603 >Syb: answer Suki's t/sburb post

Hello out there!  My name is Susibaka, and I have played the game as a server player and it's really interesting.  This game is quite complicated, so I'll give a generalization of sorts where it comes to this sort of, miniscuality.  Of course, I can't finish it all since I haven't played as a client player yet, but I will still give my understanding of how the game's mechanics work.

This overview is split into 4 parts.  The first, and the one I have most experience with, is the pre-game and Server player pre-entry duties, gameplay, etc.

:The second one is the one I must complete soon-the client player's pre-entry duties and other things.

:The third is the Server player's post-entry duties and stuff.

and finally :the fourth is the Client player's duties and such post-entry.

Thus concludes the introduction and index:

1:

The game, I assume, has some connection with the entirety of life as we know it.  It is unclear exactly how much of life is either dictated, or just simply coexistent by this game.  Or if the game is dictated by life or the other way.  I simply do not have those answers yet.  But from what I can tell from, certain sources, the game is designated to create universes.  That is simply the thing that this game is designed to do.

It can be implied that you can take this logic to upper dimensions, and say that this universe, the one we're in right now, is created itself by some unknown group of, anything really, and who successfully-or-not created a universe.  I'll leave a moment to let that knowledge fully set in.

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Ok, now do you know how important this game is.  It is our existential proclamation to fulfill our duty.  What might this duty be?  Well, simple, perpetuate the microcosm of existence and make our own universes.  How do we do this?  I am currently unclear.

My basic understanding is lacking in that regard.  However, I do know that it has something to do with prototyping.  What is prototyping?  I'll explain it in section 2.  For now, let's get to shortly before you play (as a server player).

Ok, so, you get a group of friends together.  Doesn't have to be you, could be someone else, as is the case with my session.  I simply told someone that we were playing this game and she roped in a few friends.  4 in total as a session.

Ok, next in the process you'll want to have everyone download the game.  That can be found here.  The game package comes with both server and client player data.

From here,  if you are in fact a client player, please read the rest of this section for when you are a server player.

Ok, so after you've downloaded the server player data, you boot it up.  It'll ask you for a client ID.  You'll have to ask your client player (whomever that is) what their ID is.  And it should be in the right after the 100% on the loading screen.

Type that information into your own screen and then it should connect.  At this point I highly suggest the two of you keep in constant contact until the client player is in a safe place in the medium.  Although it may seem babyish for the client player, that person doesn't quite know what you can with the number of visuals this game throws at you.

Speaking of, when you start to play you should have a complete view of your client player in their house and should have a cursor.  At the top of your screen is the SBURB INTERFACE.  Starting from most left is your MOVEMENT APARATUS.

The MOVEMENT APARATUS has the easy use of moving your view of your client player's house.  The way you move around is by clicking on the arrows.  These move the screen in that direction.  Alternatively, you could click on the center of the DIRECTIONAL PAD and hit the left and right arrows to toggle through the rooms of your Client Player's house.  There are rotational arrows on the far left that rotate you around.  And there is a magnifying glass that signifies zoom on the screen.  You simply click it and move the scroll up for zoom in, and down for zoom out.

There are actually Keyboard commands for this.  WASD for screen movement.  Hold x to toggle other rooms.  Q for clockwise rotation, E for counterclockwise rotation.  And hold Z for zoom.  

Now, at the top there's actually a save icon.  I'm not sure what it does, I think it simply saves the data of your current build or something like that.  And then you can load it or something.

The First button at the top is the MOVE TOOL.  This allows you to move items around, these include floor items, but also furniture.  You can Hold click to move an entire area.  Press R to quickly get the MOVE TOOL.

Now, continuing on is the REVISE TOOL.  You use this to build on the Client's house.  Think "sims" when it comes to this mechanic.  When you click on any of the buttons at the top, it changes your cursor to that tool.

The REVISE TOOL works when you left click, and it builds floor, walls, and ceiling in the place you designated, with special consideration for rooms.  When you left click on the icon, you can also display different building types that you can build.  Such as Stairs, Poles, and more.  You can also quickly toggle through them with the scroll wheel.  Right Clicking on the house will destroy whatever you're wanting.  You can quickly get the REVISE TOOL by pressing T.

The Next tool is the DEPLOY TOOL.  Using this tool will allow you take out Phernalia out the next tool, and place them in the house. Press Y to quickly get this.

The Next is the PHERNALIA REGISTRY.  This allows you to see what Phernalia you can deploy and what their costs are.

What are Phernalia?  Good question.  From what I can tell, Phernalia is just a clever way the game has to call super important machinery.  The game gives you 4 machines for free.  These include the Cruxtruder, Totem Lathe, Card Designx, and the Alchemiter.

The Cruxtruder is the most important machine in this game.  Before you deploy the machine, it gets locked by, something.  Fortunately, you can quickly open it by bumping the top of it with something hard.  Thing furniture.  After it opens, the machine shoots out a thing called a Kernelsprite.  I'll continue to talk about sprites in section 2.  The Machine from there has the capability to exude a tube called a Cruxite Dowel.  This is an important tool for later.

The next listed machine is the Totem Lathe, however I'll explain the Card Designx first.  The Card Designx is a small device that simply has a typewriter and a slot for captchalogue cards.  The machine works by taking a captchalogue card, any card, doesn't have to be empty or used, and punches holes into it.  It is actually quite interesting because it uses 64 bit and binary at the same time.

So, you know how on the back of captchalogue cards, they have a jumbled up code on them?  Well you can take that code and type it into the Designx and it will punch that same code into the machine.  It works because the code on the back of captchalogue cards are 64-bit, which can be translated into 6 digit binary.

The Designx punches holes in the 64-bit code.  And that looks a little like this-

H (43) e (14) y (34) ! (63)

And here's a table

0 (00) 000000     1 (01) 000001     2 (02) 000010     3 (03) 000011     4 (04) 000100

5 (05) 000101     6 (06) 000110     7 (07) 000111     8 (08) 001000     9 (09) 001001

a (10) 001010     b (11) 001011     c (12) 001100     d (13) 001101     e (14) 001110

f (15) 001111     g (16) 010000     h (17) 010001     i (18) 010010     j (19) 010011

k (20) 010100     l (21) 010101     m (22) 010110     n (23) 010111     o (24) 011000

p (25) 011001     q (26) 011010     r (27) 011011     s (28) 011100     t (29) 011101

u (30) 011110     v (31) 011111     w (32) 100000     x (33) 100001     y (34) 100010

z (35) 100011     A (36) 100100     B (37) 100101     C (38) 100110     D (39) 100111

E (40) 101000     F (41) 101001     G (42) 101010     H (43) 101011     I (44) 101100

J (45) 101101     K (46) 101110     L (47) 101111     M (48) 110000     N (49) 110001

O (50) 110010     P (51) 110011     Q (52) 110100     R (53) 110101     S (54) 110110

T (55) 110111     U (56) 111000     V (57) 111001     W (58) 111010     X (59) 111011

Y (60) 111100     Z (61) 111101     ? (62) 111110     ! (63) 111111

Now, for the totem lathe.  The machine works by reading the holes punched above and carving the Cruxite Dowel in such a way that it represents the item.  It has the capability to read 2 codes at the same time.  It does this in two ways, || or "ororing" Which basically means it reads the intersection of codes, and "&&" or "andanding" which means it reads any place there is a hole.

Once the dowel has been carved, it can be read by the last major free machine, the Alchemiter.  It reads the Dowel and then creates the item you have carved for it.  Nothing too special, just makes it.

There's one last phernalia that isn't a "machine" it's a pre-punched captchalogue card.  It contains the information for your client's entry item.

The keybind is U.

The next button is the GRIST CACHE, which pulls up a logue of all your client's grists.  What are grists?  Building material for both "building" and alchemizing items (what the alchemiter does).  And it displays how much of each the client has.  Its keybind is i.

The Next button is the ANTHENEUM.  Which basically shows all the items you have alchemized.  Its keybind is O.

The last button is the ALCHEMIZE button which shows the process of Alchemy, and what the most recent action was. keybind is p.

Ok, that was quite a lot, but I hope that covers the interface.

The next thing you'll want to do is place all the Phernalia.  Then, open the cruxtruder, then help the Client player enter.

2:

The Client player's job is simple, enter the medium.

You'll have may obstacles in your way including your family, challenges with space, and challenges with your inventory.  Everyone has their own problems, but everyone has a unique problem.

Your first duty is to actually download the program, and then give the server player your Client ID (right after the 100% on the loading screen)

Next, you'll have to wait for your Server player to place all the phernalia, then go towards the Prepunched card and pick it up.

My suggestion is to hold it in your hand, but that may be difficult for some modi.  Then you wait for the Cruxtruder to open.  Either you or your server player will have to carry it over to the totem lathe, but you alone will have to carry the pre-punched captchalogue card.

Next, you'll have to put in the pre-punched card into the Lathe in order for it to carve it.  However, in my experience, it is not immediately necessary to do this.  My client player really dilly dallied on this part.  We were building a hidey hole and so he needed a trapdoor.

However, I will warn you, as soon as the Cruxtruder is opened, a timer is set and when it reaches 0, a meteor will smash into your house.  Now, I am speculating, but it could be that a meteor was always set out to hit your house, so not playing the game just means death either way.

Next, someone will have to take the carved dowel to the alchemiter.  Then, the alchemiter should be able to alchemize your entry item.

THIS IS IMPARATIVE, SUPER IMPORTANT, AND COULD MEAN LIFE OR DEATH OF YOUR UNIVERSE

Please, whatever you do, prototype your Kernelsprite.  What does that mean?  Well, when your Cruxtruder opens, it will spew out a floating thing, that will hover around and be a bit annoying.  This is a Kernelsprite.  It is an integral part of the game.  In order to win, you'll probably have to prototype it.  To do so literally means throwing something at it.

I have a suspicion that the kernelsprite has a unique attraction to dead things, such as corpses, ashes, and such of loved ones.  I think it has something to do with determination, but whatever it is, the deader, the more likely it is to prototype.

I don't exactly know what happens if you don't prototype, but from what I can I tell, it can't be good.

After prototyping and doing whatever you must before the meteor hits your house, you must use your entry item.  This is a basic item that the pre-punched card is of.  The item is species dependent.  So a cat would have a pickle or a spray bottle, a bird may have a pile of bird seeds or an egg, a human an apple or a rock.  You enter the Medium by using the item in such a way that it activates.  It is unique for every item, so it can't all be easy, but do know that it will only work within the last few seconds before the meteor hits your house.

3:

The Server player, after the client enters the medium, has a few jobs that he, she, or they can do.

The first major one is to build up to the First gate.  Gates are just circles that appear above the house of the client player.  There should 1 less than 2 times the number of players in the session.  So, if you have 6 players, you should have 11 gates above the house, if you have 4, it should be 7, and so on and so on.  These gates are an important part of the game as they allow the client player to transport to their planet (more in part 4).  They also allow the player to teleport to the other player's houses.  Assuming that they have already entered, the even numbered gates should have server player's houses.  Building up to these gates allows the client player to do stuff on their planet and for future players to so too.  

The second major job that the server player can do to help is to help with alchemy.  They'll probably need help getting all the processes really quickly.

The third major job is to help fight off imps who are invading the house.  Imps are soldiers from the evil planet called Derse.  There are 2 planets in the game that are in every session.  Prospit and Derse.  Prospit, the benevolent one, is yellow, and their people have white carapaces and Derse, the malicious one, is purple, and their people have black carapaces.

I don't know much about these two groups, besides they are monarchies, and that they each have a moon, and on these moons are bedrooms.  Bedrooms of the players in the game.  Every player has at least one room in which they sleep in real life and have a dream self on Prospit or Derse.  I say at least one, because I'm pretty sure one of the players in my game has 2 dream selves.

Either way, these dream selves have something to do with death or something, I don't know.

4:

After entering the medium, you'll be awaken to a new world.  You'll wake up on a planet tailored specifically to you.  These planets are called LAND OF _______ AND _______.  In those blanks are supposed to go nouns like, dragons, or boogers.  Also when you wake up, you'll notice that the kernelsprite that you prototyped (assuming you did prototype it) now is observed with the features of the whatever you prototyped in it.  You'll also notice these features are the imps who'll try to invade your house and try to stop you from beating the game.  

Assuming that the prototyped material is capable of speaking (or was), it will now try to talk to you.  It will tell you a vast many things including what you're doing here, what your goal in the game is, and a vast many things from the game.  You'll be told about duties, and one in particular is your classpect.  Every player has a designated classpect, a ____ of _____.  From what I can understand, the first blank is your class, how you interact with the other blank, the aspect.  Aspects would be the very fundimentals of the game, light, space, time, etc.

The sprites have a tendency to not tell you everything you want or could want to hear for the sake of keeping you on a good path.

Now, your goal now is one of two things that aren't exclusive, and in fact should both be done.

The primary goal is to enter the first gate and explore your planet.  In order to do this, you'll need your server player to build some sort of ladder, staircase, etc. to the gate.  

Unfortunately, that'll cost a lot of build grist, which fortunately comes from imps.  So, you'll fight imps and make them drop the grist.  Great, but then your weaponry is subpar and their throwing stronger imps at you, build new weapons, with alchemy, use former weapons and non-weapons, combine 'em, and get stronger equipment.  So, now you have a bunch of cool weapons,  great, now kill, build, repeat.

From there, I don't know, my client player hasn't gotten that far because he stopped to do the second thing.

The second thing is to go to your dream planet.  Prospit or Derse.  Now, I think it is possible to do that before entering, but I could be wrong.  And there, you can do something, I don't know, the server player can't see what dream you is doing, so I don't know what goes on beyond that point.

That's about it, all I know and a bit of speculation.  Questions, comments, concerns?

posted by u/suspiciousbirdguy

What Would Happen If Someone Had A Touch Screen?

commented by u/grimauxiliatrix

I don't actually know.  I suppose it would just work just as usual, just with a touchscreen.

commented by u/suspiciousbirdguy (OP)

What If You Entered While Outside?

commented by u/grimauxiliatrix

Good question!  I would suppose that it would have to include the area where you were outside.  When you enter, it takes your entire house, plus a sizable chunk of land outside of it.  So if you were to enter while outside, the land around you would be taken, along with the land around the phermalia.

commented by u/suspiciousbirdguy (OP)

Ok.  Sorry For Asking So Many Questions.  I Just Never Expected THE Ancient Of The Knowledge Keepers To Answer My Questions, Nonetheless, Any Question Whatsoever.  I Have Just One More Question.  What Is Determination?  I've Reread That Sentance Over And Over Since I Was A Grub, But I Still Don't Know What It Is.

commented by u/grimauxiliatrix

It's okay that you're asking so many questions.  I don't mind them.  Though the rest of the "reason" was a bit confusing, I think I get it.  You're a troll, so that must mean you don't know anything about monsters, humans, nada.  So, I'll give you a short rundown.  Life (in my universe) is composed of a little thing called Determination.  Determination is basically a will to keep on going when something bad goes wrong.  All life has it, it's just that Humans, not monsters have specialized in it, whereas Monsters have magic.

commented by u/suspiciousbirdguy (OP)

Interesting.  Thank You For Answering My Questions.

commented by u/grimauxiliatrix