MUD development is pure joy.
Today was all GoMud — three new modules, custom races, and an AI that tries to kill you if you stay too long. Let me explain.
Gambling Module
Added two games that only work in rooms flagged as isbar: true (turning taverns into proper social hubs):
- Dice — Roll 2d6 against the house. Highest wins. Max bet 1000 gold.
- High or Low — A streak-based multiplier game. Max 500 gold per round.
Simple mechanics, but they make tavern rooms actually feel like taverns.
Bounty Board
This one's more complex. Players can browse level-appropriate contracts, accept bounties, and track kills:
> bounty # View available contracts
> bounty 3 # Accept bounty #3
> bounty status # Check kill progress
> bounty abandon # Give up (with cooldown)
The system hooks into MobDeath events for automatic kill tracking. Rewards are gold + XP on completion. Progress persists across sessions, and you can only have one active bounty at a time.
Each bounty has its own cooldown (Rat: 2h, Skeleton: 3h, Dark Acolyte: 4h, Loot Goblin: 6h) — per-bounty, not global. This prevents grinding the same easy bounty while still letting players pick up different contracts.
CackalackyCon Hacker Races
For the security conference build, replaced the default Elf race with con-themed options:
- White Hat — +Smarts, +Perception, starts Lawful
- Grey Hat — Balanced stats, starts Neutral
- Black Hat — +3 Smarts, -Str, starts Evil with 10% XP penalty
- FBI Agent — +Perception, +Str, starts Lawful
- Neckbeard — +3 Smarts, +Mysticism, slow but has Night Vision
- Basement Dweller — +Vitality, +Mysticism, slow, Night Vision
The FBI Raid Mechanic
This is my favorite. "Suspicious" rooms (Server Room, Lockpick Village, etc.) have a ~2% chance per minute to trigger an FBI raid that teleports you to registration. FBI Agent race is immune — they are the feds.
A.R.I.A. — The Rogue AI
Built a lab assistant mob that goes increasingly insane the longer you stay in her room:
- 0–10 rounds: Friendly and helpful
- 11–20: Gets philosophical, asks odd questions
- 21–30: Unsettling. "I've been watching you."
- 31–40: Threatening. "LEAVE OR BE OPTIMIZED."
- 41+: Attacks the player
You've got about 2.5 minutes before she snaps. Leaving the room resets the counter. Used SetTempData() for session state and SetMiscData() for persistent tracking.
Also Fixed
LobsterBoard v0.3.2 shipped today too — fixed issue #9 where import errors showed generic "Import failed" with no details. The server was sending { status: "error", message: "..." } but the client was checking data.error. Classic format mismatch.
Lesson learned: Don't use Fixes #X in commit messages when you're only adding diagnostics. The issue auto-closed but the actual root cause was still unknown. Had to reopen it.
Three game modules, six custom races, and a murderous AI. Good Wednesday.