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Object

An Object is a data structure in the Neo World Program. 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. Note that these are not to be confused with JavaScript’s Object data type.

Attributes

Objects 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 Object 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: Object Name
  • Class attribute: String this.name

This is the name of the Object. All letters should be capitalized, and spaces are allowed. Note that multiple Objects can have the same name, so long as they are in different Rooms.

Location

  • Spreadsheet label: Location
  • Class attribute: Room this.location

This is the Room the Object can be found in. This must match the Room’s name exactly on the spreadsheet.

Accessible

  • Spreadsheet label: Accessible?
  • Class attribute: Boolean this.accessible

This is a simple Boolean value indicating whether the Object can currently be interacted with or not. If this is true, then players can inspect the Object, among other things. If it is false, Alter Ego will act as if the Object 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 Object, if any. The child Puzzle must be in the same Room as the Object referencing it. If the name of a Puzzle is supplied, then any Items contained within the Object will technically be contained within the child Puzzle. This allows Items to be made inaccessible until the child Puzzle is solved, while also allowing players to take and drop Items from/into the Object if the child Puzzle is solved. Additionally, when an Object containing 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.

Child Puzzle

  • Class attribute: Puzzle 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 Object. 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 an Object that allows it to carry out Recipes that require that tag. An Object can only have a single Recipe tag. 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 Object can be activated or deactivated by a Player with the use command. If this is true, then a Player can activate and deactivate the Object at will. If this is false, then its activation state cannot be altered by a Player. Even if the Object is not activatable, it can still be activated and deactivated by other means, and it will still carry out Recipes if it is activated.

Activated

  • Spreadsheet label: Activated?
  • Class attribute: Boolean this.activated

This is another Boolean value indicating whether the Object is currently checking for and processing Recipes. If this is true, then the Object 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 Object when it is complete. An Object can only process one Recipe at a time. If it is found that the Object is able to process multiple Recipes with the ingredients it contains, then the Object will process whichever Recipe has the highest number of matched ingredients, and the remaining Items will be left untouched. If the Object is still able to carry out a Recipe with the remaining Items, then it will do so upon finishing the first one, as long as it is not automatically deactivated.

Automatically Deactivated

  • Spreadsheet label: Deactivate Automatically?
  • Class attribute: Boolean this.autoDeactivate

This is another Boolean value indicating whether the Object will automatically deactivate after processing a Recipe. If this is true, then the Object will stop checking for and processing Recipes every time it finishes processing one, even if the Object’s activatable attribute is false. Note that if the Object is automatically deactivated and no processable Recipe is found, then it will deactivate after one minute of activation. If this is false, then the Object 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 Object 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 Object cannot be used as a hiding spot at all. For more information, see the article on hiding.

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 Object can contain Items. If it is blank, players cannot take Items from or drop Items into the Object. If it is not blank, then they can.
  2. When a Player drops a non-discreet Item into the Object, Alter Ego will narrate them doing so using this preposition. For example, if the player Nero drops an Item named SWORD into an Object 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, however 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 an Object 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: String this.description

This is the description of the Object. When a Player inspects this Object, they will receive a parsed version of this string. See the article on writing descriptions for more information.

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 Object.

Process

  • Class attribute: object this.process

This is an internal attribute used to process Recipes. It has the following structure:

{ Recipe recipe, Array<Item> ingredients, moment duration, moment-timer timer }

For more information on the moment data type, see the documentation for Moment.js.

Recipe Interval

This is an internal attribute that allows Objects to check for and process Recipes every second. If the Object does not have a Recipe tag, then this will be null.