General
- No object can exert direct force on any other (except resistance).
- The player has limited inventory based solely on the number of items.
- Inventory contents have no physical effect.
- Mouse clicks must be within an object's visible graphic area to target it.
Object Classes
Each class has distinct game mechanics governing its in-game behaviour.
Tiles
- Tiles are persistent objects, meaning that they stay in the world where they were last placed regardless of player activity.
- They can be kept in the player's inventory, placed in the world, and with the exception of townstones, picked up again by their owner.
- Tiles can only be placed according to a horizontal grid of cells.
Many tiles are 8 pixels high with 16x16 pixel base, and it is sometimes convenient to describe them as "half-tiles", since 16 pixels is conventionally a whole unit in any direction.
Additionally,
- All tiles can be equipped by selecting them from inventory, making them active.
- All equippable items are tiles.
There are two basic kinds of tile.
Blocks
Blocks are tiles typically placed in the world as part of permanent constructions.
Their appearance conforms to their role as 3d objects, and they are solid where they appear to be.
Equipment
Equipment includes tiles that enhance a character's abilities, and are typically kept with them.
If placed in the world, they are transparent but solid half-tiles with their 2d graphic on the top face.
Weapons are active equipment, controlled with the spacebar.
Zombie heads are equipment, but with some irregular characteristics (see linked article).
During use, equipment is displayed on the character with appropriate animations.
Animations, such as Pixel Pistol projectiles and Zombie mouths, are not objects.
Entities
- Entities exist only while a player is active, and can spawn and despawn according to certain rules.
- They can not be equipped, kept, or manipulated like tiles.
- Entities are not bound to grid positions.
There are two basic kinds of entity.
Characters
Player and non-player characters, both benign and hostile.
Characters interact physically as solid objects shorter than their apparent size.
They are subject to gravity, and will fall if unsupported.
Player characters can use equipment with physical effects:
Weapons allow them to attack and kill other characters (where allowed).
Zombie heads have multiple effects.
Accessories are extensions to the character's appearance that can be added and removed freely.
They are not kept in inventory, but are accessed via the shop interface.
Accessories are not objects.
Drops
Drops are entities that are displayed in-world for collection only with no other physical attributes.
They do not appear as inventory items when collected but have some other effect.
Coins are the only in-game drops. They can be collected using the mouse or by a player character standing on them, which increments the player's gold count.
Character Movement
Note: details are based on in-game experiments and may be imprecise.
Walking
- Speeds in x and y directions are independent, meaning that they are not adjusted for diagonal movement.
- Horizontal speed is not affected by climbing, falling, or attacking.
Speed depends on the material being walked on:
- approx. 5.5 spans per second normally
- 2x normal on road blocks
- 1/2 normal on sand blocks
Climbing and Falling
- Characters can walk over physical obstacles of 8 pixels, but not 10 pixels.
- They can walk while falling.
- Descent speed while falling is 3/4 of walking speed.
Crossing gaps
Climbing, falling, and crossing gaps.
Player characters do not begin falling until completely past any supporting ground.
This means that they fall at a different distance from the edge depending on which direction they go, because they are 12 pixels wide in the X direction but practicaly flat in the Y direction.
This together with the fall:walk speed ratio and maximum climbable height tells us how high the character can land after "fall-walking" across a gap.
Where "gap" is the number of cells:
| Direction of travel | Relative Maximum Landing Height (pixels) | |
|---|---|---|
| Y | north/south | 8 - ( gap x 12 ) |
| X | east/west | 17 - ( gap x 12 ) |
Obstruction
Characters can not move through solid obstacles.
They have a solid area at their base smaller than their graphic area, with estimated dimensions (pixels):
| height | width | depth |
|---|---|---|
| 5 .. 6 | 12 | 0 .. 1 |
They can walk into a vertical space of 6 pixels, but not 4 pixels.
Special case: They can climb through a diagonal join walking north or south, but not reliably. This behaviour is not confirmed as a permanent feature and might be 'fixed' in future.
Block Properties
Including equipment tiles used in-world as blocks.
- All tiles have the same material properties.
- They are solid and immobile, with no passive behaviour.
- They are distinguished primarily by appearance and player-activated functions.
Appearance
Equipment tiles are fully transparent apart from their 2d graphic.
Most block tiles are fully opaque, except:
- Glass blocks are semi-transparent.
- Some blocks have irregular shapes with transparent areas.
See Building Items to view available graphics.
Shape
Most tiles fully occupy a cell's horizontal area, except:
- Signs occupy only the back edge, and do not obstruct east-west movement through the front of the cell.
Height
Most tiles are 8 pixels tall.
| height (pixels) | tiles |
|---|---|
| 4 | low table |
| 12 | sign |
| 16 | door, (whole) blocks: glass, cement, brick, wood. |
| 26 | townstone |
Packing
Tiles can be forced to occupy the same space using any placement mode, and can be removed one at a time by targetting the same place.
Packed tiles can have the appearance of a single block, although tiles with irregular graphics can sometimes show through.
The appearance and removal order are unrelated to placement order, but follow some other fixed scheme.
Partial lists (half-blocks):
| appearance | dirt | cement | road | grass | sand |
|---|
| removal | grass | road | sand | cement | dirt |
|---|
Memory
Some tiles retain information that distinguishes them from others of the same type (and owner).
- Signs retain text
- Spikes may be clean or bloodstained
- Pixel Pistol keeps an ammo count
- Telepads have unique IDs, and may be disabled or enabled with a specific partner.
Utilities
Some blocks have player-activated functions and abilities.
| Placement | visual difference | range (Allow 1..2 pixels horizontally for collision detection) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| townstone | Creates a town when placed.
Cannot be placed in an existing town. Cannot be picked-up. |
||
| Contact | |||
| spikes | Kills a character on contact | Bloodied after a kill for about 1 day. | |
| road | 2x walking speed | 16 pixels upwards from top surface. Effects can cancel but not multiply. | |
| sand | 1/2 walking speed | ||
| fake floor |
Solid for its owner, non-solid for others. |
Trap graphic visible to owner only.
Cement that disappears for others. |
|
| Action key | |||
| sign | Displays a message to the interface. |
World-height cylinder: 32 pixel radius circle horizontally, from the midpoint of the sign (not the cell). | |
| telepad | Teleports the character to the telepad it is linked with if enabled.
Displays its ID to the interface otherwise. |
Blue if enabled, red if disabled. | |
| door | Becomes non-solid to some characters based on its type:
|
Open and close animation.
Handle colour depends on type. |
|
| Command only | |||
| safe | No in-world effects. | Closed, or open with quantity indicator visible. | |
Sign Selection
Action and /sign command select the nearest sign horizontally.
Vertically however, the sign at higher altitude is generally preferred, but with exceptions according to some rule that has not yet been determined.
Door Extras
Characters can open doors without using the action key by walking against their sides for a moment.
Doors will remain open as long as a character is moving in or out of them.
Characters can be trapped inside doors by standing in them when they close, but can escape using the action key if they have correct privileges.
Commands
While standing near a block you own placed in-world, enter the command in chat.
Sign
/sign <your text>
- Allows a maximum of 250 characters.
- There is no line-break or other formatting control codes.
- The displayed message uses variable-width text.
Extra whitespace between displayed lines is removed, so it is possible to control the start of a new line exactly. Fancier formatting has been known to break after succeeding for a while.
Telepad
/telepad <other telepad ID>
- Both telepads must be currently disabled and placed in-world.
- You must own both
- Setting one sets both
Actioning an unlinked telepad will reveal its ID, which can then be used to set the other one.
A telepad can be moved without losing its link.
Safe
Detailed in Safe commands.
Townstone
The townstone has no commands itself, but creates a surrounding town in which Town commands can be used.