Player commands
The built-in verbs are fixed; a world gives them things to act on, and can add verbs of its own. Anything the regex parser doesn’t recognize, or recognizes but can’t act on, can go to the intent server, which maps loose phrasing onto these.
| Command | Also | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| GO place | n s e w ne nw se sw u d in out, walk/head/run/move to …, a bare exit label | Matches the room’s exit labels. |
| ENTER [place] | go into | An exit by name, the way in, or the exit through a door you name. |
| CLIMB [thing] | climb up, climb down | Up, or the room’s climb exit. |
| LOOK | l | Describes the room again. |
| TAKE item | get grab pick up | |
| DROP item | put down leave | |
| TAKE ALL, DROP ALL, PUT ALL IN / ON thing | everything; … but X and Y, … except X, Y | One line per thing: “lamp: Taken.”. TAKE ALL takes what’s in reach and not inside something you carry (in Infocom style, what’s directly in the room, with a reason for anything that can’t be taken). |
| EXAMINE thing | x inspect look at | Items and people, and what’s inside or on an item. In the dark you can’t examine people either (“It’s too dark to see.”). |
| FOLLOW person | Bare FOLLOW asks what to follow. With no rule of the world’s, a person (say, Floyd) gets “You’d rather Floyd came to you. Try FLOYD, FOLLOW ME.” and a thing “You can’t follow that.” To bring someone along, order them: person, FOLLOW ME. See FOLLOW. | |
| READ thing | The item’s text. | |
| OPEN / CLOSE thing | shut | Containers and doors. |
| LOCK / UNLOCK thing WITH key | ||
| PUT item IN / ON thing | insert, place, set | Into an open container with room, or onto a surface. UNDER and BEHIND are asked of the world’s rules (in Infocom style, otherwise “You can’t do that.” / “That hiding place is too obvious.”). |
| TAKE item FROM thing | get … out of, remove … from | |
| LOOK IN thing | search | What’s inside. |
| TURN ON / OFF thing | switch on, light; extinguish, douse, blow out, put out | Switchable items. LIGHT on something already burning with no switch (a torch) says “It’s already lit.” |
| BURN thing WITH item | light … with, burn down, ignite, incinerate | Something burnable, with something burning. The thing’s rules answer first (lighting candles with a match). |
| TURN thing WITH tool | to, for; SET thing TO x | A rule on the thing decides; otherwise “This has no effect.” TURN ON … WITH … is TURN ON. The second object can be a number: TURN DIAL TO 4, SET YEAR TO 776 (digits up to 1000, or H:MM); with no rule for it, that answers “This has no effect.” in Infocom style, and elsewhere the intent server gets a turn. Digits that name something here (locker 12) are that thing, not the number. |
| PLUG thing WITH item | The same: a rule, or “This has no effect.” | |
| BOARD vehicle | get in, climb in, sit in | Into a vehicle on the ground here. See vehicles. |
| DISEMBARK [vehicle] | get out, get off, stand | Out again, if it’s safe. EXIT on its own does this while you’re aboard, and is a direction (out) otherwise. |
| USE item [ON thing] | push pull press operate attach X to Y | See use rules. OPEN and PUT fall back to an item’s use rules when it isn’t a container. |
| GIVE item TO person | hand offer return | With one person present, GIVE item is enough. |
| TALK TO person | speak/chat with, question | With one person present, TALK is enough. |
| ASK person ABOUT topic | tell … about … | The person’s answer on that topic, if the world gives it topics; otherwise what TALK TO says. ABOUT ME and ABOUT MYSELF reach a topic keyed or aliased me or myself. |
| person, command | tell/order/ask … to … | An order (a bare TELL person is one too). person, FOLLOW ME is one too, answered by the character’s orders.follow rules. A character the world lets obey carries out GO, TAKE, DROP and GIVE ME, or answers a rule (“robot, push the button”); others answer or ignore it. An order to such a character ends the rest of the line. |
| WEAR item | put on | |
| SMASH thing [WITH item] | break destroy wreck whack beat | |
| ATTACK someone WITH weapon | kill hit fight stab | At a character who fights, combat; at anything else, SMASH (in a world without combat). In Infocom style, kill troll picks the one weapon you hold, or asks. |
| THROW item [AT target] | toss hurl; OFF, OVER | A rule on the target decides; otherwise it lands on the floor. OFF and OVER, with no rule: Zork’s refusal in Infocom style; elsewhere the intent server gets a turn. |
| PUSH thing direction | PUSH thing TO x; READ thing THROUGH x | Only a world’s rules answer these (otherwise “You can’t push things to that.” in Infocom style; elsewhere the intent server gets a turn); READ THROUGH reads it. |
| DIAGNOSE | Your wounds, and how much more you could take. | |
| WAIT / SIT | z, sit down relax | Takes a wait / sit exit if the room has one. |
| INVENTORY | i inv | |
| HINT | hints clue | |
| VERBOSE / BRIEF / SUPERBRIEF | Full descriptions always, on first visits only, or never (LOOK still shows them). Takes no game time. | |
| SCORE | ||
| AGAIN | g | Repeats the last command, meaning the same things. |
| OOPS word | Replaces the word nobody understood in your last line, and tries it again: examine lanturn, then oops lantern. | |
| UNDO | Takes back the last move, up to 50 moves. Not kept across a reload, a RESTART or a RESTORE. Takes no game time. | |
| QUIT | Prints the world’s quit reply; the game carries on. | |
| SAVE [name] | Saves the game under a name (save before the troll). Without a name, asks for one. Names are lowercase letters, digits, spaces, - and _, up to 32. | |
| RESTORE [name] | Goes back to a named save. Without a name, lists them and asks which. | |
| LOAD | Goes back to the automatic save, which is kept after every move. | |
| RESTART | Wipes the automatic save and starts over. Named saves are kept. | |
| SCRIPT / UNSCRIPT | Starts a transcript, then downloads it as a text file. | |
| VERSION | The app’s version, then the world’s title and credits. | |
| THEME [name] | Lists the color themes, or switches to one (crt-amber, crt-green, simple, simple-light, simple-dark, plus any the game adds). Remembered in the browser. Takes no game time. Works at the cartridge menu and in story files too, like BLOOM and EFFECTS. | |
| BLOOM ON / OFF | Turns the phosphor glow on or off. | |
| EFFECTS ON / OFF | Turns every screen effect on or off. | |
| COOKIES | privacy | Analytics settings, when analytics are configured. |
| EJECT | Back to the cartridge menu (builds with more than one cartridge). | |
| LOAD (at the menu) | open, or drop a file on the terminal | Play a Z-machine story file from your computer. In a native world, LOAD restores your save instead. |
| REMOVE number (at the menu) | forget | Take a story you loaded off the shelf. |
| PLAY | Start a story file again after it ends. | |
| CANCEL | At a SAVE or RESTORE prompt, or a story file’s. | |
| HELP | ? |
World verbs: a world can add its own (SNOOZE, PRAY, MOVE, Zork’s ULYSSES …); they’re listed in its HELP. See World verbs.
Typed words: a world’s SAY, ANSWER or INCANT (see World verbs) takes the rest of the line, quoted or not: answer “a well”. A quoted phrase is never split at its full stops, commas or and, and the text verb ends the line: say "well". west says “well” and drops WEST, as in Zork.
ME: me and myself mean you where a thing is expected, and so do self and yourself unless something here is called that. In an order, “robot, give me the key” hands it to you, and “robot, push yourself” means the robot. A world decides what, if anything, happens; with nothing to say, the reply is the usual one for a word that names nothing here (“You don’t see a “me” here.”).
Chaining: take key and wallet, north then look, west. take lamp. Each piece runs separately (and gets its own intent-server retry if it misses). A name that contains “and” stays whole: in a world where “lost and found” is a thing’s name or one of its aliases, take flair from lost and found and go north is two commands, not three. Words that only appear in a description don’t count.
Pronouns: it, them and that mean the last thing you acted on, as in take the mug then give it to gary; him and her mean the last person.
Names: every word of three or more letters you type has to be in the thing’s name or one of its other words: take red ball doesn’t find a thing the world calls only “ball”. Shorter words are ignored, and a word can be shortened (lant for lantern). See How names are matched.
Questions: when a word matches more than one thing, the game asks which (“Which do you mean: the wooden door or the trap door?”, or in Infocom style “Which door do you mean, the wooden door or the trap door?”), and when a verb is missing its object, what (“What do you want to take?”). Answer with just the missing words (trap, the sword), or type a new command to move on. Questions take no game time, and answers are never sent to the intent server.
Keys: Up and Down step through your last 100 commands, keeping whatever you’d started typing. Enter on an empty line, or any letter, finishes the text that’s typing out.