Assuming this is a standard runs-on-linux kind of situation your best bet is probably to use something like Digital Ocean
$5/mo would likely get you all you need to run an old-school C based MUD for 10 players.
SanctuaryRPG might not fit your open world requirement, but it definitely has that MUD aesthetic and gameplay going on. Very oldschool roguelike.
Dwarf Fortress absolutely fits your open world criteria-- but is... an experience. And may stress your laptop if your fortress gets huge, eventually. It also has adventurer mode, but I haven't played it. Given that this one's free, though--
Bartle's Designing Virtual Worlds is pretty good. If you cand find a copy, Busey's 'Secret of the MUD Wizards' is an interesting, albeit anacrhonistic view of the topic.
And, a plug for my own: https://www.scribd.com/doc/135219005/Epitaph-Survival-Guide
It's a programming manual for my own MUD, but also discusses design and the like.
Everything should work fine in PuTTY (.exe link here). TinTin++ also seems to work, although it's been a long, long time since I've used it. I'm working on a Windows build of my own client as we speak - just have to solve a few problems... ;)
Any telnet MUD is fair game if you use the right console tools. First install Homebrew if you don't have it already, then
brew install telnet rlwrap
Then you can connect to any MUD you want to try.
rlwrap telnet [address or ip] [port]
This is my favorite no-client way to play.
> Note - you probably mean SSL, not SSH. SSH isn't really suitable for this purpose.
I actually think SSH is well suited. Specially considering that it has a built-in authentication system, and that it can know what terminal are you accessing it from so that it knows whether it should offer colors and other features. Also check this article, that dude wrote a chat in ssh.
ssh chat.shazow.net
I've actually had a similar idea in the past and made a mockup screenshot of what it might look like.
It's really simple, but I think some sort of 2D overlay to the side of the text itself could be really useful for people (like me) who easily lose their frame of reference when wandering around a map.
coffeeMUD is a cool MUD engine I have been playing around with lately. It's pretty simple and comes with comprehensive docs, so it's easy to learn. It's pretty old too, so any problems you have are easily solvable.
If you have coding experience, it might be worth it trying to create your own codebase, for a practice exercise. I've done very simple client/server text games in Java before, without much hassle. There is a good run down here of the things you'd have to do to get basic c/s communication on the go.
Good luck!
Don't bother with Steam, use Itch.io instead. There are no barriers and free promotion. Me and the Zero-K team did an Itch.io release and the player base on average went up 2 times on weekdays.
Yeah, the docs aren't that awesome.
You're on Windows, right? I'd install Cygwin or Windows Subsystem for Linux.
You need the standard build tools. With WSL, open a command prompt, run bash
, then sudo apt-get install build-essential
. Then navigate to the directory containing the CircleMUD source code and ./configure; make
to build the source code.
Then you can bin/circle 5000
to run the MUD on port 5000.
in the MU* family, furry/adult-content themes are dominant.
outside of that: DragonRealms, Gemstone IV, and AardwolfMUD reign
all in all we're talking hundreds of players
of course this only holds true as far as this protocol goes http://tintin.sourceforge.net/mssp/ and how accurate http://mudstats.com is
I use TinTin++. It's powerful but, as you've stated, there is a learning curve. Their forums seem pretty active from what I've seen, so there'll probably be people around to help you out. I recommend you give it a try. :) It's been doing good for me so far.
Also, you should check out the commands #split and #prompt if you decide to try it out. Having your prompt above the split line can be useful and saves up space, especially if you're logging.
I never made a full game with it, but ADRIFT was a nice piece of software I played around with a decent bit. Easy to use with lots of tools, and a conmunity that shares user games with one another.
Sell it on Amazon. With the condition it's in, you can might be able to get $60 for it. https://www.amazon.com/Secrets-Mud-Wizards-Programming-Role-Playing/dp/0672307235/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1470700956&sr=8-1&keywords=secrets+of+the+mud+wizards
Try Blowtorch for the client. Might give AnsalonMUD at try.
It's got both sides, PVE/PVP (PVP optional, choose PK before level 15).
I've set up mapping in my own config. I'm not sure why you would need to have different map files for different areas. Down the road, that may end up cumbersome and difficult to manage.
You can set a room to have a particular 'area' through #map set roomarea <roomarea>
. If the area can only be entered through a command besides the directional commands (i.e., 'n', 'e', etc.), you can link a room to your current room with a custom exit using #map dig
(e.g. #map dig {enter hut} new
). When you type in enter hut
in that same room, you'll be moved into the created room.
#map dig
can also be used if you want to link a new room to your current room but there, for one reason or another, already exists a room in the direction you want to create a new room in. (see example here).
You can also make use of the room flags <code>void</code> and <code>hide</code> to hide one area when another is entered.
A lot of the information on mud stats can be updated automatically through MSSP. http://tintin.sourceforge.net/mssp/
Looks like they use a bot to crawl through their mud directory and collect information. I have no idea how they do it for CLOK as we don't support Telnet data exchanges (lines only), but we do allow the connecting clients to type /who at the login prompt for a partial player list, so presumably they have some sort of custom script to scrape our player count from that.
As for the other info in our entry, looks like it is mostly a copy from TMS or TMC, so I'm assuming if you update your entries in there, mud stats will update as well.
Hmm. Why not Wintin++? First link on the page is for the MSI. It's a Windows port/build of Tintin++, has an installer which will put an icon on the desktop, and is a command line client(non graphical like zMud).
For the most basic you can just submit it on the mudstats submit form, I guess mudstats crawls your mud every so often to pull data.
Beyond that you could look into adding MSSP to your mud, which mudstats will use I believe.
http://tintin.sourceforge.net/mssp/
http://www.mudbytes.net/index.php?a=topic&t=1319&p=25707#p25707
Well, it was less developed than publicly stated, mostly due to the changes under the hood of how the HeroEngine scripting was organized. There were some amazing areas designed and some cool mob interaction in the works - state-based AI that would have allowed for a bit more complex of a response than what we normally see in MMOs. The ability for GMs to make changes to the game live and run some unique storylines would likely have been a really cool feature that is sorely lacking from modern MMOs.
That said, the new company (Idea Fabrik) does appear to want the HeroEngine to succeed, so hopefully we'll see some decent HE-based games in the future.
EDIT: Also, it appears you can apply to use HE for free now through HeroCloud. Sandbox is free and you can apply for a basic account for your team.
No documentaries that I know of, but I would definitely watch one if it was out there. I do own a copy of Playing MUDs on the Internet which is a nice throwback book to pick up since it gives a good overview of general play, as well as history and the author's personal experiences.
I'm in a somewhat similar boat. I've been working on a fantasy MUD now for about 2 years, though I'm writing it from scratch in the Haskell programming language. (GitHub page with detailed README here.) I'm the sole developer. I'm still in the stage of coding basic commands, and presently there is little content in the virtual world. (For a long time now I've been debating with myself over whether to ask someone to help me build, or just do it all myself. Not sure yet.)
So, we have both undertaken projects that are (for one person) very large-scale and long-term, and we're both working in lonely silos. I have one friend who used to play MUDs with me in the 90s, and I occasionally bounce ideas off of him, but for the most part, that's it. What keeps me going is my love of programming. Despite working as an Android developer (Java) by day, I'm still motivated to work on my MUD at night. (It helps that I REALLY like Haskell, and it's a radically different language from Java.) Programming in and of itself is highly enjoyable for me (especially when I'm working on my own thing as opposed to doing client work), so I'm not slaving towards a distant goal, thinking "won't this be satisfying when people are actually playing my game." Even if my MUD ends up being a flop, or I never finish it, I'll still be able to say to myself, "Well, at least I had fun trying to make this thing."
You mentioned self doubt when it comes to your vision and design decisions. I'd likely be overwhelmed by nagging uncertainty if it weren't for this book: Designing Virtual Worlds by Richard Bartle. Having read this book, I feel like I am in a position to make informed design decisions. Hope this helps.
It's exponentially simpler to modify a MUD. At it's heart a MUD is a an MMORPG and is the first implementation of the idea of an MMORPG. It suffers from the same design problems. The challenges behind writing the network protocols required for multiple players to interact with each other are mind boggling even for the experienced programmer. If you don't have a degree in computer science or a vast amount of experience programming, you are not going to want to tackle these fundamental problems that have already been solved a million different times in a million different codebases. Mudconnect.com probably has the most resources and forums for you to get started.
I'm assuming you have no experience programming at all. There are so many resources out there, it's hard to get started. Lynda.com is paid site that offers some of the most useful tutorials you'll find anywhere. Youtube.com is also a good resource sometimes. The newest resources are http://www.khanacademy.org/cs and MIT also offers a lot of there available course work online. Just know if you are not an experienced programmer you will be embarking on a project that will requires hundreds of hours of work.
If you were to build something from scratch, it would be years of work.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.happygoatstudios.bt
Blowtorch for sure. Only problem I have ever had was that it will delete the game/server world information. I just keep them in a note pad just in case. But other clients do not even bother with allowing for more than one or two game worlds loaded at a time. At least with BT you get to use onscreen short cut keys and create other short cuts.
As far as the game you are looking for, do you have any more info. Could you only be a werewolf? Were vampires your only other real enemies or competition by other players? Was it admin/story or player driven?
A number of MUDs use werewolves as a playable race. But few as the only or very few choices. If you can narrow it down by theme and game version as in MUSH, cmud, etc., we can have a better way of narrowing it down.
If you're familiar with Sindome maybe start there. Sindome is a MOO, the discussion forum for that is MOO-talk, https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/MOO-talk . When you start a MOO usually you download something called a core, it's a starting place. The guys at MOO-talk would have good suggestions for what to download.
Another data point from the Evennia (Python) server, https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!searchin/evennia/memory/evennia/Y1XBbAr2POE/InSUMpSVImgJ:
> 100 active players bots in a world with 10 000 objects (all fully cached) uses 238MB of memory. Empirically, every 1000 objects use 14-17MB, this is also dependent on the complexity of the objects.
Blowtorch which is the best phone app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.happygoatstudios.bt
And
MUSHclient, a really good PC MUD client, my personal favorite.
http://www.gammon.com.au/mushclient/
Both already have these features implemented. They have hot keys predefined, but you can add more and change the presets.
The issue however, is not all games allow for these quick or short cut keys. They argue it is unfair to those who do not use them, even though it is by choice that they do not, not withstanding blind users. However blind users get other advantages, so in the end it's just the admins not wanting to go down a rabbit hole of what is allowed or isn't.
Which is a shame. Because I find the directional keys a heck of a lot more intuitive. I tend to stay away from games that won't allow for such ease of use. And if you are caught using such hot keys, you can be punished. So be sure to read the rules and ask if not clear.
Using such clients that have such features, but you refrain from using those illegal features, should be fine. But again read the rules and ask if need be.
I just did. Very awesome! I used to have an old forum for free games. Would give my thoughts and opinions on them.
If you like word games and creative games I can suggest Quest - Write Text Adventure Games.
http://textadventures.co.uk/quest
It is pretty snazzy with it's build engine. Mostly drop down boxes, with enough room to code. I was in the process of making several games before I went to other things.
And one game was almost complete, before I had a hiatus and when I came back an upgrade broke the code for roaming guards. It was an Interactive Fiction, but designed to feel like a MUD. Just single player. The code could be fixed so am sure. I just never bothered.
Also Interactive Story app allows you to make an IF game of sorts. Not the best thing to use, but fun and can be done. Almost bare bones in execution and confusing as well, but you can get a story out of it. I made the first chapter (never released) and had started on a second.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.netplaysoftware.interactivestory.app
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rudmud.rudc
Also there is a MUD client for Realms of Utopian Dreams, and only for that game. But it has some neat features like quick two keyboard layout, quick font change, etc.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.happygoatstudios.bt
Not sure how long that will be, but if you have a cell phone you can use Blowtorch. It is a free mobile MUD client. It is the best free one out there in my opinion. Has it's own virtual directional keys. You can create your own short cuts. Landscape mode does not take up "all" of the screen. It's no longer supported that I am aware of, but it was the best years ago and still out performs newer mud clients even today. In fact the only issue I have ever had was it will some times delete all your saved worlds. So it is best to have a back up on note pad just in case. Other than that it serves it's purpose well. Of course nothing will best a PC client however.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.happygoatstudios.bt
Blowtorch is still king, even if it has not been up dated in years or has even been abandoned. Allows for virtual directional buttons and created short keys. Allows for multiple game worlds to be saved. But I would keep a list in Notepad just case, as every so often it may delete them. Has a bunch of other bells and whistles I do not even use. But I have tried just about all free MUD clients and it is the best.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.rudmud.rudc
Is a MUD client for a specific game called Realm of Utopian Dreams. It works well enough. Has a few streamlined features like text size can be changed on the fly and options for different font styles. Keyboard options. It is built for a specific game in mind. But in saying the latter, you can not use it for any other game yet, or ever.
I'd recommend a Bluetooth keyboard. I got a Logitech that came with its own prop up for mobile devices.
I'm currently working on a text game (the alpha/game jam version can be found at myelin.space) that is mechanically influenced by games like Darkest Dungeon and Dark Souls, as well as MUDs, though with some twists and a different flavor. I haven't settled on a place to keep a dev log yet but there's an itch.io page for the game jam version.
Oh I know brother, many projects have came and gone. Cyra, Shattered Glory, a few others here and there. The Echoes client (Olmran.com) is just a viewer, so all it'll really let you do is just move around the game and experience it as if it's frozen in time. But the Darkness Rises client (being developed by Kroze and Derk) is going forward and has made a lot of progress. Daleth and Devolich (me) have put our support behind them (we're the ones who created the Echoes viewer) and are currently deeply involved in helping Darkness Rises succeed.
I get your skepticism, I totally do. But these are some of the most dedicated people you'll find when it comes to Darkness Falls. If we can't pull this off then I honestly think that it's never getting done.
If you have any contacts with the old players PLEASE contact them and see if they have any of their old logs, especially those of Good and Chaos (and Kaid, but it's a lower priority obviously). Daleth and I had tons of Evil logs so we've been able to reconstruct the majority of that realm. Sadly, neither of us played Good/Chaos so mostly our logs of the areas are just RvR invasions. We have quite a few of Kaid as well but could always use more. We could also use Evil logs too as we're missing some key areas (Silver Mountains, Glory Bea, Underground Temple, The Catacombs, New Haunted House).
Anyways brother, if you don't have Derk's twitch link it's here: https://www.twitch.tv/flowenbrainy
You can keep up with the progress and watch some of the development streams. It's coming along, slowly but surely. After all it's been a decade, so what's another year of development? >_<
Probably worth getting on their waiting list, they're trying to scale it out
http://textadventures.co.uk/quest
If you actually know how to code, you may be able to do better. But for the simple layman, Quest will do a lot of things with simple drop boxes and a lot of people there are willing to help with the coding aspect. There is both a downloadable version that is more robust and a browser one. I am not sure what they use exactly for coding, but you might be able to ask questions there and still receive help, even if not using their platform.
I myself have several in the works. But like reading and playing MUDs, my desire wanes. Still though you can set up shops that open and close by the time of day. Have the weather change. Have randomness in the game, etc.
Now for your main questions, I would of called mine simply a single player MUD. Not a true MUD, as it is not online. And not an IF, because how NPCs walk about, random encounters, etc. It is hard enough to get those not in the know, to understand what a MUD is, much less a SUD. But I would not be against it per say. May even use the term myself, if I ever get my games published. =P
I recall it was Materia Magica that basically hacked NVDA into MUSHClient and then went nuts making the MUD totally compatible with it. Also having NVDA installed at all is pretty useful too if you want to hear how your MUD will sound in real time, and then calibrate pauses and minimize purely visual characters.
I used to do something similar. I set up a Raspberry Pi with tintin on it. I would just shell into it when I was home and mud that way, but when I was out on my phone, I would mosh into it and play from the same client. This is really nice if logging is important to you, because you only have one log to deal with, its not split between devices.
You could try Linux on usb. One method is to make a persistent thumb drive and reboot into the Linux environment, or you could go this route http://www.linuxliveusb.com/ and install Mudlet on your virtual Linux machine.
Installing most programs is just a matter of copying some files, placing a desktop shortcut, and placing some config files. With Windows there are also registry keys. On most systems almost all executables will run off an external drive although they may not work.because of an inability to find shared libraries, config files, etc where they expect them to be.
Portable app has a more specific definition:
https://portableapps.com/about/what_is_a_portable_app.
(see the guidelines section)
Haven't played MUDs for years. Been trying a bunch of them all last week and just can't find one that "hooks" me, well, until I landed on Alter Aeon. It just gripped me from the very beginning and keeps giving. It's a shame none of the "universal" clients seem to have it listed, would have found it much faster!
Anyway, your linux client needed some extra work to get running, made a super basic video tutorial on how to install since it took me some effort to figure it out (I'm not a boss on linux).
But yeah, I recommend you guys add the following to your page under the linux client:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:linuxuprising/libpng12 sudo apt update sudo apt install libpng12-0
So people with newer versions of ubuntu distros won't have any issues installing it.
> I hate Java but I think everyone should learn Java. It's a language that shows you how to do object oriented programming wrong.
"Actually I made up the term "object-oriented", and I can tell you I did not have C++ in mind."
There aren't many good solutions for mudding in a terminal. tintin++ can do really everything you want, though, if you'd ever have a reason to be in one again.
Window splits, capturing output to direct to other splits, etc. All written in a syntax that looks like: http://tintin.sourceforge.net/scripts/window.php
This reminds of servers that have msdp installed on them. Check out the screenshots towards the bottom. http://tintin.sourceforge.net/msdp/ I play quite a few msdp enabled ones that don't have screenshots on there.
For MSDP if you go to its site (http://tintin.sourceforge.net/msdp/index.php) there's a list of servers (scroll down the page). I don't know how up to date it is though. Just looking at the list I see Sloth and Ivalice, both cool games.
I think Aardwolf uses GMCP?
Are any of the mud's user data coming from anything other than the Mud Server Status Protocol?
I guess it's possible, I just never even thought about it.
It does let you filter on the different types of MU*, also. Under browse you can select Server Type.
Your best bet is to look through the documentation of each client. TinTin++ and TF are both console clients but they both have a completely different way of doing things. You can easily find the documentation for TinTin++ online, but for TinyFugue I think you are going to have to download the 5.0 Beta 8 documentation from here.
Unfortunately it's a bit of a mess, as you might imagine. The mudstandards initiative was a great idea but didn't work out. MSDP has a solid sponsor at http://tintin.sourceforge.net/msdp/ . ATCP and GMCP come from the Iron Realms/Aardwolf camps and do not, AFAIK, have a good specification, I think most people base their client implementation on testing against those muds. Luckily it's been done several times already -- I think Mudlet supports one or both, Evennia supports some of it, KaVir has a snippet hosted at Mudbytes. so you can find examples to work from.
ngrok is a good alternative to port forwarding and sharing your IP. In the event that your isp uses carrier-grade nat, it also keeps you from having to pay extra for a static IP.
Pretty sure tcp tunnels require an account, but are usable with the free tier. People use it to host game servers all the time, as long as they're tcp based like Minecraft.
You would just run ngrok tcp <local server port>
and it gives you a new public address and port that other people can connect to. Connections all get magically tunnelled through. You do lose a bit of information at the server like the source address of the client (since it looks like the ngrok agent is making all the connections), but as long as you don't need to test things like IP banning, it should be fine.
> Like I am honestly not even sure what linux distro it was running on before...and what I should throw on there now. It's a modified ROM if that helps at all.
You can see the distro (usually) in the Linode panel once you click on your particular VPS. It should be in the table of disks, or, barring that, you can connect to your server via SSH and type uname -a. I'd recommend something like Debian for a beginner. Ubuntu is always nice, but it's mostly just Debian with extra packages.
Some packages you will probably need for compilation are make and GCC. Any other packages necessary will definitely manifest themselves when you try making and things start failing.
If on a Debian-based operating system (Ubuntu, others) use apt-get
> apt-get install make gcc
Will install the make package and GCC.
> apt-get update
Will retrieve a list of updates from repositories you have on your machine.
> apt-get upgrade
Will install those updates.
There are a few others, like apt-get dist-upgrade, but you should read the manual page on those if you need more assistance. For Redhat based distros (Centos, others), use YUM.
> yum install make gcc
> yum update
And finally, if you're on something like Gentoo or Arch, use pacman. If you're planning on advertising and attracting people to your server, you'll want to secure SSH as well, so people can't gain root access to the server through forced access attempts.
Some links:
Getting Started With Your Linode
For any more questions, possibly regarding how to start the MUD server itself, check out Google. Simply googling "MUD ROM server setup" yields sufficient results.
Edit: Formatting
First, rebuild your Linode using 64-bit Ubuntu 14.04 and then setup a free account with ServerPilot and follow the instructions to install ServerPilot on your Linode.
Once ServerPilot is installed, create a new app through the user dashboard, check the settings and disable the firewall provided by ServerPilot, and then login to your server using SSH.
At your shell type su and enter your root password to gain permissions to install packages.
Open a single port for mud access:
ufw allow port-number ufw disable ufw enable
Install build essentials by typing:
apt-get install build-essential
Then type exit to leave su.
SFTP your files to the new app directory (above /public) and then you should be good to go. Compile and start your mud.
You might ask yourself, why so complicated? ServerPilot builds a proper server that is secure and updated automatically so you don't have to worry about it. You can then setup specific environments for your mud to run out of and have all the benefits of web servers, databases, etc.
It looks like you need lua 5.1.4 and a library called json-c 0.9. The script expects them to be in the /home/mud/dwmud
directory.
You will need to compile both of those.
I started converting ROT over to SQL a few months back. I got a players saving/loading but that's as far as I got before life too back over. I was using SQLite3 http://www.sqlite.org/capi3ref.html and it was actually pretty easy to get up and running using their documentation.
I've got a copy of Ron Penton's MUD Game Programming floating around somewhere. It was WAY too technical for me when I first got it (it assumes you are already a wiz with C++), and now it just doesn't have a lot to offer me since I'm not trying to make an engine from scratch.
This is obviously very OT, and I hope I'm not out of line here, but I've been working on a text-based mobile RPG for the past two years, and we just released it today. I think it's something that one might enjoy if one enjoys text-based RPGs. Although it's not a MUD, it does share a few elements of it. It's completely free to try (and $4.99 to unlock the complete game). I'd love to know what people think about it!
Available on:
> Am I missing something in either format?
Nah, you just about summed it all up. You probably even missed a few valid criticisms. Well, you may have missed one thing; it's an active community for a gaming medium that has very few active communities left. I at least found value in it for a while.
Also, I just dug this one up too... https://discord.gg/DpR9YF
This is one that I actually stuck with because it is a bit less annoying and I really hate Slack. But it's still just a few people mumbling about text based networking games.
If OP was making a Unity3D platformer, they shouldn't give my suggestion a second glance. However when you're short of attractive options, the un-attractive suddenly has more value.
It's much better than telling OP just to google MUD Coding Tutorial and hope that there are still a few easy to follow ones out there. Or give them a Book Suggestion that might be a bit inaccessible because it's years out of print and rarely sub-C-note cost. (Not a bad book by the way.)
Glancing through the other comments it's not looking like much better advice has been given...
> Maybe I'm just old(-fashioned) ...
I got my first internet (shell only) account in 1991 to play a MUD based at Texas A&M. I understand old-fashioned, and I certainly understand not liking that group's way of setting up their environment, but any congregation of people who have better advice than this subreddit is better than bad advice... I hope.
What client are you using? I find doing HellMOO on Mukluk pretty bearable. Doesn't help with typing but everything else is neat and slick.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.crap.mukluk&hl=en
Thanks for awnsering with such detail. Its hard for me to disagree with or add much here because of how much you went into it. Found the book in question here. Which I'll definitely have to read after I finish this book on game design.
I wonder if it would be better to coin a different more SEO friendly term for this genre. As you might imagine, search mud in google doesn't bring up too many games haha.
Playing Muds on the Internet by Rawn Shah (1995-05-08) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01F822QTM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_JdoZAbKJDYT6P
If you can find this book somewhere for not outrageous prices ($20 would be good), it has some pretty epic stories and recollections of play from the author.
Ah ok. There's an older book that uses C++ but it might have some good stuff in it
Oh nice, I'd love to have a look at that one, too. That used price isn't terrible, either. At least not compared to this one. If anyone owns a copy of that, I'd love to hear thoughts on it, as well.
If you search "MUD client" on the app store, you can find a few clients that'll work with most MUDs. A good one is Blowtorch, which I use to play Armageddon.
You can give termux a shot ( https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.termux&hl=en )
You can install the standard gnu build tools and all with it and compile almost whatever cli application you want the most part
it works great with a usb keyboard, I haven't tried to build tintin with it yet though but it should be possible.. I usually just ssh from termux to a machine with tintin installed