A MUD in development
A text-based world that doesn't wait for you to log in.
Blacktide is a MUD, a multiplayer world you explore by typing. Harbor towns wake at dawn and fill their taverns after dark. A festival starts in one port while a storm rolls through another. The world keeps moving whether anyone is online or not.
Join the Discord Join on XMPP Read the devlogBlacktide Harbor - The Dock Salt-grayed planks creak underfoot. Ropes slap against empty moorings, and the waves chew at the pilings below. Exits: boardwalk, yard gate Here: Ada > boardwalk Blacktide Harbor - Salt Row A crooked boardwalk runs along the waterfront, lined with shuttered stalls and lanterns swinging in the wind.
A living world
In most MUDs, rooms sit empty until a player arrives, and nothing happens unless someone types a command. Blacktide is built around the opposite idea.
- Time passes. The world runs on its own clock, online or not.
- The world remembers. Events leave a record of what happened, where, and who was there.
- Places have behavior. Rooms and objects carry their own logic, so a harbor gets busy at dawn and a tavern fills up at night.
- News travels. The Broadside, the world's own newspaper, reports on what happened in each part of the world so you can catch up on what you missed.
How you play
Blacktide is a text-based game in the tradition of MUDs and interactive fiction. You read descriptions of where you are and type what you want to do. There are no compass directions to memorize: every way out of a room has a name, like the tavern door, a trapdoor in the floor, or a rope ladder out of a hidden cove, and you leave by naming it. Pick things up, carry them off, and watch the people around you do the same; type help any time to see what you can do.
You'll connect with a MUD client such as Mudlet or with plain telnet. A browser client is planned too.
Where it's at
The engine is being built from scratch in C# and .NET, in three phases. Each step ends with something that runs.
- Foundationsdone
Connections, commands, movement, the game loop that drives the world, items, and world events. - A world that movesin progress
The game clock, days and nights that pass on their own, and scripts that give rooms and objects their own behavior. - A world that remembers
Persistence, so the world survives restarts, and The Broadside, built from everything that's happened.
Blacktide isn't open to players yet. A public test server will open once there's more to do in the world.
Follow along
A devlog goes out at the end of every milestone. Join the Discord or the XMPP room to read them as they land, and to be there when the test server opens.
Join the Discord Join on XMPPLatest from the devlog
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Devlog #3: Keeping the ship's log
Items you can carry, a harbor you can watch move around you, and the event log the whole world now keeps. Phase one is done.