How to Play TriadCity

The TriadCity Players' Guide

How To Enter Commands

TriadCity is all about words. You read them to experience the world — or have them read to you by your screen reader. And you type them to enter commands to explore and interact with the world and the people in it.

If you're using our apps, enter commands into the text box at the very bottom of the screen. That's the long, thin field outlined in teal which is below everything else. For sighted players, here are two pictures:

Type your commands in the commands field, and press enter/return.

What to type? Well, for the most part, just tell the game what you want to do. "look at the tree", "get the bottle", "say Hello there!", "bow to the statue". Most of the time, the game figures you out correctly. If it doesn't, you can use shorter, "canonical" versions like this: "look tree", "get bottle", "say Hello there!", "bow statue". If it still can't figure you out, it'll reply with one or another rather flip error message reflecting the personality of our friend, the Central Computer. Tip from experienced players: if the game doesn't understand, try rephrasing your request as an action — this helps the game identify what you're trying to accomplish.

Many players switch to the shorter commands after a while simply because less typing. But you can do whatever you're comfortable with.

The Command Reference lists commands in these shorter forms. Remember, though, you're always free to use more natural language. Where the short form to interact with one particular instance among multiples is "hug 4.cat", you can always type "hug the fourth cat" and things will be fine.

You're also free to create aliases for any command you like. Many players create these for the commands they use all the time, for example, "od" for "open door". You can have as many aliases as you want. The link just there will show you how to create them.

There are also built-in shortcuts for many of the most common commands. Instead of "look at the tree" you can just "l tree". Movement is a good example. Instead of "move north", just type "n". This is true for all six movement directions: n, e, s, w, u, d.

While the complete Command Reference lists over 400 commands, you can get started with a much shorter list of basic commands which cover the most common actions.

If you're in doubt about what to type, ask other players! Everyone is very happy to help. Or, ask the Help robot, which is very good at game mechanics. Type "ask help how do i get an item from the table", and so on. The Help bot can be especially valuable when there are no other players around.

You can always ask command questions in the forums. Nowadays your fastest answer though might come from our Discord — there are nearly always folks there who are eager to help

TriadCity is more about having a conversation with an intelligent game world than giving orders to a system. Meet you in the City!

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