Here's what the game looks like using the web client:
A screenshot of 93 Realms
While we preserved most of the world base from SimpleMUD and didn't significantly alter the mechanics, I was allowed to modify and add rooms, enemies, items and also introduce specific room-based scripts.
One of the challenges I faced was that I could only modify the world database, not the engine. This meant no additional persistent variables or per-player variables, item-based or global scripts. Therefore, I had to get creative to write interesting puzzles and places.
93 Realms has been a useful testing ground for multiplayer game experimentations. As the game is part of a larger website that heavily embraces the concept of internet trolling, it feels fitting for players to occasionally feel fooled, either by bugs, poor design choices, or sometimes intentionally.
The game has a small community of players who have created a wiki about it, and even a DnD campaign inspired by it (which has in turn inspired new elements for the game).
As of June 1, 2023, the game comprises approximately 1450 rooms, 150 enemies, 50 stores, 350 items, and 50 achievements.
I mostly use this web-based editor to add content to the game:
The web-based editor used for adding content to 93 Realms
I'll make a list of some of the oddities that can be found in the game:
Teleporter: this machine randomly teleports players to any location in the game, including hidden places that are normally inaccessible.
Crown: a unique item that bestows the owner with certain advantages, such as a private storage room.
Happy hour: a special period during each day where players earn double XP.
Effecue: a character who provides answers to various game-related questions.
Wishing well: the well allows players to throw coins in it and make wishes. It's also possible to go under the well and collect the coins.
Bandit bar: a location where you can order many kinds of drinks.
Ember shaman: paying the Ember Shaman results in a random enemy spawning somewhere in the game.
Maman Brigitte: each payment to Maman Brigitte causes the most powerful player to lose something.
Cheating: we decided that cheating was ok to a certain degree as long as it doesn't completely break the game. However, some of the most obvious exploits have been fixed.
Flea markets: players can buy and sell items at several locations. Sometimes, they can acquire entirely random items.
The hole: players can drop items into the hole in exchange for XP. Also a beast lives inside.
Hell and heaven: accessing heaven probably feels like a punishment for the most advanced players who likely cheated their way to the top. There is, however, an official way out of both these places.
Ocean and desert: these areas allow players to move indefinitely in a non-Euclidean space with occasional random encounters such as monsters, merchants, larger locations, and other unique situations.
Sea: players can access the sea with a "sea boat" but the only place that sells one is on a platform in the middle of the sea.
The procession puzzle: this puzzle is based on the titles of popular songs.
Feathers: enable players to fast-travel between locations. Currently, they only work in specific spots, but the intention is to make them work from anywhere.
References: some MUDs use generic descriptions for places that spans across many game rooms, but I tried my best to write unique descriptions each step of the way. These descriptions contain quotes from novels, songs, movies, poetry, other games, etc. Players are impressively good at spotting them.
Upside-down villa: is simply upside-down.
Bizarro Town: there is an Oulipian S+7 recreation of the starting area, which players have chosen to refer to as "Bizarro Town" for some reason.
Cryptocurrencies: I'm trying to make them follow actual stock prices. Since they must be manually updated, this is done infrequently.
Solis Ortu: an intricate puzzle that took players three years to collaboratively solve. Interestingly they didn't solve it the way I expected them to and some details about it still remain undiscovered.
Interlinked stories: appearing in the late game, two puzzles may seem unrelated, but clues from one are necessary to solve the other. This portion may not have been solved by anyone yet.
Generated places: a few places and game elements have been generated by generative language models, which were trained on the current game content.
Shovel: a shovel can be used to dig at certain spots. I hope more of these spots will be added. To avoid infinite looting loops, the shovel may occasionally break.
Achievements: they require players to complete specific actions at specific places. Some of these requirements were very unlikely to happen but happened anyway.
Rat kingdom: a region accessible only to lower-level players.
Player contributions: players have created all sorts of additional work related to the game such as scripts, bots, maps, helpers, etc.
Library: a collection of rooms designed by a player which includes a computer that lets users play a nested game within the game.
The disc: it requires players to rotate to progress.
Lascar Bob: usually says "yo".
Flowers: there are a few flowers here and there in the game and it is even possible to gerbelize some of them.
Guilds: two guilds exist in the game (about perception and trees), and each player can choose to join one. Due to a bug, they can actually join both, and the community has role-played the creation of their own unrelated guilds anyway.
Player requests: I'm doing my best to incorporate requests, sometimes coming from Discord, but I also occasionally review the game log (just a text file, yet one of the largest files on my hard drive) and read requests from the wishing well, Effecue, track the most common unique unresolved actions etc. I sometimes play the "trickster genie" and somehow twist the requests.
Spelling mistakes: the game responds in specific ways to some of the most common player spelling errors.
Dreams: a small part of the game takes place within a dream.
Orb quest: ultimately, this quest swiftly transports the player around the world while their equipment gets scattered along the way.
