Show HN: WrittenRealms – a modern platform for text-based games
MUD player for ~20 years, (previously) administrator&#x2F;developer for ~5. First of all, great work on pushing this out and making a usable product, especially one built for people who aren&#x27;t entirely familiar with writing software (which is often the big hurdle for starting a new IF game or MUD).<p>I haven&#x27;t had time to play with it, but I do have three (or 2.5) pieces of feedback based off reading the documentation.<p>1. Service subscriptions are solid, and using them for multiplayer access is entirely reasonable here. $15&#x2F;mo isn&#x27;t actually very much for that, especially since hosting is handled, so that&#x27;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&#x27;m not necessarily your target audience either).<p>2. Lack of telnet connection on multiplayer worlds is a big hurdle. Most MUDs&#x2F;MUSHes&#x2F;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&#x27;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).<p>2.5. VIPs (Visually Impaired Persons&#x2F;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.<p>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&#x27;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 &quot;Play&quot; button is 44s.<p>There is a chance none of these are concerns for you, and that is an entirely fair decision - you can&#x27;t develop for everybody. But I hope this is useful feedback.