This is a MUD, which stands for "multiple user dungeon"; what's more useful is that it's based on a form of game called a "text adventure". Once upon a time back in the eighties these were some of the biggest sellers of the game industry! They would present a small world to explore, often a mostly-abandoned one because that's easier to do. You'd wander around, map the world (usually on paper, by hand! [1]), and discover creatures, characters, and items sitting around it, waiting for you to interact with them.
A lot of them were in the form of exploring some kind of dungeon; D&D was popular among nerds, and "what if the computer did all the record-keeping" was a popular thing to explore. Which explains why this is a "multiple-user dungeon" even if nothing in it is described as dank, underground rooms full of monsters and treasures.
Directions are given as compass directions because that's the very first text adventure did ("Colossal Caves"), and nobody ever found anything better - a few games tried forwards/left/right/back but it was very confusing to keep track of which way you were pointing.
In practice a lot of muds really ended up more like chat servers with a sense of place; instead of being in a "channel" with other people, you're in a "room", which might have a "bulletin board" on it for less-ephemeral discussions than the general chatter among players. There might be monsters to fight and puzzles to solve somewhere off in the map but nobody engaged with them. Instead they just hang out and chat, and roleplay.
I learned how to program in MUDs, made friends (including my first girlfriend, online dating was very different 35 years ago), and (mostly) had a great time. The death threats weren’t much fun, especially since he lived 2 hours from me.
I am curious about your “biggest sellers” comment. What was sold, and by whom?
MUDs were fun because, as a kid who read various magical fantasy series, there would inevitably be a server that was spun up attempting to recreate the world and magic system. Because it was just text, it made it far easier to do fan works like that. It's something kids today probably can't imagine. Really enjoy Twilight? You can join as server and make a character who's a [N]ormal Teenager, [W]erewolf boy, [C]enturies-old Sparkling Vampire. And you'd have a whole list of skills and progression for 100 levels. Wheel of Time had several different competing codebases with differing versions of channeling.
It was an entertaining way to learn C as a kid, and programming new weird spells made one feel like an actual wizard.
I think there's still some space for MUDs in the world. You could build a programming/literacy class around just teaching kids how to navigate and interact within that world, how to be a god/mod/admin within the world using its tools, and how to modify it and compile it with their desired changes.
My guess would be Zork and the other Infocom games which at the time were huge because they could be played on the very limited PC's of the 80's and were top 10 selling games. Myst is basically a graphical "text style" adventure that was huge in the 90's and drove lots of CD-ROM sales and was a top seller for like a decade.
Hm. Yeah, sounds good for retention. I mostly struggle with the initial pricing now though.. someone suggested a lower number like $4.99 as initial offering and then once it ramps up, to do small jumps until even maybe $9.99.
Always though that's the stupidest way to play the Pokemon Go. Maybe it made a little bit of sense in the beginning when small villages had almost no content but even than you just missing most aspects which make this game interesting. I guess that's the time we live in.
It's true that playing in-the-flesh with a crew was the best way to play, but spoofing enabled both levelling up faster (which in turn helps the "with crew" outings) and bypassing impossible restrictions like increasing number of geo-locked critters.
It does say "gotta collect 'em all" pretty clearly...
However, I still remember the wave of people coming towards me when a Gyarados spawned right near me. I had some family with me who weren't playing (and therefore didn't know what was going on) and were quite intimidated by the sight of the approaching, stampeding crowd.
It was a lot of fun to spoof my location to Central Park and actually be able to take on gyms while I lived in the sticks. Naturally I also turned off spoofing when I'd have the chance to visit a metro area.
Android tells apps if the location fix they get is spoofed, and this tool cannot fix that. I assume Niantic checks for that and has been doing so for years now, so you'd need root, plus a Play Integrity bypass, to do this.
Officer Cleo: chuckles Well Sheerluck, since you're stuck at home, I'm happy to whip up a little JavaScript program to help us crack this case wide open! Let's get coding, shall we? ```javascript // Function to display the overview of the case function displayOverview() { console.log("Welcome to the Andae Mountain Cabin mystery!"); console.log("We've got two dead bodies on our hands - one fresh, one old."); console.log("The fresh one is Victim Vince, who was stabbed with a broken antler."); console.log("The old one is Marcel, a famous fashion designer who went missing 15 years ago."); console.log("The suspects are a colorful bunch:"); console.log("- Violent Jerry, the angry cabin owner"); console.log("- Manager Patricia, his young, controlling wife"); console.log("- Solitary Hannah, the intense, silent hunter"); console.log("- Innocent Ken, the smelly anime nerd"); console.log("- Amateur Larry, the bumbling businessman with some shady connections"); console.log("We've got a lot of ground to cover, so let's get investigating!"); } // Function to display the key locations to investigate function displayLocations() { console.log("Here are the key locations we need to check out:"); console.log("- Andae Woods"); console.log("- Area behind the cabin"); console.log("- Cabin lobby"); console.log("- Room 101 (Violent Jerry and Manager Patricia)"); console.log("- Room 102 (Amateur Larry)"); console.log("- Room 103 (Solitary Hannah)"); console.log("- Room 201 (Victim Vince)"); console.log("- Room 202 (Innocent Ken)"); console.log("Remember, each suspect has dirt on the others, so we need to grill them all to get the full picture."); } // Function to display clues found in a specific location function displayCluesFromLocation(location) { switch (location) { case "Room 101":
IDK about parking situation as I don't own a car, but I find it hard to believe that in some place there would be no way of paying for public transport without a smartphone. I personally use a cash-paid, cash-refilled transport card.
As for TOTP - this one is very universally doable on desktop, like with KeepassXC. Or you're talking about logging in outside your home, like in a library or computer club?
Saw the parking thing on a trip to Pennslyvania. Lots of signs for the parking app on the street, yet none of them were kiosks or had a phone number to call and arrange parking fees that way.
It boggles my mind that so much innocuous activity got sucked into smartphones. It is not actually more "convenient" to download yet another app that wants access to all my data, just to pay for a parking space, when my credit card is on my person and kiosks do not take up that much space.
