[HN Gopher] Show HN: WrittenRealms - a modern platform for text-...
___________________________________________________________________
Show HN: WrittenRealms - a modern platform for text-based games
Author : teebes
Score : 60 points
Date : 2021-07-20 15:26 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (writtenrealms.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (writtenrealms.com)
| forkLding wrote:
| happy to work on this too, played MUDs a lot in childhood and
| occasionally now. I believe the visually impaired will have to be
| accommodated as have met many friends on MUDs who are visually
| impaired.
|
| Also the server might be down as I can not be able to enter a
| world with a new character
| mbunch wrote:
| Yes it's restarting now, had a hiccup for a bit. Sorry!
|
| Edit: Should be online now
| forkLding wrote:
| Working now, much thanks!
| bovermyer wrote:
| I love this.
|
| Though, I apparently found a new bug. I got to Bluefinch with the
| boy, but then I'm unable to enter any commands and have to reload
| the tab. Still can't seem to do anything there.
| kazoomonger wrote:
| I like the interface in general. However, as someone that has
| played some text-based games but is not super familiar with the
| genre, I think this log captures my confusion:
| kill spider You stab a small spider for 6 damage!
| stab spider Unknown command: 'stab'. Type 'help' for
| help. kill spider You're already in combat!
| attack spider You're already in combat!
|
| I can see a floating box that says that I'm in combat, but it
| doesn't help me figure out what to type, because the only option
| is "FLEE"
|
| If I try to flee, I get a loading bar that then becomes full and
| then doesn't do anything. If I try to flee again, it says I'm
| charging an ability.
|
| I'm honestly not sure how to proceed. help didn't give me any
| useful commands.
| [deleted]
| digital_ice wrote:
| Yeah, I found myself in the exact same position. Tried tapping
| and typing almost everything I could think of, got frustrated
| and quit. Not sure if its a bug, or just lack of useful
| tutorial information.
| mbunch wrote:
| Sorry, looks like this is a bug with Flee that just popped up
| and it just stalls combat entirely. Trying to fix now.
| mbunch wrote:
| Welp, that's definitely a bug! Flee is supposed to move you to
| an adjacent room on completion, which is, of course, exactly
| what it did until some time today. Working on a fix now!
| chrisco255 wrote:
| Why wouldn't it allow the continuation of the fight? Either
| way, this is looking very good and interesting!
| mbunch wrote:
| The last time this came up, it was an unhandled exception
| that basically killed the combat thread. Probably something
| similar this time. In any case, thanks! Hoping to get it
| back into a playable state shortly, haha.
| teebes wrote:
| Hi HN,
|
| I've been working on this project since 2013. It's a platform for
| building and playing text-based games (Multi-User Dungeons), both
| single-player and multi-player, on the browser. The layout is
| responsive to accommodate both desktop and mobile displays
| (including the world editor). Would love some thoughtful
| feedback!
| adamrezich wrote:
| when I click the "play" button on the landing page, it shows me
| some prose and says "click anywhere to begin," and then that just
| makes the prose disappear. sounds like a cool project though, I'm
| interested in checking out the editor later
| mbunch wrote:
| _sigh_ Looks like it needed a restart. It was getting hung up
| when trying to put you into the tutorial. Sorry about that!
| adamrezich wrote:
| looks good now!
| mpwoz wrote:
| FYI it's still happening for me
| mbunch wrote:
| It just came online and I was able to get in. Is it still
| not working?
| ndguarino wrote:
| MUD player for ~20 years, (previously) administrator/developer
| for ~5. First of all, great work on pushing this out and making a
| usable product, especially one built for people who aren't
| entirely familiar with writing software (which is often the big
| hurdle for starting a new IF game or MUD).
|
| I haven't had time to play with it, but I do have three (or 2.5)
| pieces of feedback based off reading the documentation.
|
| 1. Service subscriptions are solid, and using them for
| multiplayer access is entirely reasonable here. $15/mo isn't
| actually very much for that, especially since hosting is handled,
| so that's an exquisitely low barrier to entry for that. That
| said, Patreon is a big turn-off for a lot of people (including
| myself, though I'm not necessarily your target audience either).
|
| 2. Lack of telnet connection on multiplayer worlds is a big
| hurdle. Most MUDs/MUSHes/MOOs are telnet-based, and by not making
| this a way to connect, you are effectively turning away ~30 years
| of software written, and a good percentage of the people who have
| grown used to this software. In the MUD I worked on, I still had
| players using zMUD because it's what they preferred and what they
| had things built for, despite it not having been maintained for
| years and not being able to use several features of the MUD as a
| result (xterm colour, MXP, GMCP and other telnet subnegotiation
| protocols).
|
| 2.5. VIPs (Visually Impaired Persons/Players) and accessibility.
| This is one of the largest userbases for a MUD or IF game, as
| other games that are accessible to them are somewhat rare. I
| cannot speak to how screenreader-friendly your web client is, but
| telnet access lets them use clients that already are compatible
| and integrated with screenreaders.
|
| 2.75. Players with terrible internet. Many countries have great
| internet. Many countries, and even parts of countries that would
| otherwise have great internet, do not. A lot of players I've met
| in MUDs played them not because they were enthusiasts, but
| because they were more friendly to slow connections with high
| latency. Throttling my connection to some test settings I used
| for testing data flow to a couple players so I could recommend
| settings to them and test things for them, your client and the
| initial screen of the game you have on your homepage linked to
| the "Play" button is 44s.
|
| There is a chance none of these are concerns for you, and that is
| an entirely fair decision - you can't develop for everybody. But
| I hope this is useful feedback.
| mbunch wrote:
| Not OP but somebody else who has worked on the platform. Thanks
| for the feedback! I can't give quite as good of a response as
| teebes but I'll take a crack at it.
|
| - Patreon isn't the ideal subscription service but it was the
| most lightweight tool we could find for the job since some
| users wanted to contribute and it didn't make sense to
| integrate a full payment platform right now. Is there a
| particular reason that you find it off-putting?
|
| - Telnet actually came up recently on the Discord. It's
| something we might do, but would take a fair bit of work and
| loses out on some of the UI we've incorporated to try to make
| combat a little more engaging like cool down timers and cast
| bars. That said, we're not opposed to it if there's enough
| demand and people would actually use it.
|
| - We've actually had a few visually impaired players and gotten
| some very useful feedback! There is a 'Use Accessibility
| Layout' option that tries to optimize the experience for
| screenreaders, although there is likely room for iteration.
|
| - That's a fair point and may be tough to optimize to the same
| degree while taking advantage of the more modern frameworks
| that make the platform (hopefully) more user-friendly. That
| said, there's probably some refinement that could be done there
| to at least help a little and I would imagine that once in-
| game, the packets going back and forth don't put too much
| strain on the connection.
|
| Always good to hear from people who know the space!
| ndguarino wrote:
| Yeah, Telnet will definitely be a lot of work if you do
| decide to go for it. For cooldown bars and such, I'll
| recommend using a subnegotiation protocol for all that (GMCP
| is the one widely used these days, all the major clients
| support it to some extent and it's effectively just a 'string
| + json blob' payload), and my experience is often "if you
| make it available, it will be built" with MUDs.
|
| I'm extremely happy to hear that visually impaired players
| are accounted for. It was always one of my personal 'hills to
| die on' in MUD development.
|
| As for Patreon, it's just personal preference. I just want to
| be able to put in my card details and go - Patreon makes me
| juggle Yet Another Account and, if you aren't a Patreon user
| already, the time to get a subscription is highly increased.
| Anecdotally, I'm not the only one I know who feels this way.
| I spent years just avoiding anything that made me sign up for
| a Patreon account just to avoid the hassle of it, and only
| caved in to support a friend's project. I know some who will
| still just see Patreon and run the other direction. It also
| might just be me, but I have horrible luck with services that
| integrate with it - it won't link the patreon account or
| recognise that I'm paying, and I need to get manual
| intervention on getting the thing I'm subscribing to.
| ultra_nick wrote:
| I'm stuck in a vim like combat with a spider.
| teebes wrote:
| Sorry, really uh much higher than usual traffic is causing all
| kinds of issues. Looking into it...
| danielmarkbruce wrote:
| Genuine question - what is the appeal of a text-based game? Is it
| that you can play async? Something else? Like why not just play a
| regular video game with regular controller and graphics?
| bovermyer wrote:
| It's much easier to support off-the-wall interactions and new
| game systems naturally in a MUD.
|
| By that, I mean... adding a new race (for example) in a
| graphical game requires art assets, animation rigging, sound
| design, and ALSO the programming side of it. There may be
| follow-on work too, like producing equipment models that suit
| the new race's dimensions.
|
| In a MUD, you just program the new race, and off you go.
|
| This ability to iterate quickly, with a lower barrier to ideas,
| means that you can try all kinds of things on a very low
| budget.
| teebes wrote:
| It's a little bit like reading a book vs watching a movie.
| Harder to get into but once your imagination takes over to fill
| in the blanks, there's nothing like it.
| yawz wrote:
| Not a text-based gamer so maybe others can respond better, but
| this is probably similar to reading a book and watching a
| movie. Imagination has no limit.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2021-07-20 23:00 UTC)