In the Costello world you must control everything your character does by entering commands. It is important to try and imagine the situation and then think about the command you need to enter. For example, just to see something in front of you more closely you must use the 'look at' command. There are more than 200 commands in the game and here I introduce only the most important and commonly used commands in alphabetical order.
| Advance | When your game scores have risen enough you can use this command when you are in the 'Guild' to advance your character's level. You can see how many points you need to advance by entering 'Cost' in the guild. |
| Alias/ Unalias |
The alias command can be use to make a shortcut for a long command. For example, enttering: Alias bs Buy a sword will let you enter just 'bs' the next time you want to buy a sword in a shop. You can remove a command alias with the unalias command. |
| Attack | Attack the X will make your character start a fight with the animal or monster 'X' if they are in the same place. Fighting in Costello is automatic so you only have to enter this once. |
| Buy | This command is used to buy things in the Costello shops. For example, 'Buy a short sword.' |
| Cast | This is used when you want to use magic. For example if you can usea light spell (level 3 characters and above) you can type: 'Cast a light spell'. There is a table of spells in the Guild that you can read to see the commands for each spell. |
| Climb | For example if you want to climb a tree, enter: 'Climb the tree'. |
| Close | Used to close something. For example,'Close the door'. |
| Cost | Used in the Guild this command will tell you how many points you need to advance your character's level. |
| Crawl | Move on your hands and knees or your belly. E.g. Crawl north. |
| Deposit | Used to put items or money in the bank: 'Deposit my sword','Deposit 100 coins'. |
| Dictionary | If you don't understand a word you can use the Costello dictionary. You can either enter the word you don't understand in the dictionary window by clicking the dictionary button, or you can enter 'dictionary XXXX' as a game command. If the word is not in the dictionary the game will send me a message and I will try to make the word as soon as possible. |
| Dismount | Used to stop riding a horse or other animal. |
| Distrust | If you distrust another player then they will not be able to give things to you and they will not be able to follow you. E.g. 'Distrust Fred'. See also 'Trust'. |
| Drink | Used to drink things in the game. If your character doesn't drink they will gradually become weaker and weaker. E.g. 'Drink the coffee'. |
| Drop | Used to drop things. E.g. Drop the bag. |
| Eat | Used to eat things in the game. If your character doesn't eat they will gradually become weaker and weaker. E.g. Eat the steak. |
| Enter | Sometimes you will need to use the enter command to enter a place in the game. For example, the Temple is inside a circle of stones on the Temple Hill. To enter the temple you must enter: 'Enter the circle'. |
| Equip/ Unequip | The equip command lets you use items such as weapons and armour. If you don't use the equip command then you are only carrying the items: they are not helping you. You stop using items by using the 'unequip' command. You can equip all of your items by typing: 'Equip everything'and stop equipping them by typing: 'Unequip everything'. |
| Equipment | This command shows you the items you are using as equipment. It is different from the 'inventory' command which shows you the items you are carrying but not using. |
| Exits | 'Exits' will show you the obvious exits for the place you are in. There may be other secret exits though! |
| Extinguish | Extinguish is used to put out things that are burning, for example a torch or lantern. For example, 'Extinguish the torch'. It is also used to turn off the barbecue set. |
| Finger | This command gives you some information about a player. E.g. 'Finger Fred'. |
| Fire | This is used to fire an arrow or other ranged weapon at a monster. You can do this from far away (usually the next room) but the monster will come and attack you. E.g.'Fire an arrow at the monster'. Of course, to fire an arrow you must have an arrow and a bow and you must equip the bow. |
| Fly | If your character can fly (maybe using magic) then you can use this command to move. E.g. 'Fly north'. |
| Follow | If you follow a player or character then your character will move when they move. However to follow another player that player must 'trust' you first. E.g. Follow Fred. |
| Give | This is used to give things to characters. For example, 'Give the sword to Fred'. However, to give things to other players, they must first 'trust' you. |
| Go | This command is used to move. E.g. 'Go north'. |
| Help |
When you don't know the game very well the help command can give you advice. Just entering 'help' will give you some basic information about the game. It will give you some help about commands. For example if you enter 'help tell' it will give you help about the 'tell' command. You can also get a lot of help from Cos the cat who lives near the oak tree just below the Costello temple. He can answer some questions about the game and he also says a lot of advice about playing the game. If you just stand and listen to him for a while you will learn a lot. |
| History | This command gives you a list of the last ten commands you used. |
| Info | The info command will give you information about items in the game. For example if you have a barbecue set and you enter 'info barbecue set' you'll see information telling you how to use the barbecue set. |
| Inventory | This command shows you the items you are carrying but not using. The items you are using are shown with the 'Equipment' command. You can shorten this command to 'i'. |
| Jump | Using the jump command you can move by jumping. E.g. Jump north. |
| Keep/ Unkeep |
When you 'Quit' Costello the game automatically saves 20 items for you. If you have more than 20 items and you want to make sure that Costello keeps an important item you can use the 'keep' command. For example, if you want to keep your sword you can enter: 'Keep sword' so that this item will be saved first. To stop keeping your sword you use the 'Unkeep' command. E.g. 'Unkeep sword'. |
| Knock | Entering 'Knock on the door' will knock on a door! |
| Light | This command is used to light things that burn, for example a torch or lantern. To light a torch you enter: 'Light the torch'. It is also used to light the Barbecue set when you want to cook something on it. |
| List | If you are in a shop you can enter 'List' to see a list of what the shop is selling. |
| List quests | Gives you a list of the quests you can do in Costello. The list tells you the name of the quest, if you have done the quest, how many points you get for doing the quest and the difficulty. You can get more information about quests in the guild in the village and on the quests page on this website. You can also type 'list <quest name>' (E.g. 'list Gustav the Hermit') to get some more information about each quest. |
| Listen | Used to listen to something carefully. For example, 'Listen to the music'. |
| Lock | Used to lock a door with a key. You must be holding the correct key for this to work. E.g. Lock the door with the silver key. |
| Look | If you type 'look' you will see a description of where you are in the Costello world. If you see the message: 'You cannot see' it means that the place is dark and you will have to use a light such as a torch or lantern to be able to see. You must light the torch or lantern before you enter the dark place. You light and extinguish these items using the 'light' and 'extinguish' commands. If you are level 3 or more you can also use a light spell to make light magically. This can be done even when you are in a dark place. To use magic you must use the 'cast' command. |
| Look at | This command is one of the most important in the game. Because there are no pictures in the Costello game you must use your imagination to create a picture of everything. In order to get more information about things in the game you must use the 'look at' command. For example, if the room description tells you that there is a door in the room then you can look at it by entering: 'look at the door', which might give you the response. 'It is closed'. This would tell you that you can use the 'open' command to open the door.
There are many secret and hidden things in the game. If you don't use the 'look at' command you will never find them. For example, if the description tells you that there is a rock, you can enter 'look at the rock'. You might see a message saying: 'It looks like maybe you could move the rock.' You can then enter 'move the rock' to see the secrets that lie behind it. If you didn't look at the rock you would never find out that you could move it! You should look at everything in the game! Note: If Costello cannot give you information about something when you look at it you will see the message: 'Either there is no X here, or nothing more is known about it.' Check your typing! |
| Look in | To get more information about something you will sometimes need to use the 'Look in' command. For example, entering 'look in the bag' will let you see what is inside a bag. Whenever you see something that might contain something you should look in it. You can also look in corpses to see what the dead monster was carrying. |
| In the village Post office you can use this command to send an email to another player in the game. To see how to use the post office you can read the sign there by entering 'Read the sign'. | |
| Mount | Used to climb on to a horse or other animal so that you can ride it. E.g. Mount the horse. |
| Open | Used to open a door. If the door is locked you must first use the 'Unlock' command. E.g. Open the door. |
| Pray | Used to pray. For example, praying in the Costello temple will bring you back to life if you are dead. |
| Press | Used to push a button etc. E.g. Press the button. |
| Pull | Used to pull a lever etc. E.g. Pull the lever. |
| Push | Used to push a button etc. E.g. Push the button. |
| Put | Used to put something somewhere. E.g. Put the stone on the table. |
| Pick up/Take | If you want to pick something up in the Costello world you must use these commands. For example, 'Pick up the bag' or 'Take the bag'. Note that when you pick something up you are not using it. For example if you pick up a sword your chracter will not fight with the sword unless you equip it with the 'Equip' command. |
| Quit | This command is very important. When you want to finish playing Costello you must enter 'Quit'. This will save your character and your items. If you don't enter 'quit' then your character and items will not be saved. When you enter 'quit' you will return to the Costello Start Menu. You can then finally quit Costello by entering 'q'. |
| Read | Used to read something. E.g. Read the signpost. |
| Refuel | When something (for example a lantern or barbecue set) runs out of fuel you can refuel it using this command with fuel that you can buy in a shop. For a lantern you would enter: 'Refuel the lantern from the oil flask', while for a barbecue set you need to buy a Box of charcoal and then enter 'Refuel the barbecue set from the box of charcoal'. |
| Rest | Entering 'Rest' will put your character into rest mode so that they will recover more quickly. If you move or start fighting you will automatically stop resting. |
| Say |
This command will send a message to people who are in the same place in the game as you. People who are not in the same place will not see what you say. For example, if John and Jim are in the bank and John enters: say Hello how are you doing? Jim will see the following message on his screen: John says: Hello, how are you doing? |
| Search | When you want to look for something you can use the search command. For example, entering 'Search the table' will look for things that you can take on the table (if there is a table there of course!). If there is something on the table you will see a message such as: 'You find 10 gold coins'. You will sometimes pick up the things you find automatically, while sometimes you will need to take them using the Take or Pick up commands. If you kill a monster you can search its corpse ('Search the corpse') to see if it was carrying anything. |
| Sell | Used to sell things when you are in a shop. For example, Sell my sword. If you enter 'Sell everything' you will sell all the items you are carrying but you will not sell the items you are using as 'Equipment'. You must unequip these items if you want to sell them. |
| Shout | This command is very powerful. It sends a message to all players in the game. For example if John enters: shout Hello, how are you doing? Everyone who is playing Costello will see the message: John shouts: Hello, how are you doing?
Because this command is so powerful it uses up magic or 'spirit points'. You can see how many spirit points you have using the 'vitals' command. If you have less than 30 spirit points then you will not be able to shout. |
| Show | This command shows you various information about your character. For example, entering 'show thirst' will tell you how thirsty you are. You can see a list of all the things you can show by just entering 'Show'. |
| Sit | Makes your character sit down. E.g. Sit on the bench. |
| Swing | If you enter 'Swing on the vine' you will sing along like Tarzan! Of course there must be a vine for you to swing on! |
| Take/ Pick up |
If you want to pick something up in the Costello world you must use these commands. For example, 'Pick up the bag' or 'Take the bag'. Note that when you pick something up you are not using it. For example if you pick up a sword your chracter will not fight with the sword unless you equip it with the 'Equip' command. |
| Tell | If you want to talk to a player who is not in the same place as you, or you want to have a private conversation, you can use the 'tell' command. You can think of this command as like having a mobile phone. You can talk to someone anywhere! For example, if John is in the shop and Jim is in the bank and John enters: tell Jim Hello, how are you doing? Jim will see the following message: John tells you: Hello, how are you doing? Please be careful about the syntax of this command: Tell <Player name> <Message>. |
| Tie | Used to tie things. E.g. 'Tie the rope to the rock'. |
| Touch | Used to touch things. E.g. Touch the rock. |
| Trust | If you trust another player then they will be able to give things to you and they will be able to follow you. E.g. 'Trust Fred'. See also 'Distrust'. |
| Turn | Used to turn something. E.g. Turn the dial. |
| Unlias/ Alias |
The alias command can be use to make a shortcut for a long command. For example, enttering: Alias bs Buy a sword will let you enter just 'bs' the next time you want to buy a sword in a shop. You can remove a command alias with the unalias command. For example, 'Unalias bs'. |
| Unequip/ Equip |
The equip command lets you use items such as weapons and armour. If you don't use the equip command then you are only carrying the items: they are not helping you. You stop using items by using the 'unequip' command. You can equip all of your items by typing: 'Equip everything'and stop equipping them by typing: 'Unequip everything'. |
| Unkeep/ Keep |
When you 'Quit' Costello the game automatically saves 20 items for you. If you have more than 20 items and you want to make sure that Costello keeps an important item you can use the 'keep' command. For example, if you want to keep your sword you can enter: 'Keep sword' so that this item will be saved first. To stop keeping your sword you use the 'Unkeep' command. E.g. 'Unkeep sword'. |
| Unlock | Used to unlock a door if you have the correct key. E.g. Unlock the door with the silver key. |
| Untie | Used to untie something. E.g. 'Untie the rope from the rock'. |
| Vitals | This command will give you information about your character's vital signs. For example: [ Spirit: 27 Endurance: 67/200 Head: 34/9 0 Torso: 69/100 ]. Spirit points are your magic points and go down when you use spells. Endurance is your energy and you will be able to do less things if it becomes low. Your head and torso points are hit points. If either your head or torso hit points get to zero you will die. |
| Wealth | Entering 'Wealth' will show you how much money (gold coins) you are holding and how much you have in the bank. |
| Whisper | Sends a secret message to someone who is in the same place as you. For example, if you enter 'Whisper I love you to Fred' then only Fred will see a message saying that you love him. Other people will just see you whisper something. |
| Who | Entering 'who' will give you a list of all the players who are now playing Costello. |
| Wimpy | This command will set how quickly your character will run away from a battle. When you start the game wimpy is set to 50. This means that when your hit points (your life force) reaches 50% your character will try to automatically run away. If you enter 'Wimpy 80' then your character will run away if their hit points get to less than 80% of the maximum. Just entering 'Wimpy' will put your character into 'Brave mode'. In brave mode your character will never run away and will fight to the death! You can return to 'Wimpy mode' by entering 'Wimpy' again. Wimpy may save your life but there are some powerful monsters who can kill you before you have a chance to run away. |
| Withdraw | Used to withdraw money or items from a bank. E.g. 'Withdraw my sword','Withdraw 100 coins'. |