Monster

It's not a game, it's a lifestyle.

This is a WIP port of University at Buffalo's circa-1990 VMS game Monster to a modern MUD engine (Evennia).

The running game server is up at http://www.monstermud.com.

What's implemented

• Character
  • Account login; each account has a character
  • XP/level
  • Per-level stat increases
  • Classes
  • Freeze/delays, queued commands
  • Move speed
  • Recover health and mana over time
  • Various global player messages w/ highlighting
    • E.g., "(Puzzeledfrog once again roams the land.)" "(Mummy has returned to sleep.)" "Puzzeledfrog has been slain by Giant Spider's Elf Slayer.""
  • Get 50 starting gold at creation and upon rebirth in Void
• Map/Rooms
  • Imported all original Tai Tastigon rooms, room descriptions, and exits
  • Exit descriptions
  • Exit messages: success, failure, "go in", "come out"
  • Exit types
    • passworded/alias-required, hidden, object required/forbidden/hidden-without
  • Exit effects
    • set or reset class, change xp, change health, change mana, change gold, alarmed
  • Trapdoors
  • Special room kinds: no combat, no hide, hard to hide, object destroy, monster generator, monster lair, heal
  • Special room magnitudes
  • Hidden/searchable exits
  • MagicObj / secondary description
  • LOOK-able room details
• Objects
  • Imported all original objects (weapons, armor, etc)
  • Simple gold system
  • Wear/equipment slots
  • Drop-destroy
  • Hidden/searchable
  • Cursed (no drop)
• Combat
  • Attack command
  • Damage-dependent attack messages for attacker, target, and observer (e.g., "Tutt creams your poor little body!!")
  • Rest w/ exit
  • Weapon base damage / random damage
  • Character health and max health
  • Death at 0 health => go to the Void
  • Armor
  • XP for kills (based on level/xp comparison)
  • Weapon use percent
  • Claws
  • Surprise attack
  • Freeze
  • Weapon speed
  • Poison
  • Punch
• Command set
  • . for last action
  • who that shows everyone's room location
  • sheet
  • brief
  • buy / sell
  • equip / unequip
  • name
  • hide / reveal / search, and "unidentified voice" for hidesay
  • shout (easy replacement for thundering voice)
  • express (replaces Evennia pose)
  • make command
  • show (details) command
  • use command
  • Make some built-in Evennia commands queueable/blocking (look, say, whisper, get, drop, etc)
  • Edit self-description (via Evennia setdesc)
  • Remove any Evennia commands we don't want
  • Target-needing commands picking the first match, to better deal with name dupes
• Commerce
  • Simple merchant in-room object that works with buy/sell
  • Weapon, armor, and spellbook merchants spawned at sensible rooms around the realm
• Spells
  • Spell and SpellEffect schema
  • Character and class mana
  • Spellbooks w/ spells
  • learn command (list spells only)
  • cast command
    • At Who? target prompt
  • Spell effects: hurt, group hurt, heal, sleep (freeze), distance hurt, cure/poison
  • Direction/Target prompt for distance spells
  • Spell deflect and armor
• Randoms (aka mobs)
  • Mob class with prototypes from OG Monster randoms.json data
  • Simple mob AI: find target, attack, die, patrol/hunt
  • Mobs spawned by MONSTER_GENERATOR and MONSTER_LAIR rooms
  • Lair mobs stay in lair
  • drop gold and object

What's not implemented yet

• Map/Rooms
  • Move silent between rooms
  • Exit types
    • guardian
  • Exit effects
    • guardian, health less
  • Windows / window_descs (e.g., Improbable Structure <=> Forbidden Library)
  • Use NamePrint (Preposition for room name printing) / PrintParticle [sic]
  • Object drop destination
• Objects
  • Object damage
  • Enter amount of gold to drop
• Combat
  • Drop objects when hit
  • Missiles and throw command
  • Bombs and lob command
• Commands
  • block command
  • steal / pickpocket commands
  • Atmosphere
  • ctrl-c or some way to interrupt command queue
  • Command help text
• Spells
  • Spell effects: push, strength/weak, speed/slow, invisible, see invisible, detect magic, find person, locate
• Randoms (aka mobs)
  • search for hidden character
  • sayings
  • pursuit chance / pursuit behavior
  • smarter lair behavior

What probably won't get implemented (yet)

• Map/Rooms
  • Room special/special effect
    • afaict used only to overload commands in tutorial rooms?
  • Starting game tutorial rooms
    • Nice to have
  • Room owners / customizations
    • (unclear if we need to bother replicating old monster custroom.pas, given Evennia's existing toolset
  • Special room kinds: market (we have merchant objects instead), random group, random level, treasure drop (no rooms seem to use these SpcRoom values)
• Spells
  • Spell effects: announce (we have shout command instead of thundering voice), command (better implemented as a new effect in code?)
• Randoms (aka mobs)
  • cast spells and other combat behaviors