Mageslayer console commands
To access the console, hit the [~] key, just like in Quake. You can then type in commands followed by [Enter] to activate them. If the console prints too much info at once or you want to review things, [PgUp] and [PgDn] allow you to scroll through it.
The listing is probably not complete, but most of the more relevant commands should be here.
Control toggle codes
These codes are usually related to the player's controls and are typically bound to a key. Each one has a + and - version. When the +command is invoked, the action is turned on, while the -command turns it back off. When a +command is bound to a key, holding the key down makes the action active while releasing the key deactivates it. Invoking a +command on the console locks that action on until the corresponding -command is entered on the console.
| +6dof | First person view mode (it will soon become apparent that the game wasn't designed for this, though.) |
| +attack | Spell attack (falls back on melee if you don't have enough mana). |
| +attack2 | Melee attack. |
| +backward | Move backward, according to the player's facing. |
| +jump | Jump. |
| +forward | Move backward, according to player's facing. |
| +strafeeast | Strafe east, relative to the screen. |
| +strafeleft | Strafe left, relative to the player's facing. |
| +strafenorth | Strafe north, relative to the screen. |
| +straferight | Strafe right, relative to the player's facing. |
| +strafesouth | Strafe south, relative to the screen. |
| +strafewest | Strafe west, relative to the screen. |
| +turnleft | Rotate player's facing left. |
| +turnright | Rotate player's facing right. |
| +vscores | View the scoreboard. |
Impulse codes
Type impulse and a number to activate various commands. Like Quake's impulses, these are usually player control commands but some are cheats or hidden functions; the non-cheat ones are typically meant to be attached to key bindings. They differ from +command/-command actions in that holding down the bound key does not prolong the action, they only trigger once per key press.
There are supposed to be five suicide codes, but I have not found all of them. It seems like they must be in the high number range (hundreds/thousands) somewhere if they actually exist.
| 1 | Switch to or toggle power mode of spell 1. |
| 2 | Switch to or toggle power mode of spell 2. |
| 3 | Switch to or toggle power mode of spell 3. |
| 10 | Activate your area-of-effect special attack. Not a cheat, despite some pages listing it as such. |
| 11 | Toggle God mode (invulnerability) on or off. |
| 42 | Print "Technically, this is an easter egg." |
| 43 | Instant death. |
| 69 | Instant death. |
| 137 | Play a strange music track (does not interrupt MIDI/CD audio). This track also plays if you wait through the entire end credits sequence. |
| 151 | Instant death. |
| 666 | Game immediately bombs to Windows with a dialog box that says "This is the impulse that crashes." |
Other controls
Other functions related to player controls that aren't +commands or impulses. Typically these would be bound to a key.
| say | Chat to players in multiplayer. |
| sb_nextitem | Scroll through inventory forwards. |
| sb_previtem | Scroll through inventory backwards. |
| sb_toggleinv | Call up the big inventory wheel display. |
| sb_useitem | Use inventory item. |
| speedtoggle | Toggle autorun on or off. |
| zoomtoggle | Make the camera zoom in or out. |
Map warp
Typing map and a map name will warp you to the map specified, if it's a valid map name. You will always spawn as a level 1 Earthlord when using this code.
The valid map names are as follows:
| ctr1 | Ctr: Battle for the Bridge |
| ctr2 | Ctr: Fortress |
| death1 | Slayfest: Slayfest |
| death2 | Slayfest: Fury of a Friend |
| death3 | Slayfest: Rapid Death |
| death4 | Slayfest: Birthday Party |
| death5 | Slayfest: A-Mazing |
| death6 | Slayfest: Temple of Death |
| frost1 | The Stronghold of Fire and Ice: Into the Stronghold |
| frost2 | The Stronghold of Fire and Ice: The walls of the Stronghold |
| frost3 | The Stronghold of Fire and Ice: Bastion of Ice |
| frost4 | The Stronghold of Fire and Ice: Into the Depths |
| frostbs | The Stronghold of Fire and Ice: The Heart of Ice |
| fstscrt1 | Secret: Barbarian Toad Haven |
| fstscrt2 | Secret: Rolling Death |
| keep1 | The Desert Keep: The Sands of Time |
| keep2 | The Desert Keep: Movements of the Earth |
| keep3 | The Desert Keep: Machinations of Doom |
| keep4 | The Desert Keep: Corridors of the Ogeron |
| keepbs | The Desert Keep: Rampage of the Beast |
| kpscrt1 | Secret: Sand Fest |
| kpscrt2 | Secret: A Genie's Harem |
| lorethan | The Tombs of the Lore Thane: Conflagration of Death |
| sewer1 | Sewer Channels: Into the Sewers |
| sewer2 | Sewer Channels: Catacomb of the Rat |
| sewer3 | Sewer Channels: Rat Swarm |
| sewer4 | Sewer Channels: Holding Pool |
| sewerbs | Sewer Channels: Rat Lord's Lair |
| sewscrt1 | Secret: Run the Gauntlet |
| sewscrt2 | Secret: Maze of the Arborite |
| temple1 | The Temple: The Outer Gallery |
| temple2 | The Temple: Death of an Acolyte |
| temple3 | The Temple: The Fountain of Wisdom |
| temple4 | The Temple: Across the River of Despair |
| templebs | The Temple: The Temple of the Spider |
| tmbscrt1 | Secret: Corpse's Grave |
| tmbscrt2 | Secret: Apparition's Death |
| tmpscrt1 | Secret: Spider Weave |
| tmpscrt2 | Secret: Lore Thrall's Dream |
| tomb1 | The Tombs of the Lore Thane: The Catacombs |
| tomb2 | The Tombs of the Lore Thane: Tombs of Despair |
| tomb3 | The Tombs of the Lore Thane: World's End |
| tomb4 | The Tombs of the Lore Thane: Damnation's End |
| tombbs | The Tombs of the Lore Thane: The Final Resting Place |
| vault | The Vault |
A single file for "example" appears in the dir maps listing but it isn't a valid map that you can load.
Debug functions
These let you look up internal data, manipulate various aspects of the game, or do other debug-related functions. Some can also be used to cheat.
| a_friction (#) | Use without a number to check the friction setting, or with one to change it. Smaller numbers mean slipperier movement. |
| a_gravity (#) | Use without a number to check the gravity setting, or with one to change it. Smaller numbers mean weaker gravity; low gravity makes a better jump cheat than the fly command does. |
| a_jumpheight (#) | Use without a number to check the jump height setting, or with one to change it. The default is 800, and 1776 is the maximum safe value before you will jump so high that you die coming back down. It appears not to be just a simple linear scale. |
| a_moveactor # # # # | Move the actor specified by the first number to the position specified by the remaining three numbers. |
| a_moveme # # # | Move the player to the position specified by the three numbers (west-east, north-south, down-up). |
| a_movemerel # # # | This is like a_moveme, but instead of using the true map coordinates, the values given are added to the current ones. Useful for tweaking one's position a little. |
| dir (name) | Print the directory listing of a directory inside the main data file. dir maps is a commonly referenced one for getting the map listing, but other directories like sprites, sounds, and music also exist. |
| pc_dump # | Dump info about an actor on the map. Using 0 as the number will get the player's info and actor number. The player is usually the next-to-last actor (the last being the camera). |
| pc_runservice (name) | Asks for a Service Name as an argument, currently unsure of correct input. |
| pc_stats | Show tallies of some stuff, needs more research. |
| pc_top | Prints some debugging info that I assume is related to the most frequently used or most resource intensive game functions, not 100% sure. |
| positions | Show the position(s) of players in the game. One use of this is to get positions to move players or other things to with some of the other commands like a_moveme and a_moveactor. According to some sites you have to bind it to a key for it to work correctly, but I didn't have a problem invoking it directly from the console. |
| res_fileinfo (name) | Display info about a lump in the main data file, invoked by lump name. You can get some of the lump names with dir or res_idlist. |
| res_idlist | Show a listing of lumps that have been loaded from the main data file, with the ID numbers of each lump (which can then be used with res_idstat |
| res_idstat # | Show info on the specified lump from the main data file. |
| vp_flatshade (#) | Check or set a 0/1 toggle for flat shading. When set, renders the map's static geometry with flat colors instead of texturing them. Unlikely to be of much interest to players, but could be useful for modders analyzing map structure or checking for geometry problems. Default is 0 (off). |
| vp_flatshadepolyobj (#) | Check or set a 0/1 toggle for polyobject flat shading. Like vp_flatshade but this one is for the map's polyobjects (moving parts like doors and traps). Default is 0 (off). |
| vp_fov (#) | Check or set the field of view setting. Higher numbers means a bigger view but also introduces some vertical distortion. You may also have to use the vp_renderdist command along with it if you want to avoid disappearing geometry on wider views. |
| vp_printfacedata # | Displays some info on the specified face number ("light size" and "plane"). Technical stuff I don't currently understand. |
| vp_renderdist (#) | Check or set the render distance for map polygons. Setting a higher number keeps more distant geometry in view. |
| vp_rendertorches (#) | Check or set a 0/1 toggle for whether the torch flames in levels will be rendered. Default is 1 (on). |
Cheats
Miscellaneous functions that can be used as cheats. Type them in as they appear.
| bigfinale | Go immediately to the victory sequence and end credits. (Technically, this just activates the finale script which is defined in autoexec.cfg) |
| fly | You are no longer affected by gravity, type again to reverse the effect. Jumping launches you up potentially infinitely since levels don't have ceilings, this is not very useful as you usually either launch out of the map or die when you fall back down after deactivating the code; setting a_gravity to something low would be better for jumping to high places but this can give you a bird's-eye-view of the map at least. |
| noclip | You can walk through walls, also seems to make you walk slower. |
| ode to jack | Remove all enemies from the map. |
pc_spawnthing?
Many Mageslayer cheat pages have a list of "pc_spawnthing" commands and the item codes to go with them, but there's just one problem: I haven't managed to get any of them to work in any version of Mageslayer I've tried: demo, patched, unpatched, doesn't seem to make a difference. I can't even find "pc_spawnthing" in a hex editor view of the game files. Since the similarity to other codes that do work and the detail of the listings for entity codes suggests that they must have worked under some circumstance, my best assumption is that some people got their hands on an alpha or beta leak of the game in which these dev codes were still active (although this is only speculation).