A Sburb game guide. Share your hypothetical plans here.

Q: Leaving Earth and going to some other dimension? A different type of apocalypse? Being a part of the cause of the extermination of humanity? Not to mention the endgame reward!? This contradicts what I believe.

A: I have no answer. All I can say is that, as a Christian myself, I am confident that God transcends. I suppose I will find out shortly.

Sburb is a cooperative game between two or more internet-connected persons. There are two components to the game which must be installed: the Client program and the Server program. One who has installed the Server program (the server player) is able to see and physically manipulate the surroundings of the client player through the game. The server player assists the client player to complete the Entry Sequence (detailed below). When the first client player has entered The Medium (see below), the server player needs to become client to another server player. This process is repeated until the client-server chain is a complete circle (that is, until all players are both client and server). The circle can be as small as two players and has no known upper limit. When a player is transported to The Medium (again, see below), their entire dwelling dwelling place is transported with them, along with everyone in it. (If you live in an apartment, this does not mean the entire apartment building.)

The Sburb logo is probably a stylized house consisting of a number of squares, one of which has a smaller square in the corner. Aim for a number of players equal to the number of large squares.

eg.: Player A client to Player B client to Player C client to Player D client to Player A
and Player A server to Player D server to Player C server to Player B server to Player A

or Player A client to Player B client to Player A
and Player A server to Player B server to Player A

Once a Server-Client connection has been established, the server player will be presented with an interface that allows them to view and physically manipulate the client player's surroundings in real time. The menu options of the interface are, from left to right:
View controls: Zoom in and out, rotate, and pan.
Select: Pick up and move objects. Cannot move people.
Revise: Alter the client's house through expansion and addition. Not recommended at this point, as it costs “build grist”, a currency you have in short supply at the start.
Deploy: Place game constructs, which effectively appear out of thin air.
Phernalia Registry: The list of deployable things.
Grist Cache: Your supply of “create things” currency. Earn more by defeating monsters. There are no monsters pre-entry.
Explore Atheneum: List of things available to make. Currently empty.
Alchemy Excursus: List of item combinations you have made. Currently empty.

The server player must Deploy all of the free items in the Registry. The Cruxtruder, Totem Lathe, Alchemiter, and Pre-punched Card. Place the first three in convenient proximity to each other. Do not block any doors, hallways, or other access. Feel free to move things out of the way to make room. If it is necessary to Revise in order to place them usefully, do so.

Now, open the Cruxtruder by hitting the lid with something. This will cause two things. First, a countdown timer will appear on the Cruxtruder. If you have not completed the Entry Sequence (that is, entered The Medium) by the time it hits zero, the client player will die and the session will be unwinnable. Note that this timer is not started by hitting the Cruxtruder, it is simply revealed. The clock was always ticking. Second, a flashing orb known as a kernelsprite will exit the Cruxtruder.

You must “prototype” the kernelsprite by throwing something into it. You may prototype a total of two times (cumulative effect). Choose wisely; the entity created in this manner will serve as the client player's guide and source of information in The Medium. But be warned: however the kernelsprite is prototyped before entering The Medium, the enemies faced will also be prototyped. Whatever you prototype with pre-entry, you will have to fight. Be doubly, triply warned: It is of absolute importance that you prototype at least once pre-entry! IF ANY OF YOUR SESSION'S KERNELSPRITES ARE NOT PRE-ENTRY PROTOTYPED, IT WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE TO WIN.

Note that the ideal procedure is to prototype once pre-entry with something you are willing to fight, and once post-entry with whatever you want – the remains of a dead loved one is a popular choice. The intelligence and personality of your sprite will be the same as that of the prototypes, but it will be able to speak regardless.

Next, turn the wheel on the Cruxtruder. It will eject a cylinder, called a cruxite dowel. The Cruxtruder has an infinite supply of these, but for now you only need one. And you have a time limit.

Deploy the Pre-punced Card, if you haven't already. Take the card and the cruxite dowel to the Totem Lathe. Put both in their designated spots and activate the Lathe. This causes the Lathe to carve the dowel with a unique pattern of grooves and ridges. Take the dowel (now a “totem”) to the Alchemiter, and place it on the small platform. The Alchemiter will make the item shown on the Pre-punched Card.

Do whatever seems natural to do with that item. Do it before the Cruxtruder timer reaches zero. Do it after prototyping the kernelsprite at least once. This completes the Entry Sequence.

Welcome to a new world. Be ready to fight.

Captchalogue cards function as your inventory. They may or may not exist in real life if Sburb becomes a thing that is real, but they must exist within The Medium (also known as the Incipisphere), as they are an integral part of the game's alchemy system. A Captchalogue card is used to abstractly store an object, making that object's size and mass the same as the card. The object can then be retrieved from the card when needed. I have no idea how to do either of these things, but I think the method may be intent.

They are incredibly convenient, and I sincerely hope you additionally retain the ability to just carry things and use your hands like normal.

The cards are stored in a Sylladex, and are retrieved using a Fetch Modus. Modi vary, so you will have to figure yours out on your own. Each has its weaknesses and (hopefully) strengths. In another abstraction, a Modus is physical object and can be captchalogued when not in use. Some Modi can be weaponized through item ejection. The most utilitarian Modi I know of are array, which lets you retrieve any item at any time, wallet, which does not appear to have a size restriction on what you can captchalogue, and Pictionary, which attempts to captchalogue what you draw, or a 'ghost image' if none such is available. The ghost image cannot be retrieved from the card, but the card does have a valid captcha code on the back. This allows you to obtain the captcha code for things you cannot otherwise captchalogue. If at all possible, at least one player in each communication network should have the Pictionary modus. It is just that useful.

Weapons. Sburb is very particular about what kind of weapon you use. Specifically, you can only use a weapon if it is stored in your Strife Specibus. The Strife Specibus is a special type of card of which you start with only one, and are unlikely to find more. Before you can store a [captchalogued] weapon in the Specibus, you must first select a Kind Abstratus, which dictates what kind of weapons you can store in the Specibus card. “Hammerkind”, “bladekind”, “riflekind”, etc. This selection is permanent for that Specibus card. You can have multiple weapons (of the same kind) on the same Specibus card, and you can have multiple Specibus cards within your Strife Portfolio, each allocated to a different kind.

Strife Specibus cards are weapon slots as regular Captchalogue cards are inventory slots. This makes for easy access to your weapons and avoids cluttering/clogging your Sylladex.

On the back of each card is a sequence of characters (0-9, A-Z, a-z, ?, !) – the captcha code. The code is dependent on what is stored in the card. These codes are used for alchemy: making copies of objects for which you have the code, and combining two codes to make a new, combination object.

To perform alchemy you will first need to purchase and deploy the Punch Designix, which costs 4 shale grist. Obtain grist of all kinds by defeating monsters in The Medium.

Place a captchalogue card in the punch designix and type in a captcha code. This hole-punches the card with a unique pattern of holes, transforming the code into binary – six bits per character. In Homestuck, a captcha code is eight characters, meaning 48 bits. Considering that this is supposed to cover all possible objects, I am hoping that the codes will be 16 characters (96 bits) instead.

The card is now unusable for captchalogue purposes, so it is recommended to punch only blank (empty) cards. As such, one of the first things you should do is alchemize a large quantity of captchalogue cards. Take the punched card and a fresh cruxite dowel to the totem lathe and make a totem, translating the binary of the holes into the grooves and ridges of the totem. Use the totem on the alchemiter to produce the item encoded in the grooves of the totem. Unlike the entry item, this will require an expenditure of grist. Both the punched card and the totem can be reused.

The totems may be stored in the atheneum for later use, to save space, and to record what object each totem corresponds to.

Where this gets interesting and fun is the combination of items. Items can be combined either by punching the same card with two different codes (a binary OR operation, ||) or by putting two different punched cards in the totem lathe at the same time (a binary AND operation, &&). OR-ing increases the number of holes; AND-ing decreases the number of holes. Object A || Object B tends to produce something that is both A and B. Object A && Object B tends to produce something that has properties of both A and B.

Note that there are many combinations that yield the same punch hole pattern, and thus the same item.

On the assumption that you have access to Earth's internet, here is a list of links to the start of each significant alchemy session in Homestuck:
www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002545 (one page)
www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=002953 (17 pages)
www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003703 (11 pages)
www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=003721 (27 pages)
www.mspaintadventures.com/?s=6&p=005044 (30 pages)

With each successive player connection, more game constructs become available for deployment. One of these is called the Jumper Block Extension. It is used to upgrade the alchemiter. Attach the jumper block to the alchemiter. To apply an upgrade, put a Punch Card Shunt on the jumper block and stick a punched captchalogue card in the shunt.

Some upgrades are useful. Some are useless. Some render the alchemiter unusable. Fortunately, removing a card undoes that upgrade, so you can experiment without fear. Up to eight upgrades can be applied simultaneously.

The Holopad displays a hologram of what a punch pattern would create, giving a free preview. Upgrading with the holopad without upgrading with the totem lathe attaches this functionality to the alchemiter, saving travel time.
Upgrading with both the holopad and the totem lathe displays a hologram of the totem the punched card(s) would produce, in the correct location for the alchemiter to read the totem. This renders the cruxtruder redundant and avoids the hassle of all those cruxite dowels.
If you upgrade with the punch designix, the holopad, and the totem lathe, then you can do the entire alchemy process without leaving the alchemiter. A major time saver!
Upgrading with the jumper block extension reduces the size of the extension and removes the punch card shunts from the equation.
Upgrading with a photography enlarger or something of similar function allows you to adjust the size of the objects you achemize. Cost scales with size.
Again, feel free to experiment. Please report any useful findings.

One more thing. That deployable game construct called “CD”? Buy it and install it. It allows sharing of grist between players, effectively pooling your resources.

With all that in mind, there are some things you can do to prepare. And to game the system.

First and most importantly, get in contact with the people who will be in your session. You can't play without them.

The other preparations come in two forms. Gathering anything and everything that may prove useful while playing Sburb, and writing down the captcha codes for them. If you have a working Captchalogue system hours or days before playing Sburb, then the two are largely interchangeable.

You can captchalogue a captchalogue card. Now look on the back: that code, probably all '1's, can be used to alchemize more captchalogue cards. Write down the code and a description of what it represents, and un-captcha the card.

When you get a strife specibus card, DO NOT immediately allocate it to a kind. Instead, captchalogue it and write down the code and “unallocated specibus card”. Now you can make more strife specibi, so you can use almost any weapon you want. You're welcome.

Gather and record the captcha codes for every type of food and food ingredient you think you may want in the next month. Or year. Or ten years. Who knows? The point is, the Alchemiter will probably be your only source of food while in the Medium. If you want to eat it again, write down the captcha code first. In the interest of long-term micronutrient balance and avoiding monotony, more variety (and higher quality) is better.

Gather and record the captcha codes for any hardware you think may be useful. You will be in a survival situation and out exploring. Everything you would bring for a weeks-long camping, backpacking, or hunting trip. Clothing for any weather. Tools. Alchemy 'ingredients' for weapons, gear, amenities or comfort, frivolity, cool stuff, useful stuff, fun stuff. Computers and smartphones. A Polaroid camera. A photography enlarger. A SBaHJ book (for physical jpeg artifact shenanigans). Other media. Materials and substances (ie. specific cloths, metals, woods, etc.).

Captchalogue the list of captcha codes, and write that code down in several redundant places. It is extremely valuable. Share it freely and widely with everyone who will be or is playing Sburb, regardless of whether they are part of your session.

Establish a large network of communication between as many sessions as possible. If you are able to maintain contact with other sessions while in The Medium, it will be a great boon indeed. You will have an expanded social network to help maintain sanity, will be able to compare notes, give advice, trade captcha codes. Perhaps even visit other sessions. Rescue those sessions that do not succeed. Many players gathered together would be a force to be reckoned with indeed.

The necessary exposition about The Medium, your objectives within the game, your session's physical, mythological, and political situation, and your ultimate goals will be supplied by your sprite, your consorts, your knowledge of Homestuck if you have read it, and other sources. Part of the experience is learning these things. Further, the minutia vary from session to session and from player to player. Thus, I will supply only some recommendations, and have intentionally left things out.

One of the more important keys to a successful session is getting along with your co-players. Work together. Infighting tends to make everything worse.

There are five main types of NPCs in The Medium: sprites, underlings, consorts, carapacians, and denizens. The term 'non-player character' is used because Sburb is still a game, though you meet them in the flesh.

Sprites are what your prototyped kernelsprites become on entry to The Medium. They have many abilities and are supplied by the game with a great deal of knowledge. This is your guide, your helper, your main source of information about the game.

Underlings are hostile monsters, come a variety of forms, sizes, and strengths, are altered by each pre-entry prototyping when that kernelsprite enters and becomes a sprite. They drop grist when killed. If it does not have at least one prototyping, it is not an enemy. If it does not drop grist when killed, it was not an enemy.

Consorts are friendly creatures found in each player's Land. Talk to them and see what they know. Some of them will tell you things about your Land. Some of them have things for sale. Do not kill them.

Carapacians are citizens of the two kingdoms in the Incipisphere, Prospit and Derse. Prospitians have white carapace, Dersites have black carapace. Sometimes referred to as “chess guys”. They do not drop grist.

Denizens are boss monsters in the core of each player's planet (Land). If fought and killed, they release an enormous hoard of grist. If spoken to, they present a Choice, which often involve the denizen helping the player at a price. The player's Land quest usually revolves around speaking with their denizen and making the Choice. Denizens speak in a language that can only be understood by a player with the same Aspect as the player to whom that denizen corresponds. They are extraordinarily powerful and knowledgeable.

Do not visit your denizen unless A) Your house has been built up to the 7th gate, or B) it is necessary, or C) you are desperate for help or advice of the divine intervention variety, or D) you have nothing else to do.

The basic objective of the game is simple: kill monsters, get grist, build your houses up into towers, profit. (No, seriously.) The ultimate objective is worth the cost of playing in the first place.

Do not, under any circumstances, allow the archagent of Derse (one Jack Noir) to get his hands on a queen's ring or a king's scepter. It would be disastrous, to put it mildly.

Frog breeding is to be done with care, done correctly, and done completely. Frog breeding is THE key to the ultimate reward.

“Leveling up” is a thing. Do it as many times as you can. Each time you climb a rung on your echeladder, you get more health, more strength, and can store more grist in your cache. This is a computer game, remember?

Boondollars are used for purchasing fraymotifs, which are powerful combat techniques. Another game abstraction. Fraymotifs are sold by certain consorts.

When you go to sleep in The Medium, you wake up on either the moon of Prospit or the moon of Derse. This is a completely separate body, your dream self. It can fly. Look up into the sky; you will find answers there.

Ascending to God Tier before the showdown with the Derse royalty is an excellent idea. However, it seems that once you ascend, you can no longer climb your echeladder and boondollars are deemed irrelevant. Thus, I advise maxing out your echeladder and buying all the fraymotifs, if possible, before god tiering.

Reaching god tier grants you great power (determined by your class and aspect), understanding of your aspect and powers, flight, and conditional immortality. Conditional immortality here means immortal unless killed, and you will resurrect unless your death was “heroic” or “just”. To reach god tier, you must die while on your quest bed. There are two quest beds per player: one somewhere on the player's Land, and one in the core of the moon where their dreamself resides. If both your waking self and your dream self are still alive (as a sprite counts), then either quest bed will work. If one of them is dead, then only the quest bed in the core of the moon will work.

Given that part of the purpose of Sburb is to make you grow and develop as a person, it may be best to hold off on god tiering until it becomes necessary. That said, it is safer to know where your and your fellow players' quest beds are well in advance.

If your session has a Time player and one of the Lands has a stock exchange, the Time player is to go there and make obscene amounts of money by exploiting time travel. Then distribute the money so that everyone can buy all the fraymotifs. All of them.

Sburb has a DM, and its name is Paradox Space. You WILL be tested to the limit. Attempts to make yourself or your team overpowered, or your enemies weaker, will not make true victory any easier. There is always a bigger fish that can be sent your way. So act with care. There is nothing wrong with making yourselves powerful, and there is nothing wrong with sabotaging your opponents. But if you go overboard, or if you fail to grow as people, you may find the prize snatched away and thrown out of reach, just like the A2 trolls in Homestuck.