ALPHARMD // TEXT

DIKU_LINE

COPENHAGEN 1990 · C · LEVELS, CLASSES, COMBAT

CIRCLEMUD DESCENDANT · LIVE

TBAMUD THE STOCK WORLD MOST PEOPLE MEAN BY "A MUD"

MERC → ROM 2.4

ROM_2.4 // BUILDING THE COMBAT MODEL EVERYTHING AFTER IT COPIED

MERC → ENVY → SMAUG

SMAUG // BUILDING THE KITCHEN-SINK BRANCH. PLANES, CLANS, DEITIES

Three cousins rather than three games. Diku forked early and hard, and the differences between these are the reason the genre has an argument about which one was best. tbaMUD is the one to start with — it is the only engine here that arrives with a finished world.

LINEAGE:DIKUMUD 1990

LP_LINE

LARS PENSJÖ 1989 · DRIVER + LPC LIBRARY

FLUFFOS DRIVER · DEAD SOULS LIBRARY

DEAD_SOULS // BUILDING BUILDERS WRITE CODE, NOT CONFIGURATION

A different idea entirely. Diku compiles a world into the binary; LP ships a driver that compiles LPC source at runtime, so the game can be extended while it is running. The room you are standing in is a program.

LANGUAGE:LPC

MOO_AND_MUSH

THE WORLD IS BUILT FROM INSIDE IT

LAMBDAMOO + JAYSHOUSECORE

LAMBDAMOO // BUILDING THE DATABASE IS THE PROGRAM

TINYMUD LINE · SOFTCODE

PENNMUSH // BUILDING SOCIAL AND ROLEPLAY RATHER THAN COMBAT

Neither of these has monsters to kill. Everything is an object, players program the world from within it, and there is no separate source tree to deploy — you build by typing at the prompt. Nothing else here works remotely like it.

PARADIGM:IN-WORLD PROGRAMMING

MODERN_ENGINES

STILL MAINTAINED · STILL BEING WRITTEN

JAVA · LIVE · ENGINE ONLY, NO WORLD YET

COFFEEMUD THE MOST FEATURED ENGINE HERE — WORLD TO COME

PYTHON · DJANGO + TWISTED · LIVE

EVENNIA THE ONE BEING BUILT OUT BY HAND

NODE.JS · FRAMEWORK, NOT YET A WORLD

RANVIER // BUILDING ENGINE RUNNING, CONTENT BEING WRITTEN

Evennia ships its own browser client and connects direct. Everything else on this page goes through a shared websocket-to-telnet bridge — one gateway, not one per game.

ENGINES:3 LIVE / 9 PLANNED

INTERACTIVE_FICTION

SINGLE PLAYER · Z-MACHINE IN THE BROWSER

CROWTHER & WOODS 1976

COLOSSAL_CAVE // PENDING THE ONE THEY ALL CAME FROM

INFOCOM GIVEAWAY EDITION

MINIZORK // PENDING DISTRIBUTED FREE BY INFOCOM ON CASSETTE

FREELY-LICENSED MODERN IF

STORY_LIBRARY // PENDING CURSES · PHOTOPIA · ANCHORHEAD · MORE

The interpreter is a Z-machine written in JavaScript, so the story runs entirely in your browser and this server only hands over the file. Everything published here is redistributable by licence — which is a different question from whether I own a copy.

INTERPRETER:NOT YET INSTALLED

BRING_YOUR_OWN_CLIENT

MUDLET · TINTIN++ · BLIGHTMUD · MUSHCLIENT

The browser client is convenience, not the whole offer. Every game above is an ordinary telnet service, so a real MUD client — with triggers, aliases, mapping and a scrollback that survives a refresh — works far better than a web terminal.

HOST and PORT per game are listed on each game's connect screen. GMCP and MSSP are enabled where the codebase supports them, so mappers and status listings work.

SETUP

CONNECTION_GUIDE MUDLET · TINTIN++ · BLIGHTMUD · SYNCTERM

STATUS

DIRECT_TELNET // PENDING SEE NOTE — THIS ONE COSTS SOMETHING

Direct telnet needs an inbound port, and this site currently has none — everything reaches you through an outbound-only tunnel. That property is worth more than the convenience, so it is a deliberate decision rather than an oversight.

LATER

BBS_SYSTEM // COMING_SOON ANSI ART, MESSAGE BASES, DOORS, FILE AREAS