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Pretend You Have Friends

Coming in the future

Planned for Pretend You Have Friends but not in the mod yet. Plans can change, and none of this has a date.

Menus and controls

  • A command wheel, roster and quick-talk boxHold a key and flick to pick a friend and give an order; a roster with a gear button for settings; a quick-talk box for typing a line. Being built now.
  • A voice orbWhile you hold the voice key, an orb sits clearly above the hotbar: the "Shell" design, a rotating 3D point cloud that swells in a wave as you talk.
  • Friends in the tab listFriends show in the player list when you hold Tab, with a grey name and their owner, for example "Pip · Alex's friend". For display only.
  • Assistance optionsFour helps you can switch on yourself: unsticking a stuck friend and easier survival (Phase 3), keeping items on death and catching up by teleport (Phase 5). Survival stays the default.

Work in the world

  • Acting like a real playerFriends aim, mine, use items, click through menus, craft and trade the way a player does. Planned for Phase 2B.
  • Real crouchingFriends crouch for real: they stop at ledges, bridge across gaps, greet you with a crouch and copy your crouch taps back.
  • Rails, minecarts, shulker boxes and an ender chestRiding rails in minecarts, packing shulker boxes, and an ender chest of the friend's own.
  • How the world treats friendsMobs go after friends and villagers remember them, as with players, but a friend never causes phantoms or raids.
  • Skills they write themselvesFriends write, practise and save their own small programs for jobs, in a sealed sandbox that can only ask the server to act.
  • Gathering, crafting and deliveryGet wood, make tools from empty hands, cook, store and bring things back, from real materials.
  • Farming, breeding and villager tradingPlanting, harvest, feeding animals and trading with villagers, paying with real items.
  • Fishing, boats, horses and bucketsBasic fishing, riding and liquid handling.
  • Building from a descriptionAgree a small build in chat, then watch it go up block by block, with simple redstone.
  • Adventures and the Nether and EndExpeditions, enchanting, brewing, portals and boss fights alongside you.
  • Fetching dropped gearA friend that died goes back for its own items when it has nothing else to do.
  • Following through portalsToday a friend stays behind and says so.

Friends who feel alive

  • Promises and follow-upsThey remember what you said you would do, and their own plans, and bring them up later.
  • A journal and a nightly thinkDated entries in their own words, written when they sleep, kept on your computer.
  • Body language and moodHead turns, nods, sitting by a fire and a mood you can see.
  • Your story and their tastesShared milestones, favourite places and quirks learned from playing together. They unlock nothing.
  • Off-the-record talkChat that never goes into memory.
  • A new-friend interviewA few questions that draft a personality you can edit.
  • Friends talking togetherSeveral friends planning, splitting jobs and helping each other, including friends of two players who both agree.
  • Competence sliderHow well a friend plays, from relaxed to expert. It never changes what a friend is allowed to do.

Connections and voice

  • Understanding your modpackFriends learn modded items, dimensions and mods from the game itself. When you ask, or when they are unsure, they look things up online: Modrinth, wikis and GitHub first, then your AI connection's own search, with a notice about what is sent.
  • Local models with a guided setupFinds Ollama, LM Studio, llama.cpp, KoboldCpp or Jan on your computer and walks you through it.
  • Free hosted optionsMistral's free plan and Cloudflare Workers AI's free plan, each with a notice before the first message. Planned for the connections slice after Phase 2.
  • A spending counterA running count of what replies have cost, with an optional stop cap.
  • Inventory and status panelSee what a friend carries and how it is doing.
  • Simple Voice ChatOptional: friends hear you through Simple Voice Chat's key too, with speech still turned into text on your computer.
  • Friends speaking aloudPlanned for a much later phase. Today friends answer in text and speech bubbles.

Release

  • A public downloadThere is no release yet. Other game versions and loaders are decided at release.

The roadmap has the whole plan, phase by phase.

Configuration

Pretend You Have Friends has a small server settings file for the rules everyone shares. Everything personal (AI connection, keys, memories, voice) is set by each player on their own computer and never stored on the server.

Server settings

Section titled “Server settings”

The server settings file is pyhf-server.toml, in each world’s serverconfig folder (<world>/serverconfig/pyhf-server.toml). In singleplayer it is in your own save. It holds no secrets.

The defaults:

rosterCap = 3
respawnDelaySeconds = 10
planTimeoutSeconds = 90
participantMessagesPerMinute = 6
Key Default Allowed What it does
rosterCap 3 0 to 16 How many friends one player may have at once. Checked when a friend is made or brought from another world.
respawnDelaySeconds 10 0 to 600 Seconds between a friend’s death and its return at home.
planTimeoutSeconds 90 10 to 600 How long the server waits for the owner’s game to send a plan before it drops the request.
participantMessagesPerMinute 6 0 to 60 How many messages each other player (trusted or not) may send to someone else’s friend per minute. Simple orders don’t count. 0 stops these messages entirely.

Each player’s settings

Section titled “Each player’s settings”

These live in the pyhf folder of each player’s game folder and stay on that computer:

File What it holds
pyhf/client.json The chosen AI connection, its model and the custom address. No secrets.
pyhf/secrets.json API keys saved on the AI connection screen. Keep it private; never share it.
pyhf/profiles/ Each friend’s private profile: notes, memories, chat history and summaries, per server.
pyhf/voice.json Voice settings, including the microphone gain.
pyhf/speech/ The offline speech engine, unpacked from the mod the first time it is needed.

The AI connection and Voice screens in the friends menu change these for you. See Choosing a connection and Talking and voice.

Key bindings

Section titled “Key bindings”

Found under Pretend You Have Friends in Controls:

Binding Default
Open friends menu O
Push to talk to friends V
Mute or unmute hands-free listening Not set

Commands

Section titled “Commands”

Every command starts with /pyhf and works for any player on their own friends, or on friends that trust them where noted. No operator level is needed.

Command Who What it does
create <name> ["<skin>"] [stability] Anyone Make a friend. See Friends.
follow, stay, come, stop, status, dismiss <friend> Owner, trusted Simple orders.
set_home <friend> Owner Home here, or the bed you look at.
yes, no <friend> Owner, trusted Answer a question from the friend.
goto <friend> <x y z> Owner, trusted Walk to a spot.
mine <friend> <x y z> Owner, trusted Mine one block.
attack <friend> <player> Owner, trusted Fight a player. See Fighting.
trust, untrust <friend> <player> Owner See Trust.
remove <friend> confirm Owner Remove a friend for good. See Friends.
list Anyone Your friends and the friends you may command.