Interakt

This application is intended to allow the user to create and manage environments and entities that can exist within those environments.

Inspiration

The inspiration for this application is Kreatures.

Usage

Modes

• Console
• Player

Running the Project

Check out how to run the project here.

Play in your browser

Interakt's console mode also runs in the browser, with CheerpJ (a Java runtime compiled to WebAssembly, by Leaning Technologies), at https://interakt.play.danielstephenson.dev, alongside the other games at https://danielstephenson.dev/play. Nothing needs to be installed. The page explains a first session (help, generatetestdata, elapse, list) and offers those commands as buttons, so it can be played on a phone without much typing. The data directory is /files/interakt/, CheerpJ's writable filesystem, which the browser keeps, so saved actors and worlds are still there after a reload. Usage reporting is off in the browser build: web/java/BrowserMain.java writes usage_reporting.enabled=false before Interakt starts.

To build and serve it locally (Java 17 and Maven):

./web/build.sh
python3 -m http.server 8000 --directory build/web

then open http://localhost:8000. web/build.sh compiles the application with Maven, unpacks the vendored Ponder, EnvironmentLib and Gson jars next to it, adds the browser entry point web/java/BrowserMain.java (which connects System.in and System.out to the page) and packs one build/web/interakt.jar, which web/index.html downloads and runs in console mode. EnvironmentLib is compiled for Java 16, so the page uses CheerpJ's Java 17 runtime. The build output in build/ is not committed.

.github/workflows/browser.yml runs on every pull request and every push to main: it runs mvn test, builds the site, checks the jar's contents and the page's CheerpJ credit, and runs a short console session from the built jar. On a manual run (workflow_dispatch), or on a push to main once the repository variable ARCADE_ENABLED is true, it deploys the site to arcade with arcade-deploy as version <version.txt>+g<short commit>; the upload token is the ARCADE_TOKEN secret.

Data directory

Save files (actors.json, worlds.json, and so on), log.txt and usage-reporting.properties are all kept in one data directory. By default that is /Interakt/ - a rooted path, so C:\Interakt\ on Windows and a directory at the filesystem root on Linux and macOS, which normally needs elevated privileges to create. To keep the data somewhere else, set either of these before starting the application (the system property wins if both are set):

• -Dinterakt.data.dir=<directory> on the java command line
• INTERAKT_DATA_DIR=<directory> in the environment

The directory is created if it does not exist. Existing data is not moved: point the setting at a directory and copy the files there yourself if you want to keep them.

The test run (mvn test) sets interakt.data.dir to target/interakt-test-data, so running the tests never touches the real data directory.

Usage reporting

Usage reporting is on by default: each time Interakt starts it sends one startup event, carrying only its name, its version and a random installation ID, to trace at https://trace.danielstephenson.dev, so that it is known whether anybody runs it, and on how many installations. Nothing else is sent: no usernames, hostnames, IP addresses, actor names, world names, or anything typed at the console. The report is sent from a background thread and is dropped, not retried, if the service cannot be reached, so it can never slow down or stop the application. The first start after this was added prints a one-line notice and writes usage-reporting.properties next to the application's data files (the data directory, /Interakt/ by default).

The installation ID (the tag install) is a random UUID written to trace-install-id in the same data directory the first time reporting runs, and reused after that (in the browser build that directory is CheerpJ's /files/interakt/, kept by the browser). It identifies no person, account or address. Delete the file to get a new one, or set TRACE_INSTALL_ID in the environment to pin one. Every opt-out below also stops it: when reporting is off, no ID is made up and the file is neither read nor written.

To turn it off, any one of these is enough:

• usage_reporting.enabled=false in usage-reporting.properties in the data directory
• TRACE_USAGE_REPORTING=off (also false, 0, no) in the environment — the switch every trace client honours, checked before the settings file
• DO_NOT_TRACK=1 (also true, yes) in the environment, per consoledonottrack.com

usage_reporting.endpoint and usage_reporting.key in the same file are the service address and the write key issued to Interakt; the key can only add usage events and is not secret.

Details on what trace collects and why: https://github.com/Stephenson-Software/trace#usage-reporting

Support

You can find the support discord server here.

Authors and acknowledgement

Developers

Name	Main Contributions
Daniel Stephenson	Creator

Project Status

This project is in active development.

Ponder & EnvironmentLib

This project utilizes Ponder and EnvironmentLib, two free and open source libraries provided by Preponderous Software.