GUIDE
How to use HexPalace.
Everything you need to find a palace, get around, dress up and start building, whether you've been here for decades or this is your first door.
What is the Palace?
The Palace is visual chat: rooms you can walk around in, with avatars, doors and scripts. It started in 1995 and people are still making it their own. Each palace is a server with its own rooms, its own art and its own crowd, and anyone can visit with a Palace client.
A few words you'll hear a lot:
- Palace: one server, made up of connected rooms.
- Props: the pictures you wear as an avatar. The collection you keep is your bag.
- Wizards: the people who look after a palace.
- Iptscrae: the scripting language behind doors, rooms and avatars.
- Cyborg: your personal script, which goes with you from palace to palace.
HexPalace is a Palace client. It speaks the classic protocol, so it works with existing palaces, and your props and scripts come with you.
Get HexPalace
On Windows 10 or 11, download the installer or get it from the Microsoft Store. On a Mac, Linux, or a computer you can't install things on, the web client runs in your browser with nothing to install.
Your prop bag lives where you use it, so the web client has a bag of its own, with some starter props. Importing your PalaceChat bag needs the desktop client.
Connect to a palace
Pick a name first, since it's what people see. Then choose a palace from the list on the connect screen, or type an address as host:port.
To visit us, use the.hexpalace.com:9998, or open it in HexPalace if you have the desktop client. Any Palace client can come in.
Want a few palaces open at once? Ctrl+T opens another one in a new tab.
Walk, talk and whisper
Click anywhere in the room to walk there. Type and press Enter to talk, and what you say shows in a balloon and in the chat log.
Doors take you to other rooms: hover one to see where it goes. The Rooms button lists every room on the palace, and People shows who's around. Right-click someone to whisper to them.
Hold the right mouse button to glide toward the pointer, with echoes of your avatar trailing behind you. Everyone in the room sees you glide. Start a line with & for spooky text.
Avatars and props
Your smiley's face and color are next to the chat box. Props are in the prop bag: pick some and wear them, then save what you have on as an outfit with Shift and a function key. Press F1 to F12 to put an outfit back on.
You can create props in the prop editor, or import them. HexPalace reads any .prp file and your whole PalaceChat bag, and it can browse the Palace Prop Preservation Project from inside the prop bag. That archive is unfiltered, so it stays off until you confirm you're 18 or older.
Glitch your avatar
Glitch me runs the Heavy Saber engine on your props, and it loves full-color pictures from the web. Roll nine looks, reroll any one you nearly liked, set its strength and blend, and wear it.
For a shortcut, type /glitchme meltdown in chat. Add x8 to make it animated.
Watch together
YouTube, Vimeo, Twitch and Jellyfin play right in the room, in sync for everyone there. Pass the remote around or leave it on free play. The queue is in the Media panel, and items can be skipped.
Big Screen fills the room with the video and leaves everyone standing on top of it. Click again to shrink it back, or go full screen. Wizards add the player to any room with one click in Authoring mode.
Iptscrae and cyborgs
Iptscrae is the Palace's own scripting language. It's stack-based, so values come first and the command that uses them comes after. Palace scripts run on doors, in rooms and in your cyborg.
The Cyborg editor suggests commands as you type, highlights your script, closes braces for you and shows errors with line numbers. Go full screen and a copy of the room sits beside your script: click into any command, press Run, and only that command runs. You see every step in the log, and nothing reaches the palace.
Run a room
As a wizard, you can drag doors and spots right in the room, with their settings beside them. Hide a door and it's saved to a file with its place and scripts, ready to bring back or reuse in another room.
The Operator panel puts room settings, room actions and tools for dealing with one person in one place. See everything else that's in the client.
Keyboard and mouse
| Press | To |
|---|---|
| Click | Walk there. A door takes you to its room, and hovering one shows where it goes. |
| Hold the right button | Fly toward the pointer. Let go to land. |
| Right-click someone | Whisper to them, mute their props, report them, offer them your avatar. |
| Right-click yourself | Change your name, face and color, outfits, prop bag. |
| Just start typing | It goes to the chat box. Enter sends. |
| F1 to F12 | Wear an outfit. With Shift, save what you have on to it. |
| Ctrl+L / Ctrl+U / Ctrl+B / Ctrl+G | Chat log / People / Prop bag / Rooms. |
| Ctrl+D | Paint on the room. |
| Ctrl+T / Ctrl+W | Another palace in a new tab / close this one. |
| Ctrl+[ / Ctrl+] | Back and forward through the rooms you were in. |
| Alt+Enter | Full screen. |
In the app, the Help menu lists the commands a palace understands, which start with ', and HexPalace's own, which start with \.
Keep it fit to share
Nudity, sexual content and real-world graphic violence aren't allowed. If someone's causing trouble, right-click them and pick Report to wizards. The full rules are here.