A Multi allows one person, or several people joining together, to move things on a given setup. This can be anything you can think of: tabletop or dice games, playing cards, an array of creatures flying above a nest, or any use you imagine. You can click on an item to change its state or trigger its behavior, and drag an item to move it within the Multi. Static compositions with no movable parts can also be created.

As Multi creator, you can edit the static layer as well as the movable items. Everybody else joining the Multi later can then move around and change the state of movable items, and others who opened the Multi at that placement location will see the movements.

To create a Multi, login, hit the Create button in an area where you can edit, switch to the Holder type category, and hit Change. The first cell will be the Multi as it's shown placed in the world, and the second is the optional wallpaper background. Most other things can be prepared later by walking over the Multi and activating it. Once active, click the Multi name link at the bottom to start editing. You can now move in items from your side panel and drag them into position. As soon as you hit Done, your Multi will change for those who newly open it all around the world.

Shortcuts

• Ctrl+D: Duplicate item to right
• Ctrl+Shift+D: Duplicate item to below
• Ctrl+G: Toggle grid
• Ctrl+Z: Undo a deletion, duplication or editing move
• Ctrl+K: Toggle setting up static items
• Ctrl+L: Toggle setting up movable items

Sections

The Multi can be split up into private sections and a neutral section. The private sections can be used to e.g. only show a set of cards to the person of that section. The neutral section can hide everything, and also be used for shuffling. You can amend the section behavior and look by opening the Multi name menu and selecting "More".

Changing Things

Changing Things will show their first cell in the public sections, and their second cell in the private ones. For instance, a playing card front could be drawn in the first cell, and the card back in the second. You can also add the drop sound for the Changing Thing by picking 'Add Sound' from the menu during creation (a Holder with a lot of sounds can be found in the second hut at Helptown). A single tap on a Changing Thing by participants will cause it to manually change its state (like turning a card back and forth).

Dynamics

Dynamics can be used as items that have changing states. For instance, a movable dice item might have 6 sides. To trigger these states, use a range of two numbers at the end of your Dynamic name, e.g. "dice 1-6". A click on them on the Multi will switch to the next state, unless you pick the Dynamic attribute "no state+ change". You can now reference the state using a placeholder in text output:

0s: cell 1 show, text [state]

The following markers are available:

To create a randomizer, like a dice cup, prepare a Dynamic, hit the "..." button, and tick its attribute "Randomizer". You can now have a special animation and sound for the "randomize" label if you want. When added to a Multi as static item, participants can now drag movable items over it. Static items can also react to clicks to randomize their own [state] value (this could be e.g. an item named "Roulette wheel 0-36").

For instance, the following example would create a dice. The dice sides 1 to 6 would be drawn in the cells 1 to 6, and the item would be named "dice 1-6":

0: CELL 1 SHOW

STATE 1
0: CELL 1 SHOW

STATE 2
0: CELL 2 SHOW

STATE 3
0: CELL 3 SHOW

STATE 4
0: CELL 4 SHOW

STATE 5
0: CELL 5 SHOW

STATE 6
0: CELL 6 SHOW

RANDOMIZE
0: CELL 1 SHOW
0-1.25: CELLS ROTATE 360
0.25: CELL 1 HIDE, CELL 5 SHOW
0.5: CELL 5 HIDE, CELL 3 SHOW
0.75: CELL 3 HIDE, CELL 2 SHOW
1: CELL 2 HIDE, CELL 6 SHOW
1.25: RESTART

Wiggling

When you right-click a Movable item during editing, you can set its Wiggle Speed and Wiggle Distance. This means when the item is dragged, it will wiggle. This can be used for a variety of purposes when you want to randomize the placement (for instance, in a game of darts).

Readables

Readables have three different behaviors when placed on Multis (as static items):

• In the main area, they can be opened to read them (like a help file on the rules of your Multi)
• In one's own private section, they will open as privately editable text (this could be used as a score board, for instance)
• In someone else's private section, they won't be openable for one

Writables, Mediums

Writables and Mediums can be included as static items. People can then open them by click or tap.

Environments

You can place Environments on a Multi (say, of the Snow Cloud attribute). For ambient sounds, you can add an Environment set to the Soundscape attribute.

Events

• Whenever someone opens a Multi, the Interacting event "someone activates" will be fired.
• Whenever someone does something on a Multi, body motions named "multi activity" will be triggered.

Values

In the More settings, you can enter a number for "Everyone's start value"... say 0, or 100. It will be shown next to one's name label if sections are activated. This could represent a score, one's money on a Roulette table, health of creatures or anything else you want it to be. With such a number set, you can now use speech commands like the following:

• set 20 Mary
• set -5 John
• Peter set 10
• plus 5 Dave
• Susan minus 50
• Jenny times 2
• Tom multiplied by 2
• Dave divided by 3
• plus 1 me
• plus 5 you (if only two participants)
• reset everyone (will set the number back to its start)

Typing just the start of the name -- like "Tom" for someone named "Tommy Dragon" -- will also work.

Adding people

When someone new views the Multi that's already viewed by someone else, whoever is at the Multi for the longest time can now add them. If that's you, you'll see an "Add" link over their body. When they're not added, they can view what everyone is doing, but not move items on the Multi themselves. You can also add or remove people from their profile. (Please note in some occasions, like when the maximum number of participants is reached, no new participants can be added.)

You can test the behavior of Multis for several people yourself by opening an anonymous browser window and going to the area you're in, say manyland.com/exampletown, then having your main account and your anonymous account both open the same Multi.

Trademarks

Please don't use trademarked game names as the name of your Multi, or anything else that may require licensing (such as copying distinct graphics; "Material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression"). In the US, copyright does not cover the idea for a game or the methods for playing it though, so you can be inspired by ideas or methods of existing games.

Cloning

When you drag a Multi of yours over the Create tab top or button, you will be asked and can decide to clone all of its contents too. This will create a separate copy you can later adjust. (When the Multi was set to be Clonable via the "..." button during creation, others can clone your Multi's contents as well.)

More Examples

Max

Above uses the "no state+ switch" attribute for the dice so that they can't be changed with a single click. We're using the "private randomize" marker for the dice. This Multi is available as clonable in the Item Repository 2's "Multis" thread at Base Boards Town.

Poker Dice

In above example, we are using participant sections, but ticked off the "mark sections" as they don't need to be emphasized (as all dice are always visible to every participant). The private sections' use here is to define who can open which scoreboard Readable. As with some other dice games, the dice use the "no state+ switch" attribute so they can't be click-changed. You can find this Multi too as clonable in the Item Repository 2's "Multis" thread at Base Boards Town.

Word Games

Above example can be found in the area Word Games. It uses a "my turn" card people can pass on to the next person when they're done. The rules are included in game, and the table and its letters (roughly in quantity as the letter frequency in the English language) are clonable.

Roulette

This Roulette table has a spinning mechanism that uses a Very Big Thing wheel background, a Dynamic spinning wheel (with the Randomizer attribute), and a movable Dynamic ball with the range "0-36" at the end of its name plus a text cell printing its [state].

Darts

For above above Darts game, the arrows were right-clicked during editing to define their Wiggle Speed (30) and Wiggle Distance (also 30). We're using the Changing Thing type for the arrows so we can define the drop sound by using Add Sound during creation, then picking from one of the available sounds (you can find Sounds holders at Helptown).