A collection of resources for those interested in coding, building, and/or playing MUDs, MUSHes, MOOs, etc. Additions and corrections welcome. Email your submissions to andruid@writing-games.com.
Playing
Guides
- What is a MUD?
- Introduction to MUD styles and player types
- Beginner’s guide to roleplaying
- Immersive Roleplay 101
- MUD RPG glossary
Ask Questions
- Discord: MUD Community
- reddit: r/MUD
- kbin: m/MUD
- Mastodon: mud.social
Lists & Stats
Find a game to play:
- AresCentral Games Directory
- Iberia’s Mudstats List
- IGDB (MUD category)
- IPTIA BBS/MUD Server List
- Evennia Game Index
- Grapevine (good for beginners)
- MOOList
- MudBytes
- MUDhalla Mud List & MSSP Crawler
- MudListings
- GameScry
- MUD MSSP Stats hosted by Iberia
- MUDseek
MUDStats(currently unavailable)- MudVerse
- Mustard MU* Directory
- The MUD Connector (not secure)
- Top MUD Sites (archive)
- WhatMUDShouldIPlay.com
MUD Clients
Downloadable:
- Atlantis – macOS client with a Discord community
- AxMUD – Includes a screen reader version/config
- Mudlet – Fast, highly configurable client for Linux, macOS, and Windows
- Read about Mudlet’s new accessibility features
- MUSHclient – Popular client for Windows users
- Potato – Client for Windows, macOS, and Linux
- Savitar – macOS client
- TinTin++ – For an old-school VT100 experience
Browser-based:
Mobile apps:
Available on GitHub:
Open Source MUD Projects
A collection of other games/projects that are open source or allow contributions from the community:
Building & Marketing
Tools & Resources
- The Builder Academy – Build your own world
- Bartle’s taxonomy of player types – Balance your playerbase
- Bartle’s MUD Writings Archive – Collection of academic and popular articles
- Imaginary Realities Archive (Tharsis Gate) – Thought leadership about MUDs, published between 1998-2001
- Grim Wheel’s Imaginary Realities Archive – Additional resources and context about Imaginary Realities e-magazine
- Grim Wheel’s Buildcraft section – Impressive repository of articles and advice on MUD building
- MUD Fandom.com – A collection of game listings, articles, and other resources
- MUD protocol documentation – Info on GMCP, MSSP, and other protocols used by MUD engines
- The Sourcery – An older collection of MUD developer articles
Andruid’s tips & advice:
- Marketing your game
- Retaining players
- Writing room descriptions
- Improving help systems
- Rewarding players for reporting typos
Accessibility advice:
- Tips from Niamh (Alter Epoch)
- Tips from Klor (Legends of the Jedi)
Hosting Services
Free/Pay what you can:
Paid MUD hosting:
MUD admins have also had success with VM and cloud services such as Vultr, Digital Ocean, Linode, Google Cloud, and Microsoft Azure.
Coding
Codebases & Repositories
- AresMUSH (GitHub) – Ruby
- BeastMUD GitHub – C#
- CircleMUD (Unofficial GitHub) – C
- CoffeeMUD (GitHub) – Java
- DikuMUD (GitHub) – C
- DikuMUD3 (GitHub) – C++
- Evennia (GitHub) – Python
- Check out this interview with the creators of Mystavaria for their take on developing a game with Evennia.
- ExVenture (GitHub) – Elixir
- FluffOS (GitHub) – C++
- LambdaMOO (GitHub) – C
- LDMud (GitHub) – C
- Magma GitHub – C, C++
- ModernMUD GitHub – C#
- MUD1 (GitHub)
- NiMUD (GitHub) – C
PennMUSH(GitHub) – C- RanvierMUD (GitHub) – Javascript
- RMUD GitHub
- RMUDReboot GitHub – C#
- SMAUG
- Stunt (GitHub) – C++, C
- tbaMUD (GitHub) – C
- TinyMUD
- TinyMUX (GitHub) – C++
- ToastStunt GitHub – C++
- Prool’s collection of compiled servers for use with Windows, including MERC, ROM, DikuMUD, and more