A long time ago in a college far, far away, my best friend said, “Hey, why don’t you try out this newfangled online Star Wars game?” (Star Wars 1 MUSH, for those keeping track.) “I think you’ll like it.”
Boy, was he right. MUSHing was the perfect mash-up of gaming and creative writing, my two favorite hobbies. I was hooked.
Fast-forward twenty years. There are still MUSHes out there, but seemingly fewer games and players than ever before. (Nobody keeps official records, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a MUSH player who’d disagree.) Search for “MUSH” on Google, and you have to scroll through a page of cornmeal and sled dog results before you find anything about MUSH games.
Some may say it’s natural - that text-based games can’t possibly compete in a world of high-definition graphics and virtual reality. I don’t believe that. It’s like saying a book can never compete with a 3D movie.
MUSHing is in decline, but massively-multiplayer role-playing games and self-publishing are more popular than ever. There’s a massive untapped market of potential players out there, if only we can reach them.
But how do you kickstart a dying hobby?
As I worked with people trying to set up games using my MUSH Softcode Package, I came to realize that MUSHing is way harder than it should be. Too many supremely-creative people are stymied by the technical challenges of getting a game up and running. Too many would-be players are turned off because of arcane user interfaces and lackluster tutorials.
In a world of one-click installs and usability, it shouldn’t be this way. MUSHing is its own worst enemy.
We can do better.
I wanted to build a MUSH server that could be installed, configured and run by someone with no prior coding experience. I also wanted it to be more approachable to someone who’d never played MUSHes before.
My dream is to remove the barriers from MUSHing, both for people trying to create their own virtual worlds, and for those wanting to play in them.
AresMUSH isn’t there yet; it’s still in its early stages. But with a modern server, approachable tutorials and a strong community, I hope to enable more people to build more games and draw in more players. That is what AresMUSH is all about: lighting a spark for a new generation of MUSHers.