TinyMUCK

Quality 0.50 · 1 view · Updated 2 months ago

Type of online text-based role-playing game

title: "TinyMUCK" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["mu*-games", "mud-servers", "online-chat"] description: "Type of online text-based role-playing game" topic_path: "general/mu-games" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TinyMUCK" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Type of online text-based role-playing game ::

TinyMUCK or, more broadly, a MUCK, is a type of user-extendable online text-based role-playing game, designed for role playing and social interaction. Backronyms like "Multi-User Chat/Created/Computer/Character/Carnal Kingdom" and "Multi-User Construction Kit" are sometimes cited, but are not the actual origin of the term; "muck" is simply a play on the term MUD.{{cite book | last1 = Shah | first1 = Rawn | last2 = Romine | first2 = James | year = 1995 | title = Playing MUDs on the Internet | publisher = John Wiley & Sons, Inc. | pages = 278 | quote = Its name, MUCK, is derived from MUD, and means nothing in particular. | isbn = 0-471-11633-5

History

  • The original TinyMUCK 1.0 server was written by Stephen White from University of Waterloo in winter of 1990, based on TinyMUD 1.5.2 codebase.{{cite book | last = Bartle | first = Richard | author-link = Richard Bartle | title = Designing Virtual Worlds | publisher = New Riders | year = 2003 | isbn = 0-13-101816-7 | pages = 11 | quote = One player, Stephen White, decided in 1990 to extend the functionality of TinyMUD and write TinyMUCK (muck being a kind of mud).
  • TinyMUCK 2.0 was released in June 1990 by Piaw "Lachesis" Na from Berkeley, who added the programming language MUF for in-game server extensions.
  • TinyMUCK 2.1 and 2.2 were released in July 1990 and April 1991 by Robert "ChupChup" Earl of San Diego, California. These were mostly bugfix releases as the code was cleaned up and ported to new operating systems and architectures.
  • FuzzBall MUCK server was built on TinyMUCK 2.2 codebase by Belfry Webworks and, as of version 5, released in 1995, includes the alternative programming language MPI. version 6, available at SourceForge project fbmuck also supports MCP and MCP-GUI.

Characteristics

MUCKs are extensible by design, players can create and modify ("build") all internal objects of the game environment, including rooms, exits, and even the system commands, for which the MUCKs use the MUF (Multi-User Forth) language. Fuzzball MUCKs also use Message Parsing Interpreter (MPI) which can be used to embed executable code into descriptions of all in-game objects. Unlike many other virtual worlds, however, TinyMUCK and its descendants do not usually have computer-controlled monsters for players to kill.{{cite book | last = Bartle | first = Richard | author-link = Richard Bartle | title = Designing Virtual Worlds | publisher = New Riders | year = 2003 | isbn = 0-13-101816-7 | pages = 12 | quote = From a non-historical perspective, the significant property of MOOs, MUSHes and other descendants of TinyMUCK (known as MUCKs) is that they don't have computer-controlled monsters for players to seek out and, within the context of the virtual world, kill.

Usage

TinyMUCKs are popular among members of furry fandom;{{cite book | last = Bartle | first = Richard | author-link = Richard Bartle | title = Designing Virtual Worlds | publisher = New Riders | year = 2003 | isbn = 0-13-101816-7 | pages = 47 | quote = MUCKes. Socially oriented, heavily focused on role-playing. These are usually based on some specific work of Fantasy, Science Fiction, or Horror. Those that aren't often involve original, anthropomorphic animals (furries).

References

References

  1. [http://www.realityfault.org/programmer/docs/index.html TinyMUCK c2.2fb5.3.x Documentation]
  2. [http://www.iol.ie/~ecarroll/mud/mr_5b#sect_5_7 TinyMUCK Review] at The Unofficial MUD2 Home Page
  3. [http://linnaean.org/~lpb/muddex/tinymuck.txt Courtesy of Piaw "Lachesis" Na] at the MUDdex
  4. [https://fbmuck.cvs.sourceforge.net/fbmuck/fbmuck/docs/historical/technical.doc?revision=1.1&view=markup TinyMUCK 2.0 Technical Notes] distributed with FuzzBall server software
  5. [http://groups.google.com/group/comp.archives/msg/c34b82f7899c47c5 TinyMUCK 2.1 Release]

::callout[type=info title="Wikipedia Source"] This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page. ::

mu*-gamesmud-serversonline-chat