slot is a data structure used by Alter Ego. It represents an inventory slot belonging to a Room Item or Inventory Item which can contain other Items, akin to pockets.

Inventory Slots are defined entirely within the Contains Inventory Slots column of the Prefabs sheet. They share a cell with all other Inventory Slots belonging to the same Prefab, in the interest of saving space. The syntax of an Inventory Slot cell on the spreadsheet is like so:

SLOT ONE: CAPACITY, SLOT TWO: CAPACITY(, SLOT N: CAPACITY)

Attributes

Inventory Slots are the internal data structure used by Prefabs, Room Items, and Inventory Items to contain Items. As such, most of their attributes serve this purpose.

ID

• Class attribute: String this.id

This is the ID of the Inventory Slot. This is how it will be accessed and referred to, for both Players and Moderators. All letters should be capitalized, and spaces are allowed. The ID of an Inventory Slot must be unique relative to other slots belonging to the same Prefab.

This corresponds to the “SLOT ID” part of the Contains Inventory Slots column—that is, the part before the colon.

Name

Warning

This attribute is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

Use this.id instead.

• Class attribute: String this.name

This is a copy of the Inventory Slot’s ID. It was how Inventory Slots were identified prior to Alter Ego version 2.0. This attribute will be removed in the future.

Capacity

• Class attribute: Number this.capacity

This is the maximum capacity of the Inventory Slot. It represents the maximum sum of sizes that can be stored in the slot. This corresponds to the “CAPACITY” part of the Contains Inventory Slots column—that is, the part after the colon.

Taken Space

• Class attribute: Number this.takenSpace

This is the current sum of sizes of Items stored inside of the Inventory Slot. When an Item is inserted into the Inventory Slot, its size will be multiplied by its quantity, and added to this value.

This will always be 0 on a Prefab.

Weight

• Class attribute: Number this.weight

This is the current combined weight of all Items stored inside of the Inventory Slot. When an Item is inserted into the Inventory Slot, its weight will be multiplied by its quantity, and added to this value.

This will always be 0 on a Prefab.

Items

• Class attribute: Array<RoomItem | InventoryItem> this.items

This is the list of Items currently stored inside of the Inventory Slot. Note that if the Inventory Slot belongs to a Room Item, this array can only contain Room Items. Likewise, if it belongs to an Inventory Item, this can only contain Inventory Items.

If this belongs to a Prefab, it will always be empty.

Item

Warning

This attribute is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

Use this.items instead.

• Class attribute: Array<RoomItem | InventoryItem> this.item

This was how Items were stored prior to Alter Ego 2.0. Now, it is always an empty array. This attribute will be removed in the future.

Methods

Inventory Slots have a number of functions that can be useful to moderators. This is not an exhaustive list of publicly accessible methods; only ones that are likely to be useful when writing Flag value scripts, or if and var tags in descriptions.

getContainedItems

this.getContainedItems();

• Purpose: Gets all of the items this inventory slot contains.
• Returns: Array<RoomItem | InventoryItem>
• Parameters: None

containsNoItems

this.containsNoItems();

• Purpose: Returns true if this inventory slot contains no items.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters: None

getContainedItemsWeight

this.getContainedItemsWeight();

• Purpose: Gets the combined weight of all the items this inventory slot contains.
• Returns: Number
• Parameters: None

capacityIsSmallerThan

this.capacityIsSmallerThan(item, quantity?);

• Purpose: Returns true if the inventory slot’s capacity is smaller than the given item.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters:
  • RoomItem | InventoryItem | Prefab item - The item to check for.
  • Number quantity - The quantity to multiply the item’s size by. Defaults to 1.

willBeOverFilledBy

this.willBeOverFilledBy(item, quantity?);

• Purpose: Returns true if the inventory slot will be over capacity if it takes the given item.
• Returns: Boolean
• Parameters:
  • RoomItem | InventoryItem | Prefab item - The item to check for.
  • Number quantity - The quantity to multiply the item’s size by. Defaults to 1.

Recipe

A Recipe is a data structure used by Alter Ego. Its primary purpose is to allow Players to transform Room Items or Inventory Items into other Items using game-like crafting mechanics.

Recipes are static; once loaded from the spreadsheet, they do not change in any way. Thus, the GameEntitySaver class will never make changes to the Recipes sheet. As a result, the Recipes sheet can be freely edited without edit mode being enabled.

This article will impose two terms:

• Crafting is the act of transforming two Recipe Items into up to two Recipe Items in a Craft Action.
• Processing is the act of transforming one or more Recipe Items into zero or more Recipe Items using a Fixture.

Every Recipe is either a crafting-type Recipe or a processing-type Recipe, but not both.

Attributes

Recipes have relatively few attributes. Their behavior is entirely static, incapable of changing. These attributes simply serve to provide instructions for Alter Ego to follow. Note that if an attribute is internal, that means it only exists within the Recipe class. Internal attributes will be given in the “Class attribute” bullet point, preceded by their data type. If an attribute is external, it only exists on the spreadsheet. External attributes will be given in the “Spreadsheet label” bullet point.

Ingredients Strings

• Spreadsheet label: Ingredient Prefab(s)
• Class attribute: Array<String> this.ingredientsStrings

This is a comma-separated list of Prefab IDs, in Recipe Item format. Ingredients determine what Room Items or Inventory Items are required for the Recipe. Multiple Recipes can have the same list of ingredients.

Regardless of what order ingredients appear in on the sheet, they are stored in alphabetical order, sorted by Prefab ID. Additionally, ingredients that are contained inside of another ingredient are not included. This list includes only the top-level ingredients.

There are different sets of rules for ingredients, depending on the Recipe’s type.

Crafting-type Recipes:

• Must have exactly two ingredients and
• Can have two of the same Prefab as ingredients.

Processing-type Recipes:

• Must have at least one ingredient,
• Can have infinitely many ingredients, and
• Must not have more than one of the same Prefab as ingredients.

Note that the final rule does not prohibit a Recipe from requiring multiple instances of the same ingredient. For more information, see the article on Recipe Items.

Additionally, both Recipe types must not include ingredients that are containers with more than one Inventory Slot, or more than one container.

Ingredients

• Class attribute: Array<Recipe Item> this.ingredients

This is an internal attribute which consists of a list of Recipe Item objects created from the list of ingredients in this.ingredientsStrings. As with this.ingredientsStrings, they are stored in alphabetical order, sorted by Prefab ID. Contained ingredients are not included. This list includes only the top-level ingredients.

Ingredients Flat

• Class attribute: Array<Recipe Item> this.ingredientsFlat

This is an internal attribute which consists of a list of Recipe Item objects. It contains all of the ingredients in this.ingredients, but it also includes all ingredients contained inside of them, all listed in a flat array. They are stored in alphabetical order, sorted by Prefab ID.

Uncraftable

• Spreadsheet label: Uncraftable?
• Class attribute: Boolean this.uncraftable

This is a Boolean value indicating whether or not this Recipe can be reversed. If this is true, then an Uncraft Action can be performed to convert the product into its ingredients. If this value is false, then the Recipe cannot be reversed.

Note that in order for a Recipe to be uncraftable, it must be a crafting-type Recipe with only one product. Crafting-type Recipes with two products cannot be uncraftable.

Fixture Tag

• Spreadsheet label: Processed by Fixture With Tag
• Class attribute: String this.fixtureTag

This is a simple phrase that determines which Fixtures can be used to process this Recipe, if any. There are no rules for how Fixture tags must be named, but a single Recipe can only have one Fixture tag. The presence of a Fixture tag determines the type of each Recipe. If a Fixture tag is given, it will be a processing-type Recipe. If no Fixture tag is given, it will be a crafting-type Recipe.

The tag should match exactly the Recipe tag of any Fixtures that can be used to process this Recipe. For example, a Recipe with the Fixture tag “blender” can only be processed by a Fixture with the Recipe tag “blender” when it is activated.

Object Tag

Warning

This attribute is deprecated and will be removed in a future release.

Use this.fixtureTag instead.

• Class attribute: String this.objectTag

This internal attribute serves the same purpose as this.fixtureTag. It is still present to maintain compatibility with legacy game data, but it will eventually be removed. References to this attribute in game data should be replaced with this.fixtureTag.

Duration String

• Spreadsheet label: Process Duration
• Class attribute: String this.durationString

This is a string which determines how long the Recipe will take to process before it is completed. This can only be given for processing-type Recipes. This should consist of a number (i.e. 30, 1.5) with a letter immediately following it, with no space between them. There is a fixed set of predefined units that correspond with each letter. They are as follows: