Campus Manual: Navigating the World & Interface

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Multiverse Campus is a 2D pixel-art world you walk around in real time. This chapter covers everything about getting from A to B: moving your avatar, reading the map, going in and out of buildings, riding elevators between dorm floors, using the on-screen HUD and menus, and fast ways to reach class or another spot on campus. If you're looking for how to talk to people or join a video call, see the chat and video chapters instead — this chapter is about movement and the interface shell around it.

Moving Your Avatar

Where: anywhere on campus, inside buildings, or on the island.

Use the arrow keys or W / A / S / D to walk. Movement is one direction at a time (no diagonal walking) — if you hold two keys at once, up/down takes priority over left/right, and "up" wins if you're pressing both up and down. Movement keys are ignored while you're typing in a chat box or any other text field, so you can never accidentally walk while composing a message.

• Walking on a street (the paved strips between building blocks) moves you about 50% faster than walking on grass or inside a building.
• Borrowing a vehicle from The Wheel Hub (see below) multiplies your speed further.
• During a lecture with movement locked, everyone except admins and the instructor is frozen in place — a banner reading "Lecture in progress — movement is locked" appears on screen until it lifts.
• Walking into the ocean is blocked at the waterline; the exact shoreline shifts slightly as the tide comes in and out over a roughly 15-minute cycle, and at low tide you may spot fishing spots or washed-up bottles along the beach.
• Inside buildings, walls and solid furniture block your path (small decorations like lamps, plants, and chairs don't). The doorway you came in through always stays walkable so you can't get boxed in.

Mobile / Touch Controls

Where: automatically shown on touch devices and narrow screens.

On a phone or tablet, an on-screen D-pad (four directional arrows) appears in the bottom-left of the campus view, and an A action button appears in the bottom-right. Press and hold a D-pad arrow to walk in that direction; release to stop. Tap A to interact — it does the same thing as the E key on desktop (enter a building, talk to an NPC or nearby player, exit through a building's door).

Zooming & the Camera

The camera always stays centered on your avatar. Zoom in or out with:

• Scroll wheel while hovering over the game view.
• + / = to zoom in, - / _ to zoom out.
• 0 to reset zoom to 100%.

Zoom ranges from 40% to 250%. Your current zoom level is shown in the on-screen position readout (see below).

The Minimap & Full Campus Map

Where: minimap is always visible in the top-right corner of the campus view (desktop only, and hidden during a call); the full map opens with M or by clicking the minimap.

While you're out on campus, a small minimap in the top-right corner shows a player-centered view of nearby streets and buildings, plus purple dots for other students near you and an arrow showing which way you're facing. Click anywhere on the minimap to open the full-screen Campus Map.

The full Campus Map overlay shows the entire campus at once: street names (avenues run one way, numbered streets the other, with labels at every intersection when you zoom in), every building color-coded and labeled, other students as purple dots, and you as a blue dot.

1. Open it with the M key or by clicking the minimap.
2. Scroll to zoom (0.5×–8×) and drag (or one-finger swipe on touch) to pan around.
3. On touch devices, pinch to zoom.
4. Click or tap a building to close the map and automatically walk your avatar there.
5. Close the map with M, Escape, or the × button.

If you're standing on top of a building that you have edit permissions for (a faculty/admin building-management feature), pressing M opens that building's room editor instead of the map — this only applies to buildings you're authorized to edit.

Auto-Walk & the Navigation Compass

Whenever the game sends you somewhere automatically — clicking a building on the full map, using the Smart Go button, or an NPC directing you somewhere — your avatar walks there on its own, and a small glowing compass appears next to you pointing toward the destination, along with the target building's name and distance in tiles. Auto-walk cancels instantly if you press any movement key yourself. On arrival, your avatar automatically enters the destination building (unless it's a signpost or a members-only secret room — see below).

Entering & Exiting Buildings

Where: walk up to a building's entrance, then press E (or tap A on mobile).

Buildings only open when you're standing at their entrance (a small area right in front of the building) — walking up to the entrance and pressing E steps you inside. You can't enter a building by clicking on it directly in the main view; use E at the entrance, or let auto-walk carry you there via the full map, Smart Go, or a menu shortcut.

A few buildings behave differently:

• Signpost-style buildings (community bulletin boards) don't have an interior at all — pressing E or arriving via auto-walk opens their linked chat room instead of walking you inside.
• Secret rooms are disguised as ordinary scenery. If you're not a member of the chat room they're linked to, nothing happens when you interact with them; members can enter normally.

To leave a building:

• Walk to the interior exit tile and press E.
• Press Escape at any time to immediately leave the building you're in — this works as an emergency exit even if you're not near the door, so you can never get stuck.
• Click the ← Leave Building button that appears in the top-left corner whenever you're inside a building.

Floors & Elevators (Dorm Buildings)

Where: inside a dorm building, near a stairs or elevator feature.

Requires: the building you're in must be a dorm (multi-floor housing building).

Dorm buildings have multiple floors, reached two ways:

• Stairs — walk up to a stairwell and press E to move up one floor immediately. From the top floor, stairs loop you to the basement (if the building has one) or back to floor 1; from the basement, stairs take you to floor 1.
• Elevator — walk up to an elevator and press E to open the Select Floor popup, listing every floor in the building (a basement, labeled B — Shoulders of Giants, only exists in The Alabaster Tower). Click a floor to ride there, or press Escape to cancel.

Choosing a floor from the elevator popup plays a short elevator-ride animation: the doors close, the floor indicator scrambles while you "travel," and — occasionally — the doors briefly open on the wrong floor with a strange little scene before continuing on to your real destination. Press Space or Enter at any point to skip straight to your floor.

The Interface Shell (HUD & Header)

On-screen position readout

Where: top-left corner of the campus view (hidden during a call).

A small overlay always shows your current X/Y position, the direction you're facing, and your current zoom percentage. This is a normal part of the interface, distinct from the developer-only coordinate readout described below.

Developer coordinate HUD

Where: top of the header bar, development builds only.

In development builds you'll also see a compact monospace readout in the header (position, tile coordinates, and your current room or building name). This is a developer tool and does not appear in the normal production app.

Header bar

Across the top of the screen you'll find, from left to right: the Multiverse Campus title, a 🐞 bug report button, your connection status (Connected / Reconnecting / Connection lost), and your presence status dropdown. On the right side sits the Smart Go button (see below), a row of grouped quick-access menus, and a hamburger menu that lists everything with full text labels.

The quick-access menus (each a small dropdown) group related actions: Go To (My Desk, My Neighborhood, Projects, Meetups — campus only), Meetups (meetups, recordings, Friendship Hall), To-Do (quests, Bounty Board), People (connections, Quiet Mode toggle), an Admin menu (buildings, agents, zeppelin, lecture tools — admin only), and an Invite quick button (faculty/admin only). The hamburger menu duplicates every one of these with a label and description, for anyone who prefers reading full menu text over emoji icons.

The call control bar

Where: floating pill-shaped bar, bottom of the screen, shown whenever you're in (or previewing) a video call.

While in a call, a floating control bar shows your avatar, name, and status line, plus:

Before joining a call, the same bar shows Mic and Cam test buttons with a live mic-level meter, so you can check your setup first.

Getting to Class Fast

Smart Go button

Where: top-right of the header, next to the connection status.

The big Smart Go button always shows the single most useful destination right now, in priority order:

1. Go to Class — if you have a class starting soon or in progress, walks you to the classroom building (or opens the class's meeting link if no building is assigned).
2. Go to Class — if an instructor has already started a lecture, walks you to that lecture's room.
3. Board Zeppelin — if a zeppelin session is currently boarding, teleports you to it.
4. My Desk — otherwise, walks you to your assigned dorm room desk (or the general Dorm Hall if you don't have an assignment yet).

Clicking it triggers the same auto-walk-with-compass behavior described earlier.

Finding your instructor

If a class has no classroom assigned, the app can look up your instructor's live position (only if you're enrolled in or teaching that class) to offer a "go to the instructor" fallback, showing whether they're currently online and roughly where they are on campus.

Fast Travel: Vehicles & The Wheel Hub

Where: enter The Wheel Hub building; a panel opens automatically.

The Wheel Hub is campus's vehicle-lending station. Inside, you can grab:

• Standard vehicles (always available, no cost): Roller Skates, Skateboard, and Campus Bicycle, each with its own speed multiplier, borrowed for the rest of the day.
• Today's Special — a rotating rarer vehicle that changes every night at midnight and includes fast travel; some specials are flying vehicles with a shorter 30-minute loan.

Only one vehicle can be active at a time. While riding, a small speed badge (e.g. "1.5×") appears in the bottom-left of the screen — click it, then confirm, to return your vehicle early. You can also return it from inside The Wheel Hub itself.

Portal Gun (rare item)

The portal gun is described as an extremely rare item that, once granted to a player, lets its owner fire a pair of connected orange/blue wormhole portals — walking into one instantly teleports you (or any other player, pet, or NPC) out the other, and anyone on campus can use a portal that's already been placed, not just its owner. As of this writing, this system exists on the server but does not appear to have any in-game control, button, or key binding to fire or enter a portal — if you have one, expect this to arrive in a future update.

Signposts & Points of Interest

Where: automatic, triggers when you walk near a signpost-style building.

Certain buildings act as community bulletin boards. Walk within a short distance of one and a popup slides in from the side showing its postings — flyers, announcements, events, band listings, meetups, and general notices, each with an icon, title, and optional author. Dismiss the popup with its × button, or click Ignore signs to hide all signpost popups for the rest of your session (they come back next time you load the app).

Mobile Layout

Where: automatically replaces the desktop layout on touch devices and narrow screens.

On mobile, the whole interface switches to a dedicated layout with a bottom tab bar:

The mobile header shows the app title, bug-report button, connection status, a call-view toggle (when in a call), a DND toggle, and your profile button.

Rooms, Boundaries & Collision

Every building interior has a fixed set of walls and solid furniture; you'll simply stop moving if you walk into one. Some decorations (plants, lamps, certain chairs) are marked walkable and won't block you. The area right around a building's exit door is always kept clear of obstacles. Out on campus, the only hard boundary is the ocean shoreline described earlier — otherwise the world is open and generates further buildings/streets as you explore outward from the center.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Movement, interaction, and menu shortcuts are all suppressed while you're typing in a chat box or any other text field.

Related chapters

• Housing & Dorm Rooms
• Classes & Lectures
• Video Calls & Meetings
• Chat & Messaging
• Pets & Creatures
• Inventory & Items

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